Lisa, whats a sellout?

slipss

Ok so I was talking to a friend of mine there last weekend and I told him I bought the new Kasabian album and that I thought it was good but I prefered thier first one. So he turns around and says that although he liked a few songs from the first album that he didn't really like Kasabian because they were complete sellouts.

When I asked why he thought that he said it was because they allowed so many of the songs from the first album to be used in advertisements and for films and tv programs ect. Now he's right of course, in so far as I think I've herad maybe 6 of there songs from the album used in various adds. But I argued that that didn't make them sellouts, it was just a good way of getting thier songs heard by a large audience. I explained that in my opinion a sellout is someone that acts a certain way, says certain things, or writes/changes their music at the behest of advertisers or PR people or their record label in exchange for financial rewards. Eminem wearing nothing but Nike and dueting with Elton John that time being the examples I gave. But he insisted the mere fact that they allow thier music to be used to advertise things makes them sellouts.

So I thought I'd see what everyone here thought. What do you consider to be selling out?

sceptre

Dying your hair blonde to do a Wrigley's Spearmint advert. Then again The Police gave us five rather good studio albums after and none before.

I've never understood (and am likely to never understand) someone turning against a particular singer or group just because they have some success and make some money pimping their songs in adverts. Either you like the music itself or you don't. Deciding that you don't like them any more when they're making the same kind of music just because some shoe or hairspray company throw cash at them sounds to me like plain elitist snobbery from your mate. I listen to quite a few acts that haven't seen much commercial success and because I classify them as good I'd rather like someone to give them a wheelbarrow full of cash to sell a few pairs of trousers.

Mossy Monk

sellouts? who the **** came up with that term. a band is good or its not

in the dictionary it should say
sellout, a term used by idiots

walrusgumble

alot of musicians see their career as a vocation rather than a job. but at the end of the day, they have to make some money, as not every band rakes in the dough. imagine what it would be like watching a film without a few bands allowing their tunes be used in the film would young people have copt on to iggy pops lust for life without trainspotting?(any way
take aint selling out as its sharing of "art"

for those who like ash, how many would have known them if heineken used their tune uncle pat. if you were starting a new band (and bear in mind how hard it seems to be for an irish rock/alternative band to break britain,would you say no to a company who thinks your tune is great and will give you a few quid and lost of exposre, to use your tune in their next ad?

davyjose

There's no distinct set of rules for what a sell-out is, but there definitely is such thing. If you allow yourself to be pimped and raped, then I believe you are in danger of being regarded, by some (because it's all opinion-based) as being a sell-out. For instance I wouldn't regard the Beatles as sell-outs, despite the fact that they are the most lucrative band of all time. Why? Well, they quit the stage at the height of their popularity, in order to experiment with their music (and also because it wasn't true to what they believed in), then they quit for good at the top of their game.
Then you have a band such as U2, who, also being quite lucrative, have made every embarrassing old-man at a disco move you can think of to keep on top. Bono's incessant ramblings, duetting with Green-day, and my favourite, allowing Mary J Blige to perform perhaps their most touching song, and ruin it forever.

JC 2K3

If you let your music be used on adverts you're a sellout. Simple as that, no excuses.

Letting your music be used in films is not selling out as you're contributing to art.

You're also a sellout if you make music purely to make money, you change your music to make it sell, you do whatever a record label tells you to do etc.

Whether a band are sellouts or not does not affect whether I like their music or not, however.

davyjose

JC 2K3 wrote:

If you let your music be used on adverts you're a sellout. Simple as that, no excuses.

Letting your music be used in films is not selling out as you're contributing to art.

If you kid yourself that letting your Music be played on the next American Pie film is 'contributing to art' then you are the biggest sellout of all!!!

Mossy Monk

JC 2K3 wrote:

If you let your music be used on adverts you're a sellout. Simple as that, no excuses.

Letting your music be used in films is not selling out as you're contributing to art.

You're also a sellout if you make music purely to make money, you change your music to make it sell, you do whatever a record label tells you to do etc.

Whether a band are sellouts or not does not affect whether I like their music or not, however.

what a load of bull****

JC 2K3

davyjose wrote:

If you kid yourself that letting your Music be played on the next American Pie film is 'contributing to art' then you are the biggest sellout of all!!!

Well it depends what the film is really I guess

Pigman II

Selling out is making any income whatsoever from a musical pursuit.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

grumpytrousers

sceptre wrote:

Dying your hair blonde to do a Wrigley's Spearmint advert. Then again The Police gave us five rather good studio albums after and none before.

I've never understood (and am likely to never understand) someone turning against a particular singer or group just because they have some success and make some money pimping their songs in adverts. Either you like the music itself or you don't. Deciding that you don't like them any more when they're making the same kind of music just because some shoe or hairspray company throw cash at them sounds to me like plain elitist snobbery from your mate. I listen to quite a few acts that haven't seen much commercial success and because I classify them as good I'd rather like someone to give them a wheelbarrow full of cash to sell a few pairs of trousers.

Heh - i remember back in early 1990's and 'Should I stay or Should I go' was used by Levis to flog, er, 'a few pairs of trousers'.

I'm not sure which of 'em, it was either Strummer or Jones was asked what they made of this. Were The Clash, after having remained rather principled during their recording career finally starting to cash-in/sell-out. Bear in mind that 'Guns of Brixon' had recently been used in Dub Be Good 2 Me as well...

the rather amusing reply (paraphrased here) from whichever of 'em it was, said it all...'look, it's all fine and dandy to have your principles but they won't forever put bread on the table....and besides, that [the Levis] ad was kind of cool...mind you, if Kraft Vitalite think they can use 'Train in Vain' they can f**k off right now'

BaZmO*

I think the general definition of a sellout is any artist/band that pimps out their music to be used in ads and the like. But I suppose a more specific definition would be any artist/band that lets there music be pimped out to company who's ideals are directly in contradiction to their own, like Morrissey letting McDonalds use one of his songs for an ad campaign.

padi89

JC 2K3 wrote:

If you let your music be used on adverts you're a sellout. Simple as that, no excuses.

Dont think so mate, i wouldnt classify aphex twin as a sellout

JC 2K3

padi89 wrote:

Dont think so mate, i wouldnt classify aphex twin as a sellout

His music's been used in adverts. By my standards that's selling out. Now Aphex Twin is one of my favourite artists around and his music is amazing, but as I said before, whether a band/artist is a sellout or not isn't going to affect my judgement on thier music.

With the unfortunate overt commerciality of not only the music industry but the world in general, allowing music to be played in an advertisement isn't exactly deplorable, but I'd still personally be against it and call it selling out.

BaZmO*

JC 2K3 wrote:

.....but I'd still personally be against it......

Why?

Mossy Monk

Moby got fantastic advertising by letting companies use his music for free. is that selling out seeing as he made no money from it?

John

My problem with music being used in ads is not the artist selling out in terms of getting money for letting someone use their song but forever on that song is now linked with a product I probably don't even like.

Doctor J

Mossy Monk wrote:

Moby got fantastic advertising by letting companies use his music for free. is that selling out seeing as he made no money from it?

I'm not sure that's entirely true, as a lot of the music from the Play album was sampled and owned therefore by someone else. He got paid, big time, for that album which was notorious for all the tracks on it being used in ads. Some say the overexposure actually damaged his career tbh.

While selling your music in any sense, even on a CD is a commercial pursuit, it's the aspect of your song representing a product or brand which irks me. Did the music mean so little to the artist that they're happy that it represents toilet duck or a tampon to everyone else? Was the artist thinking of eating that brand of burger when they wrote the music and that's where the emotion they passed off on the recording was inspired? I appreciate everyone is entitled to make a living any way they can but personally, I'm with John on this one, I don't like music to remind me of commercial opportunities awaiting me in the supermarket. Music good - adverts bad.

Sinfonia

Some (probably wrong in parts but still great) quotes:

Stan Marsh: Anyone who makes money in the music industry is a sellout

Lars Ulrich (in German accent): People say vee sold out. Ya vee sold out - vee sold out every arena in America since 1989


Excellent.



Here's a grey area - say you're a guitar player, and the guitar you play, your favourite guitar is, for example, a Gibson Les Paul.
Then Gibson ask you, as a famous guitar player or whatever, to appear in an advertisement or allow them to use one of your songs on an ad, endorse it in some way anyway.
Now are you selling out, because you choose to endorse a product without which you feel perhaps your music career may not be what it is, because you believe the Les Paul has made such a difference to your playing. And you believe that other guitarists should use this guitar also?
What if you weren't paid for it?
What if you were paid for it, but paid a rough estimate of the money that endorsing this product may cost you (opportunity cost) through time spent away from the recording studio, for example, or people not buying your records anymore because they think you're a sellout etc etc.

Take another product that isn't directly related to your career.
Say you endorse something random, say a brand of beer, just because you love it, and you'd feel willing to endorse it because of the joy it has brought you...
(although this could affect your career positively too, a few pints before a gig always makes you play better;) )

In other words, where is the line drawn?

Just to say one more thing, and i'll draw in the Morrissey example above,
Let's say Morrissey falls on hard times, financially, can't sing, can't make records, nobody new is buy the old records, he's lost his house, basically let's say he's going to die unless he get's a bit of money in the next week.
Now let's say his ONLY possible opportunity to make money is to endorse McDonald's, or eat a burger on tv or something.
Extreme example, yes, and maybe Morrissey would die before doing that, but if he did do it, could you really think, "what a ****in sellout, he should have died instead", when he really only did what was absolutely neccessary to survive?


So, given all this, I'd have to think that a sellout should be more or less defined as a person, we'll say a musician, who hypocritically goes against any principles that they have expressed in the past, in order to make extra money on top of their income that they don't need.

If a popular recording artist came on the scene and immediately announced "I love money, and I will do anything for it" and have always said that, and does advertisements for every product under the sun, i'd have to say that this person is not really a sellout, because although they may be betraying principles that you feel they should have, they are not betraying their own principles.

funky penguin

I wish I could sellout.

JC 2K3

BaZmO* wrote:

Why?

Music is art, not a product or a tool companies can use to sell their products. Companies exploit us enough anyway without being able to use art which people love to promote their products.

SumGuy wrote:

Here's a grey area - say you're a guitar player, and the guitar you play, your favourite guitar is, for example, a Gibson Les Paul.
Then Gibson ask you, as a famous guitar player or whatever, to appear in an advertisement or allow them to use one of your songs on an ad, endorse it in some way anyway.
Now are you selling out, because you choose to endorse a product without which you feel perhaps your music career may not be what it is, because you believe the Les Paul has made such a difference to your playing. And you believe that other guitarists should use this guitar also?
What if you weren't paid for it?
What if you were paid for it, but paid a rough estimate of the money that endorsing this product may cost you (opportunity cost) through time spent away from the recording studio, for example, or people not buying your records anymore because they think you're a sellout etc etc.

Were I a famous guitar player I'd still be simply one man with an opinion. Just becasue I'm famous shouldn't give me a more valid one than anyone else. I'd write an anonymous review of Gibson guitars on the net if I felt strongly about them being so great.

SumGuy wrote:

Just to say one more thing, and i'll draw in the Morrissey example above,
Let's say Morrissey falls on hard times, financially, can't sing, can't make records, nobody new is buy the old records, he's lost his house, basically let's say he's going to die unless he get's a bit of money in the next week.
Now let's say his ONLY possible opportunity to make money is to endorse McDonald's, or eat a burger on tv or something.
Extreme example, yes, and maybe Morrissey would die before doing that, but if he did do it, could you really think, "what a ****in sellout, he should have died instead", when he really only did what was absolutely neccessary to survive?

Why wouldn't he just get a regular job like the rest of us?

sceptre

JC 2K3 wrote:

Music is art, not a product or a tool companies can use to sell their products.

All music or just music you consider to be good?

davyjose

JC 2K3 wrote:

Well it depends what the film is really I guess

Why? Why does it depend? That's soo contradictory - so if a film is 'cool' it's ok? If any artist gives rights to have their song played on a soundtrack, they are compromising their own artistic rights - full stop.
And the movie industry is in every way as money-hungry, and even more cynical than the advertising industry (at least the advertising industry doesn't pretend to be something it's not - art).

Miguel_Sanchez

Kasabian are still ****, sellouts or not.

I think it's funny though that some people get up on their high horses about bands selling out (and I include myself in this) and go on abou how they'd never do that.

It's all very well and good saying that when you have nothing that anybody wants to buy off you. Try resisting a quarter of a million euro when your career is in the doldrums. I'd say it's not ****ing easy at all.

Caliden

I detest people who say 'I prefer their older stuff'
sound like ****ing dave fanning and I HATE dave fanning

grumpytrousers

Just wondering then, (and it's slightly OT obv) what's the attitude of the 'it's all art man' brigade to John Peel taking the Big Business shilling when he did voice overs for washing powder a few years ago.

I realise he's not a musician, but jesus, somebody with JPs indie credentials? Did he sell out too?

JC 2K3

sceptre wrote:

All music or just music you consider to be good?

All music.

davyjose wrote:

Why? Why does it depend? That's soo contradictory - so if a film is 'cool' it's ok? If any artist gives rights to have their song played on a soundtrack, they are compromising their own artistic rights - full stop.
And the movie industry is in every way as money-hungry, and even more cynical than the advertising industry (at least the advertising industry doesn't pretend to be something it's not - art).

Not every film falls into this money-hungry movie industry bracket. It's nothing to do with a film being "cool"....

crybaby

Letting your music be used in films is not selling out as you're contributing to art.

the large large majority of ads that would use music by big name bands could be considered art

but aswell 99.9% of bands whose music are licensed to advertising do not own their music as such and therefore I would doubt they have much say in the decision but also I wouldnt care otherwise, if someone makes a great record I hope they get as rich as possible from it

JC 2K3

crybaby wrote:

the large large majority of ads that would use music by big name bands could be considered art

They're selling products, however. That's the whole basis for them

crybaby wrote:

but aswell 99.9% of bands whose music are licensed to advertising do not own their music as such and therefore I would doubt they have much say in the decision

I hate sounding like, I dunno, a square on a moral crusade or something, but signing away your music and your integrity to a major label is, again, selling out

crybaby wrote:

if someone makes a great record I hope they get as rich as possible from it

But people have different music tastes. There are many successful artists I wish would just go bankrupt and fúck off, but that's just my view. In any case, I'd hope that someone who makes a record I like would live a happy life and be remembered as an influence for many other bands in the future. money != happiness btw, and money in the music industry is not earned due to talent.

BaZmO*

JC 2K3 wrote:

They're selling products, however. That's the whole basis for them

Isn't a Cd a product there to be sold to a comsumer?