SHUT THE FUCK UP
Selling Out
07-20-04
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I hear it from so many people: “Dude…. they suck balls now…. they totally sold out [coughing out bong smoke].” That’s right! His former favorite band has “sold out” so now he cannot ever buy their music or even speak of them in an even slightly approving light ever again. What I really want to ask of him, is to cross that off of the list of things that he has to bitch about every thirty seconds. I don’t fucking care if you can’t support a band that enjoys having money, and you're probably just jealous of the massive amount of green and pink that they can attain at the very snap of their personal assistant’s finger. Most people seem to have their heads up their asses when it comes to what “selling out” actually means. When it all comes down to it, it’s an issue of intent. Selling out is not letting a toothpaste commercial use your song, that’s capitalism. Selling out is when you actually compose a song for a commercial. So (stay with me here), Led Zeppelin selling a song to Cadillac: NOT selling out Whoring out and writing “I’m lovin’ it” for McDonald’s or doing the Pepsi Generation: IS selling out. *coughjustintimberlakeandbrittanyspearscough* What separates these songs is artistic intent. It all depends on whether you're writing this song because you feel that it is an appropriate outlet for creative expression, or if you're writing it because a large faceless corporate demon is paying you a million dollars worth of goats blood for it. So relax, all you pathetically oversensitive bitchy pop culture hating dumb-heads, you don’t have to go ranting and screaming and burning all of your Zeppelin records, just sit down, try to loosen up that overly tight anus of yours and smoke a joint while enjoying Stairway to Heaven. I know what some of you are thinking [I’m in your brain! AHHHHHH!] ‘Groups can still sell out even if they don’t whore themselves out to companies’ and you're right, but their intent still matters. (Now imagine I’m screaming at a bitchy narcissist, hopefully not you. YES YOU!) JUST BECAUSE A GROUP CHANGES THEIR SOUND OR STYLE DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN THEY HAVE SOLD OUT AND DESERVE TO BE KILLED! The best examples I can think of are Metallica and Sugar Ray. I'm so tired of the mind numbingly repetitive rant that the post-black-album haters vomit out every time they can. So Metallica’s sound changed after that and you don’t like it… WHO CARES WHAT YOU DON’T LIKE? Certainly not the people whom you’ve complained to about it for ages. Metallica did not sell out, they simply chose a different direction to go with their music. The sound changed along with their age, maturity, and skill level. That sounds pretty normal, doesn’t it? As they continue to change with their newest album St. Anger (which is a delicious blend of old and new) they continue to fill galaxy sized stadiums, so it appears that their post 1990 sound isn’t the root of all evil. Sugar Ray, on the other hand, can bite my ass. (Articulate, ain’t I?) Anyone can hear the difference between their first album, Lemonade and Brownies, their breakthrough album Floored and the subsequent albums 14:59, Sugar Ray, and In the pursuit of Leisure. They started out with a decidedly unique screaming-disco-rock-punk and ended up with heartfelt, light, acoustic songs that make prepubescent girls swoon. I saw Sugar Ray when they were just beginning to accelerate onto the onramp of the mainstream. They were the headlining act in a rodeo arena of our local fairgrounds. I remember Mark McGrath saying two things that should have given me a clue as to where they were going (sucky-land). First, about half way through their set he said, “You guys are pretty cool considering that we’re in a fucking rodeo.” Which seemed to show that he thought us hicks would do nothing but throw soiled panties and empty moonshine bottles at him and that he resented playing at this admittedly non-lucrative venue. Later, near the end of the show McGrath announced that they were going to play ‘Fly’ from Floored then yelled at us: “I know what some of you are saying [mocking voice] ‘…but that song doesn’t sound like any of the other songs!’ Well it doesn’t. Too fucking bad.” The music at that show was good; maybe Mark just had too much to drink. Sugar Ray did what will kill many artists who try it. They *dun dun dunnnnnnnn* sold out! *gasp* They got a moderate summer hit from their album and they stupidly thought: ‘That song worked great! Now, let’s make every single song we write sound just like that one! So selling out is not changing your style because you enjoy a different sound, selling out is changing your sound specifically to sell more records. Something similar happened to No Doubt. I used to really love their girly-ska-punk sound. Now for some ungodly reason all their songs sound like terrible amateur dance remixes of themselves (really think about that, the description fits so well). The reason I refuse to believe that this is an example of a non-sell out musical alteration is because it’s all electronic. I don’t understand why the band members don’t just walk out and leave the band to the ever-trashy Betty Boop on meth (Gwen Stephani), because it doesn’t sound like there are any real instruments in most of the three-minute drum-machine sessions they now call ‘songs.’ Anyway, um, um, where was I? ………..Kinda lost my train of thought Uh, well, uh, OK Anyway I, I know it's kinda been a roundabout way of saying it But I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is I HATE SAUERKRAUT! Wait…wait…no….that wasn’t it. If you’ve really read and intensely studied the above rant [please let me bask in my warm and fuzzy delusions of grandeur], you’ll agree that bitching about a band ‘selling out’ is only slightly tolerable when they actually have and not just when you personally don’t like them anymore (remember though, only slightly). If you’ve read this far, you're either really really really bored, or youre one of my closer friends and to those reading this I say Huzzah! Cheers to you! Go reward yourself with some Dustin-approved cheese and have a fantabulouse day! I'm Dustin Meehan Please argue with me. |