Sell Out or Get The Hell Out

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from the ILE Andrew WK thread:

what irks most of us about the strokes isn't that they "sold out" but that they didn't sell out ENOUGH... they didn't do it AWK-style, a media monster of megarock right out of the gate... - Tracer Hand

What Tracer said about "not selling out enough" is how I feel about the whole Electroclash thing. I want one of those opportunistic aging club kids to do something totally vulgar and flashy and feelgood--create a new Ru Paul or Deelite--and shoot it into the Top Ten. It's just so classy and blah right now, at least the stuff I've heard. - Arthur

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

1. "electro-clash" vs. "the new rock n roll": who will produce a top ten hit first?

2. Selling out: Classic or Dud / Sell-outs: Search and Destroy

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

1. Last Nite went Top Ten here, I think. But it's only a matter of time before some 'electroclash' does too.

― Tom, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

DJ Hell's been quoted as saying he thinks Ministry of Sound, as a label have the cash and the distribution channels "to turn Fischerspooner into this decade's answer to Frankie Goes To Hollywood."

Plausible?

― Anna, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Momus, you could be their Morley!

― Tom, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose it all comes down to: Where can Irony and the cash-cow join in holy matrimony?

― Gage-o, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think it is plausible - I think they'll have a hit but I can't see it crossing over into being any kind of phenomenon. "Emerge" is very underwhelming.

― Tom, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Irony and the cash-cow in holy matrimony = ROCK AND ROLL (I give: Mr Alan Freed and Mr Stan Freberg)

― mark s, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

3. Will the underground new rock/electroclash artists produce their own Top Ten hit before an established artist has a new hit with their sound?

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Has "Sunglasses At Night" already been (re)released in the UK? How did it go?

― Tim, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I know she's not exactly a huge artist, but Dot Allison's new album has a large 'I want to be electroclash' element to it. It's not very good though.

― Anna, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Out next week I think Tim.

― Tom, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

4. Is Andrew WK a fusion of new rock & electroclash sonics & aesthetics?

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, he's a combination of WWF, Def Leppard and the best of Hi-NRG 1982-1984. This btw is a good thing, if only he had a wash now and again.

― Billy Dods, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(I know he sounds as unlike Fischerspooner as he does the Strokes, but perhaps deliberately equidistant from the 2 NYC sounds du jour yet informed by something of the same "fuck angst, let's dance" spirit?)

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(actually the strokes/wk/electroclash ethos is more accurately "fuck angst, and I would totally dance if I wasn't so loaded" which is a bit of a junior high pose I suppose but ultimately they are all making Party Music, but not a happy music for happy people James Last Non-stop Party but rather a bit of a bleary mess of a too-desperate party with memories of ripped panty hose, four cab rides to four different ends of the city, doing lines in the can, hitting on your sister's girlfriend kind of party.)

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

but rather a bit of a bleary mess of a too-desperate party with memories of ripped panty hose, four cab rides to four different ends of the city, doing lines in the can, hitting on your sister's girlfriend kind of party

Perfect.

― Anna, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not if someone throws up on you along the way.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I meant the phrase, not the party.

― Anna, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, that I'll agree with, yes.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

has any band actually gotten worse AFTER selling out?

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Metallica, Elvis Presley, Nas.

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Exactly when did Elvis's sellout occur? When he signed to RCA Victor? When he "went Hollywood"? When he did the Vegas thing? Stay tuned for my post about late-period Elvis, btw.

― Sean, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

elvis sold out when he signed to sun records man

― keepin it real, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Elvis: yeah, I know, I know. It's problematic to talk about "selling out" with an artist for whom the concept most likely didn't even exist. And there were all those great late period recordings too. But I think the film soundtrack era was what I would consider the period where he was "sold out" to his detriment.

Elvis, Metallica and Nas are kind of exceptional examples anyway because they began their careers by being better than what even their niche audience expected from the genre but they were subsequently unnecessarily reined in to appeal to a broader audience, who were ready to hear something revolutionary based on the artists' by-that- point legendary initial promise.

In general, though, I'm fully behind Tracer's point. I'm far more disappointed by artists who failed to engage with mass culture (Syd Barrett, Fugazi) than I am with those who "sold out". Not because of any moralistic stance, but just because I would like to hear those eccentric voices a little louder in the pop culture world.

― fritz, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Agreed.

― Sean, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I always thought "selling out" didn't merely involve an increase in self-promotion, signing to a major label or becoming a Top Ten act, but actually compromising one's music and beliefs to attain those goals. I wouldn't consider the White Stripes signing to a major and selling assloads of records "selling out" unless Jack started wearing backwards ballcaps and replaced Meg with a turntablist and remade "Fell In Love With A Girl" into "Fuck You Bitch, I Hate Me And I'm Gonna Break".

― Nate Patrin, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nate brings up a good point. A band can't really "sell out" right out of the gate. Although I suppose they can sell out the genre they are labeled to be in. But I like to think its a matter of aesthetics i.e. "how danceable is the music" or "how accessible is it" or "is it 3 minutes of candy coated bliss" as opposed to increased marketing.

No Doubt is an example of a band that has finally sold out enough to become listenable. Still that sword does cut the other way: Guided By Voices, Skinny Puppy.

― bnw, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

isn't andrew w.k. the backup singer transvestite in "hedwig and the angry inch"?

― fields of salmon, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If Andrew WK were a woman in drag - oh boy - just when I thought I couldn't love him more...

― Keiko, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I do boringly think most good artists get worse after selling out. Off the top of my head Sonic Youth (unless you count going from Confusion Is Sex/Bad Moon Rising to Evol/Sister as a sellout and I could even the case for that), R. E. M., Ornette Coleman, Rush, PiL (though I haven't listened to a lot of later PiL), Genesis, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The Velvet Underground, Eric Clapton. (I know lots of people would debate these examples.) Most just became unbearable. My corollary to fritz's "these are exceptions" comment would be that artists who improve after selling out were usually useless also-rans to begin with and turned into catchy also-rans after selling out. What artists became really great after selling out? David Bowie when he went rock?

― sundar subramanian, Saturday, 20 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Have the Sugababes sold out? Is their single electroclash? If not why not? ("It's too good" would seem the likeliest answer)

― Tom, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

have fischerspooner or felix da housecat et al been hired to remix any chart-topping artists yet? If they haven't somebody's asleep at the wheel.

― fritz, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And Sundar, sorry, but I just don't agree with any of your examples. They're all bands that were either bad and stayed bad or good and stayed good, so the sell-out factor doesn't mean much to me here. (sorry, that's subjective as hell, I know.) Maybe with different examples I could understand your p.o.v. better.

― fritz, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Felix is remixing that new Chems produced New Order track "Here to Stay" from the 24 Hour Party People Soundtrack. The song off the Hula Hoops ad was the as pop as he ever got really though surely, British people will know it, the dead annoying tune.

― Ronan, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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