Over the past
decade or so, the once ultimate insult – “Sellout” – has lost nearly all its
sting except for in a few of the fringier music communities. The term is/was
often applied to any artist who experience overnight success (i.e., Green Day,
Sugar Ray), but those who use it intelligently, use it to describe artist who
change their style/philosophy in favor of of commercial success. To cite my
pervious examples, Green Day did not really sellout since they never claimed to
be a punk band (or have any values) to begin with. On the flipside, Sugar Ray
radically changed their music style from hardcore/metal to the cheesy pop,
driven by Spanish-style acoustic guitar we heard in their hit “Fly”.
While many
will argue that the term “Sellout” is entirely dead and artists today should do
whatever they have to make themselves marketable, this may not be the best
advice. For music to work (sound good), it often needs some degree of
sincerity. There are obvious exceptions which can be pointed out in the most
major of pop stars (who don’t write their own songs), but chances are that if
you are smart enough to seek advice for your music career, you don’t “have”
what these stars “have”.
Back in the
60s and 70s, there was a pop band from Brazil called Os Mutantes. They
basically sounded like a mash-up between Revolver-era and Sgt. Pepper-era
Beatles, but sang in Portuguese. Though the experienced very little success,
even in their own country, until about 10 years ago when they slowly gathered a
cult following in the U.S. and Europe with high critical acclaim to go with it.
Making the most of this phenomenon, they reunited to tour and released a new
album earlier this year. However, in an effort to maximize their popularity,
they began writing songs in English (which is quite obviously their second
language) riddled every song with metal-style guitar solos, presumably catering
to what they imagined American taste to be. As a result the album falls short
by several kilometers. The mistake they made (and I believe this was motivated
by good-hearted naivety rather than straightforward greed) is that people who
were fans of their old material liked their sound as it was and didn’t care if
they couldn’t understand the lyrics. If they had continued in the style that
got them recognition in the first place, their modest popularity might still be
growing.
One example
of a band that was able to reach out to new fans while retaining the old 90s
lo-fi indie rockers Guided by Voices. Their first 10 albums (the last 3 of
which put them on-the-map) were recorded in basements and garages on 4-tracks.
When they were eventually signed to a relatively major label, they began
recording one album a year in a high-end studio with production values to
match. They managed to keep their old fans by releasing one of two lo-fi albums
in concert with the studio releases. However this may not be much of an option
since most songwriters are not prolific enough to write and record an album every
2-3 months.
The point is
that the difference between selling and selling out is how you go about it. The
best strategy is to find a middle ground that works for your music.
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