I have a number of pet peeves. One of them is the quickness and unfairness with which fans call musical artists sellouts. I think people are way too quick to label artists with this word without really thinking about it, or the use being fair.
I thinking my dislike of this stemmed from the hypocrisy of fans sometimes. Fans complain about how their favorite bands never get recognition, opportunities, or radio play. But then sometimes once that happens, suddenly the fans turn on the artists and call them sellouts. That seems weird, right? You got what you want, but know you hate them.
Let's set some parameters. Obviously, you have to have some standards before you can be called sellouts. No one is ever going to call Justin Beiber a sellout. He had nothing to sellout to begin with; he started out as commercial crap. Really, sellouts are artists that had some artistic credit, whatever and then gave it up for commercial success. I see it as an artist made music from their soul, whether alone or with a band or group, and then decided to make crap that is a dime-a-dozen, something anyone can release and is made just to cash in on music trends. Given this idea in mind, I've got some realities to explain to people that hopefully will curb their use of the term sellout. Otherwise, the word loses it's power. The word should be reserved for those who really deserve it, and should retain the power it has as an insult to one's art.
People often get mad that artists sellout because their music is used in commercials (and movies too? Idk about this or not). I have no issues w/ music being in movies, even big commercial ones. If a film or TV maker can appreciate how awesome a song is, even from a non-mainstream artist, then more power to them. However, I think the real issue people have is w/ music in commercials. If your song is used to hawk cars, or laundry detergent, or some other item, suddenly people bust out the sellout word. Egad!! 1st of all, that's kind of common now. Maybe you should cut someone a break when they do this, maybe depending on the product. 2nd, there is the pesky thing called copyrights. Put simply, an artist my own the rights to their song, like the notes and lyrics, but they can make a track recording and someone else, say a record company or whatever, can own the rights to that particular track recording. Idk how or from whom the commercial making people get songs, but it's possible that they buy the rights from the track owner, regardless of what the artist would do. So before you call an artist a sellout b/c their song is in a pretentious commercial, maybe think to learn who actually profited from the rights. Hmm, something to think on.
Another thing people may not think about: artists get older. You may blast an artist you loved as a sellout b/c their new music is milder, and maybe that gets them more mainstream attention. You may claim it's b/c they sold out. However, it may just be that your favorite artist just mellowed with old again. It happens to a lot of artists. Think about it. Many artists I listen to start from very emotional places. Some artists write music about young love, which can feel full of turmoil and deep, gut wrenching emotions. Some artists make music about their life issues, like addictions, criminal trouble, growing up in bad neighborhoods, mental/emotional illnesses. These can be huge issues that make for great music, and are a great way for these artists to make beauty out of badness. But often what happens is whatever influenced them to write gets better, or isn't there anymore. They get recognition and help that comes from getting their art out, and while that improves their lives, it also could affect their music. Also, a people tend to mellow w/ age, love becomes less tumultuous and changes w/ age, and that can mellow music. For example, it's hard for an artist that made music from a place of anger at 19 to continue that same way as a happily married person w/ kids at 27. It's been said to me once by a friend of a band we like that the music went downhill when the singer got sober. I whole-heartedly support sobriety, but in truth changes in life affect art. So, before you judge your favorite artist for their change, maybe invest some time in learning about their life changes. You may just better appreciate them.
Your favorite artist getting more opportunities does not make them a sellout. One of the perks of becoming successful as a musician is that you get more opportunities to work w/ other artists or do other things that can be cool and not available to all artists. And often this can lead to interesting collaborations that perhaps produces music that is different than what has come before. Or maybe the artist pops up in films or TV, or gets to play for other well-known people. Things like this doesn't make your artists a sellout. As a devoted fan, you should be excited for your artist, that they get these changes. Granted, there some opportunities that are sellout worthy, especially if motivated by purely financial gain. But if some other famous artist in maybe another genre wants to collaborate, that could be a cool experience, and should be seen as good.
So, I hope that maybe people should give their favorite artists more credit. Honestly, I think that use of sellout sometimes comes from a vulnerable place. People become really attached to their favorite musical artists. Music is such a beautiful, personal, soul-reaching wonderful thing that people feel connections with artists despite never meeting them or talking to them. And it can worry fans if their artist changes too much, or gives in to commercialism w/o integrity. Sometimes it's almost as if what your favorite artist does reflects on you. It's like guilt by association, and selling out can make a fan feel betrayed.
Now, given the above discussion, I do think there are people who deserve being called sellouts. I personally have one example that I use personally to judge selloutdom against. If you can't guess from the title, to me the epitome of a sellout is Gwen Stefani. I was a huge, HUGE fan of Tragic Kingdom. That album was so good. And while I was not really into the next album, I respected it; they went in a respectable direction. I also liked the band's back story, how Gwen took over singing b/c, if I remember correctly, her brother was the singer but something happened. It was very sweet. But then there were some issues w/ her over shadowing the band, and while it looked for a little while that she was working on correcting that, next thing you know the band is making weird music that is totally different, and seems to be steered by whatever Gwen was doing outside the band. And then she's doing solo music, which is my opinion is terrible. It was catchy and many people into mainstream music loved it, but it's torture for me to listen to. It almost literally hurts me. It was just that music that gets made b/c it's trendy, and empty. Maybe I am like other people in other situations and I don't understand the whole story, but from my perspective it looks like a lead singer went solo to monopolize on a fad sound with music that has no substances. I don't believe that being popular in the mainstream is mutually exclusive of having substance; many popular artists to have substance, which usually goes to great skill or sometimes just great timing. But there are obviously artists that mimic what's popular w/o really having heart in it, or have others right generic songs for them, and it's sad. And honestly, as a listener, I think I can tell the difference.
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