Someone please enlighten me, selling out means reaching commercial success or what?
A lot of people is calling artists like AFI, Nelly Furtado and Avenged Sevenfold sell-outs and the only thing in common is that they all reached commercial success, so yeah I'm confused.
selling out is what people say about bands who initially have a small following or indie success and then try to reach out to a mainstream audience. It's a term generaaly used by people who feel like they were there at the beginning and are being betrayed by the band's desire for success. it's stupid. its like wishing that your friends don't do well in life
just so they stick around and hang out with you.
as far as the bands you mentioned. Nelly furtado is pop music so she couldn't really sell out much from that starting point. avneged sevenfold is a band I WOULD consider a sell out if they had ever had any following before whichh i dont think they did. theyre more like just a crappy hair metal band playing twenty years too late.
AFI didnt sell out. they just got successful after many years of work.
no idea...for some its dying your hair blond, changing your music to hip hop...blahblah.... =X
Think its when the artist change their style to fit a general audience and reach commercial success.
Example like you mentioned, Nelly Furtado...she changed to hip hop and look how big she is now.
For me its not sell out, some artists just like to experiment and she is probably one of them.
Even though i like nelly album she sold out. I had her first album the ways she puts her cd out was amazing could not get enough of it. Now i am not saying her new cd is bad but it become a little repetitve for me after a while sure some hip hop beats are great and all on occasion but she has the potential to do much better in my opinion she sold out
no idea...for some its dying your hair blond, changing your music to hip hop...blahblah.... =X
Think its when the artist change their style to fit a general audience and reach commercial success.
Example like you mentioned, Nelly Furtado...she changed to hip hop and look how big she is now.
For me its not sell out, some artists just like to experiment and she is probably one of them.
Selling out is a term used when an artist changes musical directions only to achieve more commercial success. It is highly subjective because no one really knows what the artist's intentions are.
Unfortunately a lot of nice rock bands change their sounds to get into a big label.
In the pop world (I'll be killed here, but I have to say) Nelly Furtado is a sell-out.
That isn't really true; they change because doing the same **** every time is boring. I believe keeping your music exactly the same is a way of selling out, because you know it's a formula that works to sell records and whatnot. [Nickelback, Three Days Grace, etc.]
Mastodon and Lamb of God didn't change their sound to jump onto a major-label. The difference is, their sound isn't accessible.
^just what I was about to say before reading your post. Artists have to change so when Nelly changed from indie-pop to hip-hop that wasn't selling out, that was a growth in her career. All artists want to be successful so changing will only help their career succeed. People were saying that P!nk would be a sellout if she released "Long Way 2 Happy" but in a way quoting LLJungleFever, everyone likes that song and they think if she released it, it would do really good and her album will finally blow up and everyone will be saying oh she's a sellout but LW2H is just another song off the album.
Anyways I think selling out can only be focused on rock bands or underground artists not artists who have had success. Nelly is not a good example seeing she has had top 10 hits before.
I think you can generalize the definition even more and define selling out as any form of self-compromise (artistic or otherwise) that goes against your inherent values, favoring some form of commercial or monetary gain. Like Kworb said, it’s difficult to label an artist as a “sellout” because, by definition, it depends on their motivation--something that only they themselves are privy to. All commercial artists are peddling product (hell, Jewel said it best, they are product), so whatever statements they issue or interviews they give regarding the matter should be taken with a grain of salt. At best, we can only speculate.
An artist signed to a record label has already sold out, though--they’re being paid for something that should intrinsically reward them.
Julieta Venegas would be the best example. Everyone was saying she started the pop thing to gain success. Because she used to have an underground and original style that wasnt a hit everywhere.
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