Sellouts? Yeah. We Sellout Every Show

Artists these days face a relatively constant struggle between remaining true to their roots and blending in with main stream culture. Unless their roots are main stream culture, then the path from A to B is pretty straight forward. But in general, at least with much of the music I listen to, bands start out of a desire to do something different and to be on their own.

Young bands come out with a raw, unpolished sound and attitude that screams of 'you're never going to change us.' It can be this edge that drives bands to discovering a niche in in the industry enough to achieve mild to moderate success. This 'edge' doesn't have to be something hard or heavy. Bands of every genre don't usually assemble because they want to be just like someone else. Granted, there are groups of high school kids that pick up a guitar and think, 'someday, we're going to be the next Nickelback,' but honestly, I'm not worried about that group of unfortunate specimen that probably would have better impacted the world if a few sperm would have zigged left instead of right.

But the mass of the young people that pick up instruments, or sit down in front of them, ultimately want to burn their own path through the jungle that is modern music. And, as soon as they find their niche, as soon as they go from backyards and church stages to opening for nationwide tours, from friends as fans to fans as numbers, and everything else that comes along with the slightest stitch of fame, as soon as that switch happens, they get labeled as sellouts. Is that fair?

No.

Well, not always. Sure, some bands only want to make it big so they can, well, make it big. They want the perks that come with being famous, and will shed any sort of prior motivation skin in order to reach stardom. And in doing so, they have become the prototypical 'sellout.'

But consider everyone else. Whatever happened to maturing? To changing? To moving from something that you identified with when you were fifteen onto something that you can more appropriately call your own? So what if you stopped dying your hair and stopped wearing leather spiked bracelets. Maybe that wasn't what you ultimately saw yourself as.

Or maybe it's time to try something new. I recently read something about Tiger Woods. No, not that. But when asked the question of kinda 'what's next,' he replied that winning never gets old. In his mind, he could win 95 majors, but would still get excited about the 96th. For him, winning is all that matters. No more, no less. But not everyone is built like Tiger. Clearly. So sometimes it makes sense to make your claim in one genre, and try out something else. Maybe crossing genres and changing images and rebuilding an entire persona is more impressive than dominating the same field for decades. Sometimes, even your passion can get boring.

So before you slap the proverbial 'sellout' sticker on any icon in the music industry that makes more money now than they did when they were playing in front of high school crowds, consider the possibility that money may not be the only relevant variable in the equation. Even if it probably is...

My inspiration for this post: