Bands Selling Out...

soong · #1 05-14-2008, 12:32 AM

they sold out?

why or why not?

Have you ever seen yourself as a victim of a predatory marketing machine that co-opted your identity, style and ideas and branded them? Do you still listen to your favourite bands after they sell out or do you look for something that has not yet been co-opted by the cool hunters and made mainstream?

Alternatively, do you celebrate when your favourite alternative bands make it big, proving that other people have good taste?
Does the music still have the same meaning for you? Justify

That is my College assessment question. Could people help in terms of helping me with bands that have sold out and changed their music for money or the record label?
Or why dont people listen to their bands once they've sold out?

thanks all. Your thoughts 100% appreciated.

BassMonstrum · #2 05-14-2008, 02:39 AM

I remember being a kid in Norway discovering Korn in 1996, my and a couple of friends listened to them all the time and nobody else knew of them. Two years later when they released "Follow the Leader" and struck it big time we kinda turned on them. It's something about "discovering" a band and when everyone else is listening to them you kinda feel like you've lost something that once was yours and yours alone. I haven't bought a Korn album since "Issues" (1999) and eventhough I saw them live last year I hardly listen to Korn anymore.

On another note, I started listening to Muse in 2001 during their "Origin of Symmetry"-period. After their latest album came out two years ago their popularity exploded. Still, their one of my favourite bands to this day.

pklima · #3 05-14-2008, 03:10 AM

This is satirical but does a good job of describing how listening to obscure bands serves as a way of gaining social status:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpres...0-indie-music/

It's hard to definitively prove that anyone changed their style for money or fame, though. Maybe your tastes changed as you aged and your personality mellowed out. Perhaps you always wanted to be poppy but it took you time to develop the skills or get the budget to pull it off. Or perhaps once you've become a big fish in a small pond you might want to move on to a bigger pond just for the challenge - that one may sound odd but I'm definitely suffering from that temptation right now.

jomahu · #4 05-14-2008, 04:47 AM

i'm not necessarily in agreement with the term 'selling out,' but you should check out the band Heart in the 80's. they pretty much admit that they cashed in and checked out musically during that time.

CincyBassMan · #5 05-14-2008, 06:27 AM

ZZTop

baalroo · #6 05-14-2008, 07:00 AM

Are you looking at the concept from the perspective of a listener or a musician?

Pilgrim · #7 05-14-2008, 09:25 AM

The Monkees. Created for TV, and although they learned to play together (they were all musicians), they were a complete fiction when they began. There were other bands created in the same fashion, but this is probably the best known.

Aside from that, it's called "pursuing commercial success".

SteveC · #8 05-14-2008, 09:33 AM

I listen to music I like. If a band I like goes in a different direction, so be it. I'll listen to what I like of them and ignore what I don't. I guess I don't get all emotionally tied up and pissed off if a band I like changes direction (sells out) and I don't like what they do any more. Whatever. Get over it and move on to something else. Most music/bands/artists these days are as disposable as the media on which they're recorded anyway.

mike_v_s · #9 05-14-2008, 09:55 AM

I think what we're really talking about is compromising for a goal, right? In small doses it's considered admirable and considerate, in large doses, "selling out". The line is wide and blurry. I think I speak for everyone whose ever been in a band when I say that we've all compromised (sold out) to a point. Yuo simply can't put a band together and write music without people bending their ideas from what they originally wanted when they wrote the first riff in their bedroom.

This goes for all of your small-niche bands, too. Sure, they haven't "sold out" for commercial success as it is loosely defined on these boards, but they've had to sell out just to get where they are. By the time a band reaches your ears, no matter how successful, compromises have already been made. Why draw an arbitray line and get pissy about it?

Mike

Stone Age · #10 05-14-2008, 09:57 AM

This thread begs for a mention of the song "Hooker with a Penis" from Tool. Cool song about bands selling out.

mike_v_s · #11 05-14-2008, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stone Age

This thread begs for a mention of the song "Hooker with a Penis" from Tool. Cool song about bands selling out.

Good point.

Mike

jomahu · #12 05-14-2008, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by baalroo

Are you looking at the concept from the perspective of a listener or a musician?

this bears repeating, since the two are quite different and carry different consequences.

and then i guess another category would be 'critics.'

you know, that genre of 'quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand' folks.

(no offence to any professional critics).

Joey3313 · #13 05-14-2008, 10:45 AM

Do I still listen to a band after the sell out? Not usually.

By my definition, a band sells out when they change musical style in order to sell more records (a step towards generic). The most recent example I can think of is Against Me! Complete 180 in musical direction, and since I liked the old stuff, I'm feeling left out while they are now selling more albums than any other point in their career. Now I hear "Thrash Unreal" and vomit. Even if they never went to a major label, and made another acoustic album instead of New Wave, it still would have been the biggest selling album of their career.

Is it worth trading the fans that got you to the point you are for a legion of people that will drop you for the next big thing? Loyalty works both ways.

pklima · #14 05-14-2008, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joey3313

Is it worth trading the fans that got you to the point you are for a legion of people that will drop you for the next big thing?

Y'know, I could easily argue that the willingness to "sell out" and offend and alienate your old fans (including many old friends) is a sign of true moral courage and artistic conviction. Few people are willing to take risks with their money or income but far fewer are willing to risk the loss of friendships, respect and social status.

()smoke() · #15 05-14-2008, 11:26 AM

personally, i can't think of any bands i've liked selling out...sure, some become popular, but when that happens, i'm happy for them

i don't always keep listening to a certain band, but it's not due to selling out, rather just my cyclical taste

more often, some of the best bands i've ever heard break up just before i think they're about to blow up

The Golden Boy · #16 05-14-2008, 11:44 AM

Youthful naivety...

I swore I'd never sell out and be a fat old guy playing in a wedding band wearing a white tuxedo.

Pilgrim · #17 05-14-2008, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joey3313

By my definition, a band sells out when they change musical style in order to sell more records (a step towards generic).

That brings to mind the practically prehistorical event when Bob Dylan performed with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic.

All the die-hard purists screamed and rent their garments, saying Dylan had sold out. But he hadn't. He was just playing what he wanted to play.

sarcastro83 · #18 05-14-2008, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joey3313

Do I still listen to a band after the sell out? Not usually.

By my definition, a band sells out when they change musical style in order to sell more records (a step towards generic). The most recent example I can think of is Against Me! Complete 180 in musical direction, and since I liked the old stuff, I'm feeling left out while they are now selling more albums than any other point in their career. Now I hear "Thrash Unreal" and vomit. Even if they never went to a major label, and made another acoustic album instead of New Wave, it still would have been the biggest selling album of their career.

Is it worth trading the fans that got you to the point you are for a legion of people that will drop you for the next big thing? Loyalty works both ways.

Granted loyalty may work both ways, but ultimately, isn't it up to the artist to remain loyal to the sound they want to be creating? Also, wouldn't more mainstream success for the band mean more means and resources for doing something special for the die-hards later on down the road? Every bit of press I've read from the band's perspective, it seems that the second after the band opted to try to find success on a larger scale the fans viciously turned on them. Why begrudge a bunch of dudes for trying to make bank by doing what they love?

fishtx · #19 05-14-2008, 01:29 PM

A band that imediately comes to mind that completely flipped their style for commerical success was "Journey". Prior to Steve Perry joining, they were kind of considered a prog/jam band...lots of instrumental stuff...their management made them hire Perry and move more commercially...and frankly, it was the right decision IMO...

Joey3313 · #20 05-14-2008, 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

That brings to mind the practically prehistorical event when Bob Dylan performed with an electric guitar instead of an acoustic.

All the die-hard purists screamed and rent their garments, saying Dylan had sold out. But he hadn't. He was just playing what he wanted to play.

Was his change to sell more records or to express himself differently?