Artists 'SELLING OUT' - can we discuss?

my feelings mirror musicdoc......its tough out there....if an obscure band like the sopwith camel, or nick drake's estate can make some well deserved dough...thats good.....it is a sign of the times though, when rock anthems are rewritten in history as jingles..."you say you want a revolution? plop plop, fizz fizz....."

It used to bug me also. As an aging hippie, some of the music from the 60s and early 70s was made by artists who claimed a higher purpose for their art. Sounds pretentious now and besides Neil Young I can't think of any others who still follow that ideal.
It no longer bothers me much as those times are gone.

Led Zeppelin seloing Caddies. I don't think it can go much further.

What next - Talking Heads schelping Wal-Mart?

this thread has brought back a memory from when i was stationed in japan from ~'82-85. there was a brief japanese television commercial i remember seeing with either dustin hoffman or deniro schlepping whiskey or something in which he spoke three words--"i'm a boy!" well, you can bet he walked away with an enormous check. btw that very thing (hollywood doing ridiculous-yet high-paid japanese TV commercials) was nicely parodied by bill murray in "lost in translation." i never really thought about that commercial until now. funny how little buried memories can pop up like that.

I put 'selling out' in quotes for a reason. For me, selling out is when an artist who has made a living purporting certain values, who has created a fan base who share those values, suddenly for nothing more than another paycheck goes against those values and betrays their fans.


There are plenty of artists who I believe will never sell-out.

1. Tom Waits

2. Neil Young

OK, that's not plenty but it's a start.