Dusseldorf!

Great Moments in "Selling Out"

1999: Electronic artist Moby releases his album, "Play", on an unsuspecting mass public. On his previous album, Moby had attempted (somewhat unsuccessfully) to mix his D.C. hardcore roots with his current musical interest. Since he felt this attempt did not go over well and he was more well known in Europe than the US, before Play was released he licensed every single track from the album to a number of advertisers. His rationale was that "this would be the only way my music would be heard". Four years later, Wired magazine would call this "licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales total."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/moby.html

2003: Thirty-something "Indie" artist Liz Phair leaves Matador Records, signs to Capitol Records and gets produced by the Matrix (Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Britney Spears). Phair tries to balance a newfound innocence in her lyrics ("Why Can't I?") with her trademark overt sexuality ("H.W.C."). Fans cry "sell-out" while Phair defends her position in interviews by saying there was no way she could afford to raise her son at a label that could only pay her so much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/arts/music/02phai.html

2007: "Indie" psych-pop band Of Montreal are riding the crest of their most successful/personal album to date, "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?". The band feels that the album deserves a better live presentation than just them on a bare stage. They want to give the audience a show and then go even BIGGER on the next tour. Their solution? License a song to Outback Steakhouse and appear in a commercial for the new T-Mobile Sidekick.


Fans cry "sell-out". In response, lead singer Kevin Barnes writes a lengthy diatribe entitled "Selling Out Isn't Possible" . In it he proposes that, "The pseudo-nihilistic punk rockers of the 70's created an impossible code in which no one can actually live by. It's such garbage. The idea that anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sell out is completely out of touch with reality." which brings me to my final moment of selling out.

(On a somewhat related note, read Barnes' plan to survive in the era of digital media entitled "We Will Only Propagate Exceptional Objects".)

2008: Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten shills for Country Life butter. It should be noted that the Sex Pistols have never shied away from the notion of doing things "only for the money". At one point, they went on a reunion tour with the name "Filthy Lucre" (read "dirty money" for us Yanks). Despite their "punk" image, it should be noted they really were nothing more than...yes, I'll say it...a dirtier, snottier, more drug-addled version of a "boy band". And so, the man who once claimed "and you thought that we were faking ,that we were all just money making" now says "People know I only do things that I want to or that I believe in and I have to do it my way...I've never done anything like this before and never thought I would, but this Country Life ad was made for me and I couldn't resist the opportunity."