Today's Point of Discussion comes from yours truly.
Marc Lamont Hill writes:
Quote:
Suspicions regarding artistic authenticity are animated by a belief that 'real' art cannot exist in the capitalist market-place. As a result, artists who move from the margins to the center of the commercial sphere are often viewed as 'sellouts' whose work no longer honors the spirit of the craft. While this claim is true in certain cases... it cannot be held as a universal truth claim about commercially successful artists. Conversely, it is equally problematic to view commercial marginality (ie. lack of sales) as an index of artistic integrity or quality. Such an approach is deeply problematic, as it overestimates the extent to which artists choose not to operate within mainstream circles, and it romanticizes the underground as a space untouched by the same corproate capitalist forces as mainstream spheres.
Do you agree? Does commercialism affect your appreciation of music, and/or a wider apprecation of music?
Let us know what you think.
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Money motivates people to make art. Some of the best music before 1900 came from dudes paying dudes the equivalent of millions at the time to write and pander towards the rich dudes and ladies with the same music they heard last time.
There are only few cases of trend-hopping commercialism (coupled with mediocre musicianship) that causes me to dislike a band, one of which being the case of Papa Roach who played with the rap-rock trend before jumping on the pop-rock trend and for a time the post-grunge trend.
If a band change their style only think on money, so yes this affect my appreciation of their music. But a band who only do they work and have a great commercial reception, don't change my way to see they work.
Its weird to me that people jump on bands for changing their sound in a way that makes themselves more popular by saying they sold out. If their new sound is liked by tons of people why is it so hard to believe that artists themselves like the sound. Coldplay is a good topical example off the top of my head. I'm sure people are jumping at the opportunity to bash them again for selling out. How many times is that now? They must have the record for most times selling out somehow.
It's also great when people complain about how an artist's sound remains stagnant and then those same people complain when they finally change their sound. Skrillex being blasted for not sounding enough like Burial and then not long after being blasted for sounding too much like Burial was a good time.
So yeah I pretty much never take people seriously when they complain about artists selling out because it usually sounds like people trying to justify their whining over stuff they don't like. Boo hoo you don't like a band's new sound.
Making music that large amount of people will like is not a problem at all, but if a band is changing their sound in order to make their music more profitable via sync licensing, I could see that being quite obnoxious. Also, having a song in a commercial can be quite damaging to the song. If a Dead Kennedys song was used in a tampon commercial, it'd be impossible to erase the association to that song. Some artists are willing to associate their song with anything, from a shitty political campaign to viagra to kitty litter. Those are sellouts. _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
Money motivates people to make art. Some of the best music before 1900 came from dudes paying dudes the equivalent of millions at the time to write and pander towards the rich dudes and ladies with the same music they heard last time.
This.
I don't see much of a problem making mass-money off of music.
This whole "Anti-Capitalist" thing angers me, if people want to hear music, they'll do as so, music isn't made only to be "deep" or "innovative", it can be "generic" and still be good.
To answer the question, no, it does not. Money is great, music is great, I love when I hear about an artist is profiting off of their art as long as he/she isn't rude/corrupt with it.
meccalecca wrote:
Making music that large amount of people will like is not a problem at all, but if a band is changing their sound in order to make their music more profitable via sync licensing, I could see that being quite obnoxious. Also, having a song in a commercial can be quite damaging to the song. If a Dead Kennedys song was used in a tampon commercial, it'd be impossible to erase the association to that song. Some artists are willing to associate their song with anything, from a shitty political campaign to viagra to kitty litter. Those are sellouts.
Making music that large amount of people will like is not a problem at all, but if a band is changing their sound in order to make their music more profitable via sync licensing, I could see that being quite obnoxious. Also, having a song in a commercial can be quite damaging to the song. If a Dead Kennedys song was used in a tampon commercial, it'd be impossible to erase the association to that song. Some artists are willing to associate their song with anything, from a shitty political campaign to viagra to kitty litter. Those are sellouts.
And yet arcade fire having their song in an NFL commercial or David bowie for Luis Vuitton are never used as examples of sellouts. It's easy for me not to associate Gigantic with the new apple commercial because who cares
I can't write a lot at the moment, but here are some interesting quotes that might be worth discussing on this topic:
On Bob Dylan, Wikipedia wrote:
Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin recounts how Tony Glover stopped by Dylan's apartment in September 1963, picked up a page of the song Dylan was working on and read a line from it: "'Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call.' Turning to Dylan, Glover said, 'What is this shit, man?' Dylan shrugged his shoulders and replied, 'Well, you know, it seems to be what the people want to hear.'"
On David Bowie, Wikipedia wrote:
Bowie would later state that the success of [Let's Dance] caused him to hit a creative low point in his career which lasted the next few years. "I remember looking out over these waves of people [who were coming to hear this record played live] and thinking, 'I wonder how many Velvet Underground albums these people have in their record collections?' I suddenly felt very apart from my audience. And it was depressing, because I didn't know what they wanted."
Quote:
John Lennon: "Where are we going, fellahs?"
Other Beatles: "To the top, Johnny!"
John Lennon: "Where's that, lads?"
Other Beatles: "To the toppermost of the poppermost!"
Several cases where the artist could be accused of selling out. Did they? If so, did it hurt their music?
I've spoken about it here before, but I think it's hard to say that a band changed their sound just to sell albums. Maybe they just like their new style better. It's always hard to say. I usually use AFI as the example of "they sold out" just because they went from
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