stephaniewazhere wrote:The Nimrods wrote:If you do what you like not because of the money you're not a sellout.If you do what you don't like just to make money then you're a sellout.
I know that! There are many people who are called sell outs in the industry, just because they upgraded their music.
I think the sellout thing comes with business decisions overrule musical or creative decisions, assuming of course musical and creative decisions were previously the driving force. In pop music, that's never been the case.
Pop is designed for target audiences from the ground up. Generic sentiments are preferable to specific ones so that the widest number of people can relate to them. Certain breakout stylistic shifts, originally adapted from underground influences, are utilised for a contemporary feel. But above all else, pop music relies on marketable gimmicks and hooks, those little things that make one song that much more recognisable. A strong melody, a funky rhythm, a strange word in the lyrics, a weird sound effect... Whatever it takes to be "that song with the..."
So you can accuse Metallica of selling out, but not, say, Britney Spears, because she was always a marketable product first and a recording artist second. You can say that Metallica betrayed their core principles, their core sound, their credibility and their integrity in search of big mainstream bucks, music videos, big hit singles etc. But then again, maybe that's just the music they wanted to make. Personally I think Death Magnetic is just as much of a cynical exploitation as any of their other albums of the past two decades, because they're relying on nostalgia to fill in the gaps, slavishly retreading ground that the hardcore fans think they want, which seems just as bad creatively as trying to appease the mass markets with melodic singles.
What was I talking about? Oh yeah... Pop artists only sell out once, the moment that they start their careers.
Also, Tool:
Edited by user 22 January 2010 01:51:38(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified