Can a band ever sell out. NO! the reason that they cannot is because like darwins theory of evolution, we evolve as songwriters , just as humans did from apes. The change in sound is simply down to what the band decide, and therefore judgement should be left out. You cannot produce a string of entirely similar albums, sometimes those ballads suddenly appear after the first two, but thats only because WE GROW UP! Willis
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I believe that Neil Young said it best ...
I believe that Neil Young said it best (I think). If there are no more records of yours in a shop - that is called selling out.
i understand about the band moving in ...
i understand about the band moving in different direction, however your assertation that bands cannot sell out dosent stand up to mucn scrutinty. even a cursory glance at music history should tell you that bands have chosen to follow their masters instructions and release what the label wants. Im sure Christianity and Noizy can add to this list, I'll start with Aerosmith, neil Young [ who was actually sued by Dave Geffen for being "unrepresentive"] and Marvin Gaye whose "whats going on" album surely ranks amongst the best albums of all-time yet took 18 months to release in edited form because owner Berry Gordy didnt like its " social/political content". Musical talent and music busineess, often mutually exclusive.
feel..under...alot..of.....pressure.... ...
feel..under...alot..of.....pressure.... right now
um...i don't know
metallica?
rowan atkinson...
rowan atkinson
Wilco (dumped by warners for their ...
Wilco (dumped by warners for their excellent album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)
Ryan Adams (recorded love is hell, nice record, record company hated it so he recorded the not so great "rock'n'roll"in two days, the record company loved it)
its not all bad....The Flaming Lips got to release Zaireka...a CD split on to 4 disks that must be played simultaneously
it sucks that bands have to sing about ...
it sucks that bands have to sing about what their major labels want them to sing about,. What happened to the old days of freedom and rock and roll respect. SO then why do all of these amazing new bands eventually sign to big deal companies. for the money?? willis
<b>Re: Selling Out... No Such ...
Re: Selling Out... No Such Thing!!
Hmmm....im in a pickle of a doodle over this, although i personally regard the term
'selling out' as "any group or band having there material played on Top 40 media (TV, Radio etc)
what if they never intended it to ...
what if they never intended it to be??
do you just refuse, and mope in a dark corner ??
i wouldnt have thought youd be a ...
i wouldnt have thought youd be a watcher of the top 40 sam.
exactly, so you cant sell out then, its ...
exactly, so you cant sell out then, its not necessarily the bands own intention to get into the charts is it?
Getting your music into the top 40 is ...
Getting your music into the top 40 is not selling out. Changing your musical style, whether it's your own decision or the decision of the record company, in order to get the music into the top 40 is selling out. Selling out certainly does exist.
// Changing your musical style, whether ...
// Changing your musical style, whether it's your own decision or the decision of the record company, in order to get the music into the top 40 is selling out.
Sugar Ray are a perfect example of this. They used to be louder, more guitarry, more rappy, then they released their second album "Floorer" which was full of raaarrrrrr songs with names like "American Pig", but there was also one sweet tender song called "Fly" ("I just wanna fly....").
That one song was a huge hit and they realised they wouldn't get anymore successful if they put out another album like their old ones. So they toned it down and switched to a sweeter pop sound and have enjoyed much success with their subsequent albums.
so youre telling me if Slayer started ...
so youre telling me if Slayer started playing music like Linkin Park it wouldnt be selling out?
i know what you mean, but there is a line to be drawn
//so youre telling me if Slayer started ...
//so youre telling me if Slayer started playing music like Linkin Park
that will be the day when the tempurature in hell reaches 29F/ -1c
lucky the water in hell is so salty.......
lucky the water in hell is so salty....
The term 'sellout' says more about ...
The term 'sellout' says more about whoever's saying it than what they're describing. From a fans perspective, what I get from it is a great sense of ressentment, dissapointment and treachery- like you've used to identify a lot with the artist, and you've observed a change in them that removes their god-like status in your mind...
On the other hand, a lot of young musicians crave god-like status. So the term 'sell-out' says means different things to them- like your dreams/ambitions are being called shallow or profit focussed... so it's only natural to say there's 'no such thing' when it's your ambition that's being attacked. What, I can't aspire to better things? Fuck you! You don't know me, etc etc...
So yeah, there is such a thing, because the feelings the word generates are real and quite typical.
To sum up, I have learnt how to do this... "¿¿¿???"
LMAO
sadly a lot of bands are labeled as ...
sadly a lot of bands are labeled as sell outs by their peers, just for getting a lucky break.
Jealousy can be a big factor behind the term 'sell out'.
I don't think you can be a sell out if you are still doing what you do for the same reasons you had when you started out, if you started out for the love of playing and you're still playing for the love of it even if you have made a gazillion dollars, how can you have sold out? you can only sell out by compromising your ideals and integrity.
All I'm saying is that more often than ...
All I'm saying is that more often than not, 'selling-out' is an opinion, as opposed to a fact. And opinions are usually supported brilliantly by the words: 'because it's what I think.' So you know, it means as much as you want it to mean.
how do you make the symbols go upside ...
how do you make the symbols go upside down?
I used my sisters emac- it's shift + ...
I used my sisters emac- it's shift + alt + ?
i get it now, but as long as the ...
i get it now, but as long as the ideals are there, and the passion, no matter how different the sound is you can never sell out in th eeyes of the public. so y are they still being labelled?? is it just another contradiction??
ideals- integrity- sellout &c &c- all ...
ideals- integrity- sellout &c &c- all these have nothing to do with the golden rule- they are therefore inconsequential concepts in music
bands that 'sellout' vor follow ...
bands that 'sellout' vor follow trends tend to make sucky music because the music itself is not the prime focus - target demographics are.
any reason is good enough- long as the ...
any reason is good enough- long as the reason is yours- there is no ethical moral or artistic hierarchy in all the possible motivitants- asshole
some people are just good song writters ...
some people are just good song writters and will write a good song in almost any genre
//some people are just ...
//some people are just good....writters
Yeah, like John Ritter. RIP.
You can't sell out if you don't buy ...
You can't sell out if you don't buy in... if it's always been your intention of reaching the top 40 then so be it... just because a band is unknown, unsigned or unsponsored dosen't instantly give them 'credibility'. I'm pretty sure a band like Zed or the feelers didn't start off doing Gang of Four covers then decide to start writing catchy pop songs once they got a major label deal... it was always their intention to chart, even if that meant changing their image/asthetic to match markets they want to break into...
selling out to me means abandoning some sort of fundamental ideal that a band, artist or even genre is based around for significant personal monetary gain. I say significant because musicians need to pay rent and eat. mall punk and mall emo bands for example are sellouts before they even enter the practice room for the first time... they are copying a genre intended by its founders to be non formulaic, non exclusive, raw , clever and foward thinking through a cliched image and studied formulaic sound, in the hope of pushing units and retiring young to a gated community somewhere in a rich suburb in LA.
Another example would be if a group like Fugazi had of wanted an endorsement deal by nike... or Iggy Pop working with Sum 41 for no real reason... It seems to me quite a few artists have been hammered in the past by their fans for changes in their sound due to some sort of concious artistic choice/taste change within the band (usually they've 'gone mellow' or something like that, when in fact keeping the same sound would have been just screwing their fans, and themselves around...
this is the most opinionated I've been on this site by far... the term selling out is used more than george dubya's mother at his local KKK afterfunction, and it annoys me. conversely, bands who have so obviously chosen a particular image/sound as some type of career move dupe alot of impressionable people into believing what they do is somehow the real deal, without encouraging them to scratch beneath the surface and find out more about their chosen genre, and the bands that helped pioneer it...
Read the gossip section of the website below... they're a website/record label based in california. its a good laugh, hell most of its actually true...
[ http://www.buddyhead.com ]
//...or Iggy Pop working with Sum 41 ...
//...or Iggy Pop working with Sum 41 for no real reason...
What would be a valid reason? I don't understand why merely recording/performing with a random band would constitute selling out.
[ external link ]
doing Gang of Covers could be ...
doing Gang of Covers could be considered pretty cyncically hip at the mo, thats a different sort of selling out,...oh no cans of worms being popped,
Actually the Feelers did start out, and ...
Actually the Feelers did start out, and for quite some years, as a covers band in Ch-Ch doing rage against the machine covers, before deciding to write catchy, radio friendly songs.
joe- you're totally right that a band ...
joe- you're totally right that a band dosen't have to have a real reason to work with someone else. i was real tired and shitty when I wrote this... that pairing just seemed real cynical to me... like Iggy trying to boost his sales and sum 41 attempting to boost their credibility...
doin gang of 4 covers would be real ...
doin gang of 4 covers would be real cynical right now... pity, theyre a great band... oh well 5 years from now they'll be obscure again. they were just the band that popped into my head when I was writing...
the feelers doin RATM covers dosen't nessecarily constitute them selling out does it? RATm are one of those few bands that seem to transcend their political views and have a huge fan base anyway... its pretty easy to be a fan of them and not nesecarily buy into their politics, though it could be argued that would be missing half the point of the band....
> the feelers doin RATM covers dosen't ...
> the feelers doin RATM covers dosen't nessecarily constitute them selling out does it?
no, but RATM doing feelers covers would.
// no, but RATM doing feelers covers ...
// no, but RATM doing feelers covers would.
dude!
I'd pay incredibly large sums of money ...
I'd pay incredibly large sums of money to witness that....
sting....
sting.
any band that is signed or charging at ...
any band that is signed or charging at the door has essentially already sold out ... any band that gets money for making music is selling out ... it'd take a lot of fucking integrity to play for free forever, wouldn't it?
i've always thought a good example of the importance of integrity was stone temple pilots ... their first few singles sounded so much like pearl jam to me, i thought, yeah, another fucking grunge band, the magic of hindsight is that i can look back and think to myself "well pearl jam never really got any better but stone temple pilots made some pretty cool tunes later"
basically the moral is ... i didn't think they had integrity to begin with, turns out i like them better now than the band i thought they were copying back then, just because a band has a similar sound doesn't mean that it's anything more than coincidence, or more likely the influence of their contemporaries and peers - but playing music you like and making money isn't anything to be ashamed of ... playing music you don't like to make money would be
so, "integrity" is a word that gets bandied round a lot ... it's all part of the image and all part of the stupid parts of the industry ... in the old days you had integrity if you had leather pants and had a sock down your undies, or if you were off your head on acid ... by complaining about the bandwagon bands you're falling into the trap of wankery because you're more obsessed with integrity than what's really important - the music - which in a contemporary world is more likely than not going to have a contemporary sound
dunedin bands sound like they come from dunedin, but i'm not gonna call the 3d's a sellout band just because the straitjacket fits already did the two-guitarists-a-bass-and-a-drum-playing-guitar-driven-rock-from-dunedin thing, if you like the music - fucking wicked! if not, well find something else to like, jesus, i mean who really gives a shit? get over it!
integrity's just a mythical popularity contest
//any band that is signed or charging ...
//any band that is signed or charging at the door has essentially already sold out ... any band that gets money for making music is selling out//
yes that's right relate one concept to another.... it's all just so relative isn't it? Next you'l be saying there are no 'good' or 'bad' bands - and thinking so makes you a wanker. Like it or not when musicians start making music specifically for demographic the creative process suffers. Individuality (not originality, the 3DS sound nothing like sjf) makes a band sound, well, like 'them'.
It's annoying when people invent any reason they can to justify why a band needn't sound like anything in particluar.
//when musicians start making music ...
//when musicians start making music specifically for demographic the creative process suffers.
Just to the side of the issue, but anyway... would you say 'demographics' are music's biggest creative enemy?
I would've thought it was finding the time to focus on your craft. Or finding the time to centre yourself. Or saving up for your first multitracker to write your arrangements. Or taking enough time away from other music to start with a truly blank page. Or listening to/studying enough different music and arrangements to keep your creative brain pumping. Or communicating my ideas properly with the other band mates... All I can say is that's where my own creative process needs the most attention.
It's probably just me (I hope not), but as a kiwi the whole concept of music tainted by demographics seems thousands of miles away where (apparently) the music industry seems to manufacture hits- not here in our reality... My biggest creative obstacle is finding alone-time! Not worrying about what 'the people' want. Maybe it will all be different once that big fat record contract plummeting from the sky finally lands on my doorstep...
Us the fan pays our 20 or 30 dollars ...
Us the fan pays our 20 or 30 dollars for a record that may bring us endless ours of pleasure, far beyond what 20 or 30 bucks would typically bring, what does the band owe us? because the people in the band made a buck or two off us they suddenly have to spend the rest of there life as a band or person continuing to do what they did for a brief moment in time?
and why do some of us fans get so angry when a once somewhat exclusive band we liked goes mainstream, were we going to buy them a house and maybe the car that they dreamed of owning since childhood? I'm guessing no.