Moreover, I think that Lana Del Rey really is a "post-feminist" artist
i kinda see her as being ironic post-feminist? like her music is usually about her being marginalized and made into a sex object despite her resignation to it _________________ ~❅ ❄ ❆ hµM△₪ FESTIVE †®å§h ❆ ❄ ❅~
I was reviewing a Black Eyed Peas album and was seeing all the hate for them for starting to sell out.
I left this comment:
They started to sell out... hahaha... it's pop music. They sold out the moment they wrote songs less than 10 minutes long.
i think this is true of most "artists" that make a living off of it.
I get the idea that an artist should stay true to one's artistry... and that's possibly when this term came into use for a purpose.
Fans getting mad that they no longer play bars is a dumb reason to hate a band.
Hating a band because they make choices to abandon any artistry they had in the first place to make money... yeah that's less agreeable... but would you prefer that they play in a dive bar their whole life? There's a bit of reality to consider.
Then there's rich mega rock stars (many of which didn't have any artistry to begin with), who totally do it to make a hit, even if the music is terrible.
The term "sell out" is inherently a term of betrayal. Traditionally that meant one of several things:
1. Betrayal of your local scene by, well, leaving and making it big on a broader stage
2. Betrayal of your core audience by changing your sound to one that appeals to a different or broader audience.
3. Betrayal of ethics and "art" by signing to a major label/actively pursuing commercial success.
With this working definition, I'm not sure if it's even possible to sell out anymore. With the internet, even local groups are automatically playing to the world as well as the patrons of the local dive. If your music is at all on Youtube, Bandcamp, or Spotify, you're already on a broader stage. Local presence is still critical, but you can be a band in Bumfuck, Wyoming and have fans in Portugal. It's weird.
Additionally, no one seems to care about the other two anymore. Core audiences used to be locked by specific genres. For example, if you liked punk in the 90s/early 2000s, you probably didn't listen to much hip-hop, or soul, or pop, etc...and you had very strong opinions on what constituted good punk. If an artist went from Punk to pop-punk, or emo, or, god forbid, pop, it was a strong betrayal. Genre hopping/reinvention was a serious risk for a band. Now, everyone listens to everything. Make a punk record and follow it up with bubblegum, audiences may change but no one is going to get pissed off about it.
The last one used to be the strongest in the 80s-early 2000s, when the underground actively rejected commercial success and believed that music, and specifically rock, was art. The only way to maintain your purity was to reject the advances of the music industry. In practice, this broke down in a big way in the early 90s, but if you ever watch interviews with those grunge/alt/punk bands that signed they are constantly trying to save their indie-cred with rationalization and denials of any ambition/success. This stigma just doesn't exist anymore.
Most of this is for the best. I remember how ridiculous it was when I was a kid that people would actively shit on you for listening to something that "wasn't cool" within the group, but I kind of miss there being an emphasis on authenticity and credibility, even if it probably stopped existing after 1991. I also miss artists forming themselves within the cocoons of their local scenes, which doesn't happen as much anymore. I don't know how different Athens, GA is from Minneapolis anymore, for instance. Everyone listens to everything now, and that necessarily means everyone draws from the same reference points. I think there was at least some value in separation and opposition to the mainstream. Mainstream used to be the Thesis, and indie/underground the Antithesis, but that dynamic doesn't really exist anymore.
The term "sell out" is inherently a term of betrayal. Traditionally that meant one of several things:
1. Betrayal of your local scene by, well, leaving and making it big on a broader stage
2. Betrayal of your core audience by changing your sound to one that appeals to a different or broader audience.
3. Betrayal of ethics and "art" by signing to a major label/actively pursuing commercial success.
With this working definition, I'm not sure if it's even possible to sell out anymore. With the internet, even local groups are automatically playing to the world as well as the patrons of the local dive. If your music is at all on Youtube, Bandcamp, or Spotify, you're already on a broader stage. Local presence is still critical, but you can be a band in Bumfuck, Wyoming and have fans in Portugal. It's weird.
Additionally, no one seems to care about the other two anymore. Core audiences used to be locked by specific genres. For example, if you liked punk in the 90s/early 2000s, you probably didn't listen to much hip-hop, or soul, or pop, etc...and you had very strong opinions on what constituted good punk. If an artist went from Punk to pop-punk, or emo, or, god forbid, pop, it was a strong betrayal. Genre hopping/reinvention was a serious risk for a band. Now, everyone listens to everything. Make a punk record and follow it up with bubblegum, audiences may change but no one is going to get pissed off about it.
The last one used to be the strongest in the 80s-early 2000s, when the underground actively rejected commercial success and believed that music, and specifically rock, was art. The only way to maintain your purity was to reject the advances of the music industry. In practice, this broke down in a big way in the early 90s, but if you ever watch interviews with those grunge/alt/punk bands that signed they are constantly trying to save their indie-cred with rationalization and denials of any ambition/success. This stigma just doesn't exist anymore.
Most of this is for the best. I remember how ridiculous it was when I was a kid that people would actively shit on you for listening to something that "wasn't cool" within the group, but I kind of miss there being an emphasis on authenticity and credibility, even if it probably stopped existing after 1991. I also miss artists forming themselves within the cocoons of their local scenes, which doesn't happen as much anymore. I don't know how different Athens, GA is from Minneapolis anymore, for instance. Everyone listens to everything now, and that necessarily means everyone draws from the same reference points. I think there was at least some value in separation and opposition to the mainstream. Mainstream used to be the Thesis, and indie/underground the Antithesis, but that dynamic doesn't really exist anymore.
Great points and I knew/agree with them.
I guess growing up I was friends with the kids that liked punk/"original" alternative rock, but then was friends with kids that liked Metal and Rap. And so I always was somewhere in between.
And there totally was this hatred for anything outside of those confines... like drum machines don't have soul and punk puppies (maturity of punk rockers is prejudiced to be low)...
I also kind of miss those times when things were easily defined, etc. but then again it was a bit limiting and like where things have gone... mostly.
Pros and cons to both worlds.
Still think it's ridiculous to discredit someone for selling out, when isn't it every musicians dream to share their humanity with everyone? I don't think many of them care about the money... more like they care that what they created, everybody likes (well I mean most artists anyway... even Bob Dylan said something like the hardest thing for an artist to do is to write something that both is important to the artist and "his" audience.
Even the "humble" Kurt Cobain from Nirvana told Geffen Records they wanted to be the biggest rock band when they negotiated their record deal. Do I feel like Nirvana sold out... no.
So I was thinking about this a little more (even if totally a stupid waste of my time)...
And I was thinking huh... I guess the Beatles sold out like 5 times. At least for doing Sgt Peppers (stop touring and have an almost completely different sound) and then also when they left Hamburg... what... you don't want to play in a shitty club your whole life... you must not be a real artist.
It actually came to my attention while listening to De Stijl by White Stripes. It's a pretty decent album, but no where near the quality of when they "sold out" and wrote music people would actually care about... and guess what... as an artist I think they just got better.
IDK... I am not too familiar with any artist who truly sold out that I respected as an artist to begin with.
But then there's this slam on Beck for selling cars from Jeffery Lewis:
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