Ask Lemmy

To quote Tool:

I've got some bad advice for you, little buddy
Before you point your finger, you should know that I'm the man
If I'm the fuckin' man, then you're the fuckin' man as well
So you can point that fuckin' finger up your ass

All you know about me is what I've sold ya, dumb fuck
I sold out long before you'd ever heard my name
I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit
And then you bought one

All you read and wear or see and hear on TV
Is a product begging for your fat-ass, dirty dollar
Shut up and buy, buy, buy my new record
And buy, buy, buy, send more money

Its the only way for artists to survive now. It was always dicey before, but cost of living and meager returns on streaming mean that artists need to produce music with broad appeal.

When I was younger I’d frown upon artists making a pop record. Now that I know most working bands often barely scrape by and often get screwed over by labels and promoters, etc., I can’t really fault them for it. And usually they’ll keep making what they want on the side anyway.

Does Snoop Dogg performing for the Trump crypto ball or whatever the shit that was count as selling out?

I think the plot was lost when the piracy/drm wars reached a peak and set new norms. The 'talent' that emerged steadily became performers rather than artists and put out disposable, largely formulaic pop made with protools.

Nearly all the mainstream now are what many would have called sellouts prior to all this.

Maybe there will be a move back to quality over quantity. Granted quality music is still being made, but by and large the current listener just wants to jump from the current sensation to the next after the staleness sets in.

Long story long the internet changed a lot of things, attention spans are eroded, and we're still learning how to deal with all of it.

Echoing what others have said, I think most people realize how hard it is to make a living in the arts. I think another part of it is with the recent awareness for workers rights, the idea of being a 'starving artist' has lost its glamour.

It's because nothing is punk anymore. Everything has been commodified, especially radical art.

https://youtu.be/L_-t3i6ipz4

Because selling out is the standard in America now.

It's not noteworthy to sellout anymore. It's expected.

If your idols are youtubers and tiktokkers, their business model is selling merch.

So opinions had to change.

True, it's not really a thing any more. Two reasons I'd say:

• If you want to make a nice living by being distributed by a label "selling out" is mandatory
• Anti-establishment musicians have a cheap distribution method in the form of internet. If they don't care about making money, they just offer it for download directly to their fans

That being said, the term is still used in the open source software community quite a lot.

Because artists need to eat too.

Can’t sell out when everything is a sellout.

Sellout would be what I'd call snoop doggy lapdog after his recent performance

You haven't been listening to enough Reel Big Fish lately?

McDonalds started charging $15 for a Quarter Pounder Value meal, and everyone realized in this post 9/11 America, you need to make as much money as possible just to be able to survive, which is diametrically opposed to the 60's and 70's still post war boom(ers) playacting socialist/communist Hippies, pointing and laughing when an artist they liked took a big check, when they're own rent was either subsidized by their parents, or cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year. Shit was different. Shit changed.

we do hear about 'industry plants', however..

“I didn’t sell out son, I bought in“

I only know this phenomenon from the punk scene and I think it still exists today. NOFX released a song about it 10 years ago.

First verse lyrics:

She asked me if I was a singer, then called me has-been
She said she really liked my band in the early '90s, oh yeah
I said stop saying those mean things, my ego is so fragile
And then she called me a poseur punk
Why don't I drink up and get the hell out
'Cause I'm a sellout

Not a direct answer to your question, but I heard a cool story on a podcast recently about Chumbawamba that feels related. Turns out they were punk as fuck.

Part one

Part two

Many social media influencers nowadays try to get big with the goal of "selling out", or getting sponsored. From what I understand, ad revenue on its own hasn't paid well for years, so they take on sponsors in order to fund their channels and pay their bills. You then have influencers like MrBeast and Logan Paul living large and shouting out their sponsors, making it look glamorous to their (often younger) audience.

I suppose the bands / artists that were accused of "selling out" back in the day have weathered that criticism and inspired multiple generations of subsequent bands / artists that have also gone in to inspire multiple bands / artists.

Take Green Day for example. For me they were the canonical sell out band for my generation. But now nobody cares about that. And bands that rode the wave of their success don't care. And bands that were inspired by Green Day don't care either. Neither do the fans, neither does the press.

So I think it's just less and less of a thing these days. So people don't care as much when you leave your small indie label and join a major. In fact quite the opposite. Good on you for winning against the system.

Because most people recognize “selling out” is the end goal for many acts. Why shouldn’t the act that can make enough to retire young on not go for that option if that is what they want for themselves?

A lot if the people bitching about selling out and authenticity in the 1990s were kids who did not have bills to pay.

the rich bought all the fuckers who were going to sell out back in the 00's.

Indie won the war and "selling out" to a big company is now just a simple business decision and not having your hand forced to participate.

Because for a lot of people who aspire to be artists don't want to hear about how its about the money and not the art

Everyone aspires to sell out.

Because artists now serve a younger generation who are far more authoritarian than Generation X. Selling out meant giving up the punk ideals that made one cool, and those ideals aren’t what’s cool any more.