I remember some 20-30 years ago you would sometimes hear about an artist (usually musician, or a group thereof) being sellouts, or having sold out. This of course in a pejorative way, as this was the most heinous of crimes an artist could ever commit against their fan base.
However, I can’t recall having heard this term for at least a couple of decades. Has the term been replaced with something else? Is it more accepted? Or is it simply so hard to make it nowadays that the concept of “selling out” is basically just synonymous with making a living?
Are there any modern examples of this and I simply missed the online chatter about it?
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True, it’s not really a thing any more. Two reasons I’d say:
- If you want to make a nice living by being distributed by a label “selling out” is mandatory
- Anti-establishment musicians have a cheap distribution method in the form of internet. If they don’t care about making money, they just offer it for download directly to their fans
That being said, the term is still used in the open source software community quite a lot.
Because artists now serve a younger generation who are far more authoritarian than Generation X. Selling out meant giving up the punk ideals that made one cool, and those ideals aren’t what’s cool any more.
If your idols are youtubers and tiktokkers, their business model is selling merch.
So opinions had to change.
You haven’t been listening to enough Reel Big Fish lately?
I don’t think I’ve heard anything newer than 20 years by them. Ska isn’t my primary taste in music, but they had a few bangers way back when. And yes, this includes “sell out”.
From what little I know about them, that tracks. They just happen to have a song that was pretty in line with what was (became) popular at the time and made it big. Everything else by them is A LOT more punkish.
Loved hearing that story. Margaret Killjoy is a treasure, and as it turns out so is Chumbawamba.
She sure is! Have you read the Sapling Cage? I just finished it a week ago. Incredible.
I haven’t read that yet, but I read the two Danielle Cain novellas in a day each.
I keep meaning to check those out. 10/10 recommend the Sapling Cage though. Her ‘How to Survive the Dino Wars’ series has been helping to keep me sane the last few months.
Because for a lot of people who aspire to be artists don’t want to hear about how its about the money and not the art
To quote Tool:
I’ve got some bad advice for you, little buddy
Before you point your finger, you should know that I’m the man
If I’m the fuckin’ man, then you’re the fuckin’ man as well
So you can point that fuckin’ finger up your assAll you know about me is what I’ve sold ya, dumb fuck
I sold out long before you’d ever heard my name
I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit
And then you bought oneAll you read and wear or see and hear on TV
Is a product begging for your fat-ass, dirty dollar
Shut up and buy, buy, buy my new record
And buy, buy, buy, send more moneyCan’t sell out when everything is a sellout.
“I didn’t sell out son, I bought in“
‘Only posers die!’
Does Snoop Dogg performing for the Trump crypto ball or whatever the shit that was count as selling out?
Absolutely yes it does.
When He didnt Show up on Kendricks Pop out I got curios. When He showed up at the olympics I knew something was afoot.
Now everything is clear.
Oh God, I did not hear about that one. God dammit.
Its the only way for artists to survive now. It was always dicey before, but cost of living and meager returns on streaming mean that artists need to produce music with broad appeal.
When I was younger I’d frown upon artists making a pop record. Now that I know most working bands often barely scrape by and often get screwed over by labels and promoters, etc., I can’t really fault them for it. And usually they’ll keep making what they want on the side anyway.
McDonalds started charging $15 for a Quarter Pounder Value meal, and everyone realized in this post 9/11 America, you need to make as much money as possible just to be able to survive, which is diametrically opposed to the 60’s and 70’s still post war boom(ers) playacting socialist/communist Hippies, pointing and laughing when an artist they liked took a big check, when they’re own rent was either subsidized by their parents, or cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year. Shit was different. Shit changed.
Adding on to this, I’ll say the term is likely used less now because, for the reasons you mentioned, the common person actually aspires to get famous for the specific purpose of selling out and making a big payday to escape the hellscape of everyday wage-slavery.
But then there are also “sell outs” that are totally situational. For example, a content creator (who I won’t name because that’s not the point) who’s an OG that’s been around for over 20 years now, constantly putting out content, never had sponsors until a few years ago. Initially I was annoyed at suddenly seeing “Sponsored by NordVPN!” and “Sponsored by RAID Shadow Legends!” in every video, but then I learned he’d had a child with his wife. And his child had a bad birth defect that required a lot of expensive surgeries.
After that, I was like, “Get that paycheck, my guy.” It’s hard out there.
I didn’t know I was living in post 9/11 America.
well, then you were mistaken, and being purposefully obtuse for some reason. there’s everything before 9/11, and then there’s everything after, and you can draw a clear line to differentiate the two time periods, in every country around the world
which is diametrically opposed to the 60’s and 70’s still post war boom(ers) …, when their own rent was either … cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year
I think this is it. The cost of living was lower, so Boomers could get by without selling out. The attitude continued into the 1990s and early 2000s until it became harder and harder to lead a comfortable life on a modest paycheque.
They don’t even start out credible anymore.
It’s because nothing is punk anymore. Everything has been commodified, especially radical art.
