And Everything's Gonna Be Alright

When Bob Dylan took the stage for the first time with electric guitars, he was booed. The crowd screamed that he'd abandoned his folk roots. They thought he'd sold out. The same thing happens all over the music business, which seems especially keen on the concept. I've often wondered what makes for the right environment for a large group to so quickly resort to selling out (or believing someone else has). A large amount of money at stake. An amount of fame. Certainly the film industry has these things. Actors, though, don't have something that musicians have - a feel of autonomy, a feel of rebellion. Musicians are individuals trying to tell a story despite a world that wants to be mainstreamed. Actors are part of a vast machine, a network that creates a film to entertain and to return profits. In short, actors can't sell out, because they don't have any credibility to sell. Musicians, for some reason, seem like they do. They come from a garage and struggle desperately to make it to the top - only when they get there, men in suits are trying to change them in order to make more money. And we romanticize this.

The truth is far less admirable.

The idea of selling out focuses on someone with core values that decides to abandon them in hopes of money or fame. Mostly just the money though. It's assumed that someone with a unique voice and message would stifle it in order to fall in line with what works, what's boring and tested, and what makes loads of cash.

That's probably why I've never really believed that it exists.

For me, a person who thinks pragmatically, the concept of selling out seems absurd. It's an arbitrary human construct, usually used by elitists to argue a point that no one really cares about. In order to buy into it, you have to think several things:

1) That making money is a bad thing. Basic economics tells us that making money does not prevent others from having money, it just makes more money. I can see nothing wrong with this.

2) That making money somehow negates artistic intent. This may have stronger merit as an argument if the artist significantly changes himself/herself for the sole purpose of becoming more accessible. However, it's difficult to gauge intentions - with Dylan, he was trying out a new sound, and no one now would call him a sell out.

3) You have to believe that art is not subjective.

3b) Since art is not subjective, you also must believe that what you like is the best.

We're getting into strange territory here, but it's often true that people value something so subjective as factually based. Music is the perhaps the king of all arts with regards to this because it's so easily accessible. Everyone can become an expert on it almost immediately. So people tend to think that their opinion is fact. You will never find more heated arguments about something that can't be proven correct or incorrect as you will when you claim not to like someone's favorite band.

As many times as I've said proudly that The Beatles are the greatest band in history, I know that it's just not even provable. It's subjective. Someone who thinks Bob Dylan or Glen Miller Orchestra or Slipknot is the best band ever has just as much merit to their personal opinion as I do. You can argue who has sold more albums, influenced other bands, who's sold out more shows - all factual, numbers-based things with clear winners - but "the best" is an opinion. And opinions can't be facts.

So why is corporate art not considered true art? Why are artists that seek large amounts of money deemed sell outs? Or artists that give in to a corporate scheme not legitimized?

Because elitists are wrong. To believe that art cannot be profitable or simply beautiful or merely entertaining is to limit art in a way that's unsettling. It also makes me wonder whether elitists aren't selling out - just in a different way. Not to money, but to an image. I have to question whether certain people like certain obscure bands because they make good music or because listening to them provides the listener with a false sense of superiority. Do they listen to the bands because of their art or because another elitist told them that liking them means you have good taste?

All of this to say - selling out is moving into a different world, away from art. It's moving into the realm of ideas. People are talking about those who work with others as selling out. A politician tries to reach across the aisle to work on compromise and she's suddenly a sell out, because someone willing to fix problems and seek a common ground solution isn't fully dedicated to the cause. Giving an inch means your willing to forfeit just a little of your zealotry in order to seek progress. Because sides are so polarized that you only have two options for opinions. Trying to see the other side of an argument is heresy. Trying to work with the enemy is grounds for crucifixion.

And image is more important than practicality.

How you're seen is so much more viable than the things you accomplish. If you're not trying to appear that way all the time, if your focus changes or your goals shift - you're a sell out.