Mark Runyon | ConcertTour.org
Can I admit something? The very first time I heard The Vaccinnes, they were playing over top a commercial. I was holed up in a hotel room, sufficiently drunk on champagne and white wine during a training weekend. I was lying on the bed upside-down waiting for the vaguely interesting C4 documentary to come up. There was a promo for some terrible “scripted reality” show that was all the rage amongst both the ironic and unironic British connoisseurs. Wouldn’t you know the outro to “Do You Wanna” snuck in to lend it credibility. The twangy guitar pulled me in, and I found myself on the phone to my then-boyfriend four hours later soliloquizing about a band I’d just found who referenced Fitzgerald in their first single. From that day, they’ve been one of the my favourite bands (I mean can we all just take a second to revel in the glory of their second album?), and it’s unlikely I would have come across them had they not agreed to play their song over some mediocre celebrities dancing in a mansion. They had, quite literally, become commercial. Which brings me to my main point: how far can bands go before they officially “sell out”?
While the very phrase itself might seem like a paltry insult thrown between members of a high school garage band arguing over whether to play at the local summer showcase, selling out can have a profound affect on the way artists make their music — and the way their fans receive it.
Selling out has many different meanings depending on the genre or the starting line of the musician you’re talking about. At the end of the day, it basically comes down to one thing: commercialization. There seems to be a really fine line between making enough money off your music to justify your choice to continue doing it, but not making so much that monetary gain usurps your place as a performer. There’s a lot to do with your image and how you represent yourself to fans. Let’s face it, big artists like, Panic! At the Disco have probably made as much as Miley Cyrus in their careers, but didn’t inspire the vitriol she frequently receives for prancing around wearing cartoon dollar signs on stage. You can make as much money as you want as long as you seem like you’re still sticking by whatever original story you cooked up for yourself. For example, Ed Sheeran built his career from the ground floor up and still capitalizes on being a down-to-earth songwriter who hasn’t changed one iota despite clocking millions in record sales. That might be true, but what’s more important is the fact that people believe it, and don’t saddle him with the “selling out” label.
Of course, that label is occasionally slapped on artists who choose to go in a different artistic direction. Admittedly, at times this can be a cynical grab at more listeners by translating a less popular sound into one that’s more palatable for a wider audience, but sometimes these accusations get thrown at artists who just want to try something new. For example, I still remember the aghast look on my brother’s face when he heard MCR’s “Na Na Na (Na Na Na etc etc)” for the first time. Still in a post-Black Parade daze, I heard a number of fans complaining about the glam-rock direction the band had taken with Danger Days only to hail it as genius once the initial surprise had worn off.
But selling out also has a lot to do with publicity. In an industry threatened by illegal downloads and other internet shenanigans, musicians had to become more commercial to stay afloat. The simple fact of the matter is bands can no longer guarantee record sales, and have to carry out other tasks and jobs just to get by and keep making their own music. Commercialization is endemic in the music world — I mean how many festival titles are preceded with brand names, how many Youtube adverts start with “Hi, we’re *insert band name here*”, how many specially-endorsed-headphones can you name off the top of your head? Entertainment is an often fatal business, and new stars are always looking to take your place. Why not put your name on some fancy earplugs and in the process guarantee a nest egg?
But — and here’s the rub — how far can you go with publicity before you begin to alienate your fans? As I referenced before, this comes down to your genre and where you were when you started out. For example, most pop artists are expected to hook themselves up with some money-spinning brand sponsorship for their new tour (the world reeled in shock when Adele announced “I don’t want my name anywhere near another brand…I don’t wanna be tainted, or haunted, and I don’t wanna sell out in any way. I think it’s shameful.”), because chart music is the most financially lucrative field to work in. A lot of this kind of music seems constructed with nothing more in mind than pushing earworms on a few unsuspecting partygoers who keep hearing that damn thing on the radio. Why not try to wring every filthy cent you can out of that cash cow? This could also be explained by the often short careers of hit artists. If you know you’re not going to be hocking records forever, grab the cash and run. I think what I’m trying to say here is that, while pop musicians and publicists may well have souls, no-one is surprised when they bounce gleefully onto the sellout bandwagon. That’s simply par for the course.
But when it comes to other kinds of artists, the rules of the game changes. Look at your favourite indie bands; the ones who really speak to you, the ones you really adore. If they began flogging ear cleaners on public access TV, you’d probably feel a little bit blindsided, maybe even misled. If you really connect with their lyrics, music, whatever it might be, when you see the people who created it commoditizing it or themselves, the whole thing can feel hollow. To continue the theme of aghast family members, my mother’s horrified reaction upon seeing Iggy Pop turn up in those interminable car adverts (fair play, though — the man is still pretty ripped) is an indicator that preaching anarchy and angst doesn’t sit well with prancing around in butter adverts (eh, John Lydon?).
And therein lies the rub. How to balance a perfectly legitimate desire to expand your career and make more money with artistic integrity and fans expectations? Some would argue that fan’s expectations shouldn’t be given as much weight as they are, that true fans will be able to ignore whatever else their angstpots of choice are up to. But. If you’ve found substantial success, then your fans have carried you some of that distance. Whether you like it or not, they’re probably the people you should be pandering to, if pandering is in your DNA.
But what if you need that money for some great artistic endeavor that’s just going to cost more than any crowdfunding campaign could ever throw up? If you, your fanbase or your record sales can’t subsidize something that you believe will make your fans happy, then should you — well, not exactly sell your soul, but rent it out in timeshares to great corporate America? Again, this comes down to how you’ve marketed yourself prior to this. For some bands, that’s totally out of the question. For others, selling out in the most logical way possible can do a huge amount to boost their careers and make sure that they cement their place in musical history. Is it fair to change your original vision for your music if it means you gain more fans, more publicity, and more freedom to do what you want in the future? It’s a great idea that works well in theory, but the issue of going back to what you were before is a tricky one if the fans you’ve gained have hung around for a very specific type of music. But let’s face it, the chances of you making it big without appealing to some sensibility people can connect with are slim unless you’re a spectacularly new, innovative, and ground-breaking act (see: The Correspondents) and even then you’ll be battling for years to get noticed.
As a closing point, I’d like you to consider The Beatles. They played in nasty German clubs until Brian Epstein found them. It wasn’t long before they were transformed from a leather-clad, smoking-on-stage (seriously) rock group into the infamously clean-cut pop sound of the sixties we know today. We don’t think of them as the sexy rockers they were, and they certainly showed little interest in returning to that particular bit of their history once they hit the big-time in an insane way. If they’d stuck with the vein they’d started out with, it seems unlikely they’d have carved out their place in music history. And that’s basically the moral of this story. Selling out is sometimes a great idea, as long as you can get away with it. Ah, music.
How Far Can Bands Go for Publicity Without Alienating Fans?
Can I admit something? The very first time I heard The Vaccinnes, they were playing over top a commercial. I was holed up in a hotel room, sufficiently drunk on champagne and white wine during a training weekend. I was lying on the bed upside-down waiting for the vaguely interesting C4 documentary to come up. There was a promo for some terrible “scripted reality” show that was all the rage amongst both the ironic and unironic British connoisseurs. Wouldn’t you know the outro to “Do You Wanna” snuck in to lend it credibility. The twangy guitar pulled me in, and I found myself on the phone to my then-boyfriend four hours later soliloquizing about a band I’d just found who referenced Fitzgerald in their first single. From that day, they’ve been one of the my favourite bands (I mean can we all just take a second to revel in the glory of their second album?), and it’s unlikely I would have come across them had they not agreed to play their song over some mediocre celebrities dancing in a mansion. They had, quite literally, become commercial. Which brings me to my main point: how far can bands go before they officially “sell out”?
While the very phrase itself might seem like a paltry insult thrown between members of a high school garage band arguing over whether to play at the local summer showcase, selling out can have a profound affect on the way artists make their music — and the way their fans receive it.
Selling out has many different meanings depending on the genre or the starting line of the musician you’re talking about. At the end of the day, it basically comes down to one thing: commercialization. There seems to be a really fine line between making enough money off your music to justify your choice to continue doing it, but not making so much that monetary gain usurps your place as a performer. There’s a lot to do with your image and how you represent yourself to fans. Let’s face it, big artists like, Panic! At the Disco have probably made as much as Miley Cyrus in their careers, but didn’t inspire the vitriol she frequently receives for prancing around wearing cartoon dollar signs on stage. You can make as much money as you want as long as you seem like you’re still sticking by whatever original story you cooked up for yourself. For example, Ed Sheeran built his career from the ground floor up and still capitalizes on being a down-to-earth songwriter who hasn’t changed one iota despite clocking millions in record sales. That might be true, but what’s more important is the fact that people believe it, and don’t saddle him with the “selling out” label.
Of course, that label is occasionally slapped on artists who choose to go in a different artistic direction. Admittedly, at times this can be a cynical grab at more listeners by translating a less popular sound into one that’s more palatable for a wider audience, but sometimes these accusations get thrown at artists who just want to try something new. For example, I still remember the aghast look on my brother’s face when he heard MCR’s “Na Na Na (Na Na Na etc etc)” for the first time. Still in a post-Black Parade daze, I heard a number of fans complaining about the glam-rock direction the band had taken with Danger Days only to hail it as genius once the initial surprise had worn off.
But selling out also has a lot to do with publicity. In an industry threatened by illegal downloads and other internet shenanigans, musicians had to become more commercial to stay afloat. The simple fact of the matter is bands can no longer guarantee record sales, and have to carry out other tasks and jobs just to get by and keep making their own music. Commercialization is endemic in the music world — I mean how many festival titles are preceded with brand names, how many Youtube adverts start with “Hi, we’re *insert band name here*”, how many specially-endorsed-headphones can you name off the top of your head? Entertainment is an often fatal business, and new stars are always looking to take your place. Why not put your name on some fancy earplugs and in the process guarantee a nest egg?
But — and here’s the rub — how far can you go with publicity before you begin to alienate your fans? As I referenced before, this comes down to your genre and where you were when you started out. For example, most pop artists are expected to hook themselves up with some money-spinning brand sponsorship for their new tour (the world reeled in shock when Adele announced “I don’t want my name anywhere near another brand…I don’t wanna be tainted, or haunted, and I don’t wanna sell out in any way. I think it’s shameful.”), because chart music is the most financially lucrative field to work in. A lot of this kind of music seems constructed with nothing more in mind than pushing earworms on a few unsuspecting partygoers who keep hearing that damn thing on the radio. Why not try to wring every filthy cent you can out of that cash cow? This could also be explained by the often short careers of hit artists. If you know you’re not going to be hocking records forever, grab the cash and run. I think what I’m trying to say here is that, while pop musicians and publicists may well have souls, no-one is surprised when they bounce gleefully onto the sellout bandwagon. That’s simply par for the course.
But when it comes to other kinds of artists, the rules of the game changes. Look at your favourite indie bands; the ones who really speak to you, the ones you really adore. If they began flogging ear cleaners on public access TV, you’d probably feel a little bit blindsided, maybe even misled. If you really connect with their lyrics, music, whatever it might be, when you see the people who created it commoditizing it or themselves, the whole thing can feel hollow. To continue the theme of aghast family members, my mother’s horrified reaction upon seeing Iggy Pop turn up in those interminable car adverts (fair play, though — the man is still pretty ripped) is an indicator that preaching anarchy and angst doesn’t sit well with prancing around in butter adverts (eh, John Lydon?).
And therein lies the rub. How to balance a perfectly legitimate desire to expand your career and make more money with artistic integrity and fans expectations? Some would argue that fan’s expectations shouldn’t be given as much weight as they are, that true fans will be able to ignore whatever else their angstpots of choice are up to. But. If you’ve found substantial success, then your fans have carried you some of that distance. Whether you like it or not, they’re probably the people you should be pandering to, if pandering is in your DNA.
But what if you need that money for some great artistic endeavor that’s just going to cost more than any crowdfunding campaign could ever throw up? If you, your fanbase or your record sales can’t subsidize something that you believe will make your fans happy, then should you — well, not exactly sell your soul, but rent it out in timeshares to great corporate America? Again, this comes down to how you’ve marketed yourself prior to this. For some bands, that’s totally out of the question. For others, selling out in the most logical way possible can do a huge amount to boost their careers and make sure that they cement their place in musical history. Is it fair to change your original vision for your music if it means you gain more fans, more publicity, and more freedom to do what you want in the future? It’s a great idea that works well in theory, but the issue of going back to what you were before is a tricky one if the fans you’ve gained have hung around for a very specific type of music. But let’s face it, the chances of you making it big without appealing to some sensibility people can connect with are slim unless you’re a spectacularly new, innovative, and ground-breaking act (see: The Correspondents) and even then you’ll be battling for years to get noticed.
As a closing point, I’d like you to consider The Beatles. They played in nasty German clubs until Brian Epstein found them. It wasn’t long before they were transformed from a leather-clad, smoking-on-stage (seriously) rock group into the infamously clean-cut pop sound of the sixties we know today. We don’t think of them as the sexy rockers they were, and they certainly showed little interest in returning to that particular bit of their history once they hit the big-time in an insane way. If they’d stuck with the vein they’d started out with, it seems unlikely they’d have carved out their place in music history. And that’s basically the moral of this story. Selling out is sometimes a great idea, as long as you can get away with it. Ah, music.
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