ITT: Artists who sold out bigtime

Starting with an easy mode example.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=_EvGn22Mplg
youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0kFNUP4P4
youtube.com/watch?v=1hDbpF4Mvkw
youtu.be/9jwt_fEAszQ
youtube.com/watch?v=oujtnVwwP64
youtube.com/watch?v=YN9muHLuHDc
youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA
youtu.be/ah4r1IDfqgc
youtube.com/watch?v=BugbuhqQ7pA
youtube.com/watch?v=qxhB_d1uYhw
youtube.com/watch?v=gEgXDhiayz4
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

The Who

I get the unfunny joke you're trying to make, but in all seriousness how many TV commercials has Pete Townshend licensed their songs in?

Aerosmith. Duh.

From this.

youtube.com/watch?v=_EvGn22Mplg

To this.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ss0kFNUP4P4

I am tempted to say either too many or not enough. Anyhow, it's not like The Who made those songs for the commercials, just licensed every last one of them, which isn't as bad.

Anyhow - if we're talking sellouts, John Lydon and butter.

IIRC We Built This City was originally offered to Heart, but they didn't take it (smart move). Anyway, Grace Slick admitted that she'd pretty much mentally checked out by the Reagan years and was only still in it for money and she's denounced that song.

Didn't you know how Journey were a prog fusion instrumental band for the first two albums?

when you sell out and make 80's as fuck pop music and look like buckaroo banzai but still the GOAT

youtube.com/watch?v=1hDbpF4Mvkw

...

Actually, Journey were always supposed to be a commercial hit factory from their inception. Columbia and their manager got together a couple of industry veterans (including guys who'd played with Hendrix and Santana) with the intention of making a supergroup like Bread (and later Foreigner).

Problem was, they didn't go along with the script and instead made two albums of weird experimental prog music. The albums bombed and Columbia management chewed them out. "We signed you to make radio friendly pop ditties. Now do it." They moved in more of a pop direction on album #3 but the songs were boring and they had no vocal personality in the band, so now the record label made them take Steve Perry or get dropped entirely. They didn't want to do it, but they were literally going hungry so had no choice.

The rest is corporate schlock rock history.

youtu.be/9jwt_fEAszQ

What about bands that do a reverse sell out like Talk Talk, Kanye, or Radiohead?

As much as everyone talks about artistic integrity, sometimes the pressure to go commercial can be strong especially out of financial concerns. For example, Blue Oyster Cult sometimes went commercial (eg. Fire of Unknown Origin). They've admitted that they weren't necessarily proud of it, but there were times when they really needed money.

Pearl Jam post-1994.

How about Mariah Carey?

>start out as a MOR singer along the lines of Celine Dion and Whitney Houston with a soccer mom audience
>in the late 90s, switch to the teenybopper crowd and an R&B sound with guest appearances by rappers

Rod Stewart after the early 70s.

Ellie Goulding. Earlier stuff was actually good
youtube.com/watch?v=oujtnVwwP64

Any post-60s band with a Desmond Child or Vinnie Poncia writing credit.

Went from sleaze rock to commercial sleaze rock, surprise surprise
This big time
Always a gimmick, even Blue Album
Not a fan but so can be said from most grunge if they were "still alive" at the point.
Most definitely

>Went from sleaze rock to commercial sleaze rock

>Dionne Warren-penned gushy piano ballad
>rock
You didn't actually open the link, did you.

I'd call Tori Amos reverse selling out. Have you ever seen Y Cnt Tori Read?

ZZ Top with Eliminator. They completely went MTV and turned into a KISS-like cartoon band consisting of le funny bearded dudes who did commercials for various products, when back in the 70s they were balls-busting blues rock.

There is only one answer. From Anarcho Crust Punk to...something. Celtic Frost are up there too for Cold Lake.

The Rolling Stones censoring their setlist and lyrics to play in China.

I live in Massachusetts, I've heard enough b side Aerosmith.

How about Queen? Sure, they'd had the huge hit singles from TNOTW but then Another One Bites The Dust was a big club/dance hit so they figured "Hey we can make a whole album of dance tracks".

And so there was Hot Space and it was complete shit. The end.

Billy Idol. He presented himself as a first generation punk when he was a Sex Pistols hanger on and then later became a cartoon MTV version of a punk.

Not user, but have you heard any of her 2000s output.

Her discography is basically an inverse parabola in terms of musical intentions

Rush were definitely a major sellout from the 70s hard rocking band with prog tendencies to the 80s supercharged all edges smoothed over New Wave influenced prog pop band to huge commercial success.

No Code was released in 1996 and it was the opposite of a sell out album

Genesis

Wait, how could Billy Idol sell out when he was never authentic to begin with?

They literally stole that song from fucking Celine Dion.

That's why I said reverse selling out.

Scott Walker. Went from being a 60's boy band pop icon to a recluse that makes scary avant-garde music.

It's I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing.

Lenny Kravitz always seemed to be fake as fuck.

>start out as a retro-60s artist who wears John Lennon sunglasses and plays mock Hendrix licks to appeal to middle aged baby boomers who wanted a message of peace and love or something and didn't want to deal with all the 90s bands singing about suicide and heroin addiction
>of course he went into other things to increase the size of his bank account, eventually making enough money that he could retire comfortably on, only occasionally making a movie appearance or playing the Super Bowl halftime show

He always came off as an actor more than a musician to me.

See the issue comes with the term "selling out".
They always wanted to "smooth out the edges". At the time, New Wave was the new horizon of music. Rush went to it with open arms. A lot of fans don't understand that Peart is first a writer and reader, and second a drummer. During the 70s his lyrics consisted of him regurgitating whatever was in his reading material at the time from Ayn Rand to Nietzsche.
In 1980, they released Permanent Waves which was much more punctual. As opposed to their early epics with multiple movements they made a decision to be able to differentiate between pieces better and establish many more themes while still keeping their feet on the ground to bring that sort of songwriting to a halt.
From that point on, lyrically all of the music (except Pye's stuff) was written, shall we say, "closer to the heart", being Neil's original perspectives and philosophy instead of ripping off of others who came before him. Much more genuine.
That's why while I respect your opinion I must also respectfully disagree.

Duh.

They sold out again during the grunge era. I love Rush, but they were always massive fad-riders.

I'm glad Aerosmith sold out. I like Pump and Permanent Vacation. I thought they were a better live band in the 90s than they were in the late 70s and early 80s. Or was that the backing tapes making them sound so good?

When did Queen sell out? They were always an extremely eclectic band that followed their own muse. They dabbled in a ton of genres but never did a completely genre specific album although "Hot Space" comes close.

sorry, I thought you were responding to the thread's topic.
That phase of Pearl Jam started earlier tho, when they began to refuse to shoot promotional music videos. Then they sold out again, around the beginning of the '00s.

Because. "Another One Bites The Dust" was a big club hit so they figured they can do an entire album of dance music. An argument could even be made that The Game was the point where they sold out because they adopted synthesizers and abandoned their true rock sound, however I think that album is perhaps one of Queen's best even if is the point where they sold out. I even said just because they sold out, it doesn't mean any music they released after that point is necessarily bad.

Maybe, but I always thought it was more because Freddie Mercury was a huge dance music enthusiast and simply wanted to do a whole album of it.

Yeah and the first is their cover of Train Kept A Rolling, I get it. Like I said, everyone's parents play them on repeat around here because they "once played at our high school".

Grand Funk Railroad when they hired Todd Rundgren to produce and started making gimme radio singles.

The Run DMC collab was really risky, cutting-edge stuff in the mid-1980s when hip-hop was still underground and collaborating with any black artists was going to piss off your toothless white trash rock fans.

After that however, Aerosmith's career was fucking nauseating and the worst kind of commercial selling out.

If I'm not mistaken, The Black Eyed Peas were a legit alternative hip hop band before Fergie joined them.

Maroon 5. It took them one album to sell out.

The Bangles with Walk Like An Egyptian.

All of these were desperate cash grabs from the very start. Rock is a very desperate, corporate, cringey sellout genre. It's no wonder baby boomers love it. Fake edginess

>toothless white trash rock fans
I live in Mass, not Alabama

And in all honesty, Walk This Way was just a huge gimmick to make both Run and Aerosmith seem like saints. It's corny as fuck song.

Easy ones.

>Metallica
>Green Day
>Steve Winwood
>Santana (Smooth is one of the worst songs ever made)
>Neil Diamond (some of his early stuff was actually pretty good before he turned into MOR garbage)

Came in this thread to post them
Just compare this:
youtube.com/watch?v=YN9muHLuHDc
To this:
youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA

The drop in quality is unbelievable

Them too, Songs About Jane is a legitimately good album. Shiver is a jam.

Yup, but then Will I Am took the lead to be the biggest sell out even above "Miss Lumpy".

>how
money :^)
Pic related: a letter to the Rolling Stone by Slick Grace about not selling out (irony)

They wanted Debbie to sing lead vocals on WLAE but the record label wouldn't let them. Also they were forced to use professional songwriters on that album.

Outkast, although their sell out material isn't that bad.

U2

Wasn't their debut album a very mainstream and middle-of-the-road blend of soul, pop and rock already?

Bruce fucking Springsteen.

>The River was the first time he went commercial, then he went hella commercial with BITUSA
>using an American flag for the cover and making a song about a disillusioned Vietnam vet which sounds like a patriotic anthem to those who didn't read the lyrics (ie. most people)
>using synths for maximum commercial appeal
>also looking like Rambo with a headband and his newly-buffed biceps

He followed Jon Landau's formula to make sure not to lose ONE single possible fan (read: buyer of product). Jon Landau previously had talked the MC5 into abandoning their political stance and to follow their rock star ambitions and also to forget about John Sinclair, convinced them Sinclair was holding them back, and just forget him guys, let him rot in jail; and then he produced that horribly thin album, of Back In The U.S.A., where one of the most powerful band's sound was "streamlined" and one of emaciation. I'm a huge Springsteen fan, but Jon Landau is the worst.

There's a great book called Mansion On The Hill by Fred Goodman.

My dad saw the Bangles on the '87 tour. Great set until they start lip-syncing WLAE. It was so fucking embarrassing he said people actually walked out of the place.

To be honest, I thought that there was nothing left of the original JA on Knee Deep In The Hoopla except Grace Slick. Kantner, Balin, and the rest were all gone by that time.

His musical journey is one of the most unusual and interesting ever.

>Metallica
Going grunge...cheap fad riding is cheap.

Huh? TBA isn't grunge, it's a diluted version of their 80s sound with stadium rock production.

They were good as Karas Flowers and Songs About Jane was a good album but after record lables saw what they could be, they were done for.

Arguing over TBA has been done to death and there's no reason to rehash those arguments.

I will however say that TBA has absolutely great mixing considering how lousy metal albums tend to sound.

>almost 70 posts
>nobody's mentioned Liz Phair

Van Halen post-1984.

Naw, they didn't sell out, they just ran out of ideas (and DLR). 1984 was their big commercial breakout but the album still has balls-busting heavy rock on the non-single tracks.

Oh, and the awful mixes that went with the BITUSA 12" singles. This was more than "the record company just doing their job", particularly for an artist who has always had a lot to say about artistic freedom/integrity.

U2, later career Santana, and Paul McCartney trying so lamely to look hip and do collabs with Kanye on "New".

Uggh. Aerosmith should have just ended with the 70s.

Neil Young when he did Harvest Moon.

That's an example of trying to sell out and failing at it.

>hire Avril Lavigne's producers
>do an album cover that would embarrass Hugh Hefner
>lose her alternative fanbase
>and didn't convert any AL fans

youtu.be/ah4r1IDfqgc

To be fair, this was not entirely her fault. Matador Records was bought out by Capitol who forced her to go in a more commercial direction and rejected a bunch of material she'd recorded.

...

The Offspring sold out twice, the first was on Smash where they became significantly poppier and upbeat (but it worked), and second time was on "Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace" where they inexplicably became all serious and pandered to the alt-rock/emo scene.

Having listened to all their stuff I think Green Day were always a pop band but it's interesting, prior to Dookie they obviously had some underground punk cred because they were lambasted for signing to a major label, and prior to American Idiot, all the skate kids thought they were 'their band', but as soon as 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams' came out, that was it, the emo kids could have them.

Linkin Park also pandered to the alt-rock/emo scene with Minutes To Midnight, but precisely because of their soppiness, I quite like "Leave Out All The Rest" and "Shadow Of The Day". I just couldn't handle them at the time because I was this edgy metalfag and they were making wimpy pop music.

I would single out Bon Jovi. I remember hearing them admit to around the time of the New Jersey album playing songs for fans before deciding to put them out to make sure they were "radio friendly" and potential hits. Kind of like a focus group. Not exactly my idea of creativity and integrity.

>Muse
>Mastodon
>Deadmau5
>Killswitch Engage
>Bassnectar
>Diplo
>The National
>The Decemberists
>The Flaming Lips (Cyrus tour)
>Kayne West
To name some modern acts

Nah, Bon Jovi are like Kiss--they were always in it with the idea of being rock stars.

Sup.

Cheap Trick like a lot of 70s bands had a late 80s revival by going full-out MTV pop rock. Unlike Aerosmith, they only pulled it off for one album (Lap of Luxury) and the followup (Busted) bombed completely and ended their career as a viable commercial music act.

Definitely not as hard as others, and they made it work in Japan so all to them.

Ridiculous. Rush were always a band to wear their influences on their sleeves, and incorporate their influences in their songs. In the 80's, they were listening to The Police, U2, a ton of post-new wave bands, etc. Those influences come out in the production of Rush's 80's albums, but the songwriting sensibilities were always pure Rush. Power Windows remains one of their best efforts, and Signals has probably been on of their best-aging albums.

In fact, I'd call Rush the opposite of a sell-out. Moving Pictures II would surely have been another multi-platinum effort, and yet the band purposely took a left turn into territory that shed many of the fans they gained from 1979-81. How is that a sell-out?

Mindless Self Indulgence.
I mean, they were never great or anything but they sold out hard

youtube.com/watch?v=BugbuhqQ7pA
youtube.com/watch?v=qxhB_d1uYhw

How about Bob Dylan plugging IBM, Cadillacs, and women's lingerie?

Nirvana and In Flames, and pretty much any 90's rock/metal band

REO Speedwagon went from being a Midwestern country rock act to the worst corporate rock sludge.

Is it possible for an electronic band to sell out?

I'd give Aerosmith a pass because they hadn't been relevant in a decade when Permanent Vacation came out, were broke, and almost dead from drug addiction. They didn't have a lot of choice unlike REO Speedwagon or Metallica who made the deliberate decision to sell out for money.

nope, electronic music is intrinsically sold out

Oh, and you forgot her later post-music career selling schlocky paintings of white rabbits and Jimi Hendrix.

>Entire music genre is sold out
You need to listen deeper you pleb

T. Rex. Man, that was a huge fall from psychedelic folk pop to bubblegum pop rock for 11 year olds.

Remember when Within Temptation ripped off "Bring Me To Life"?

youtube.com/watch?v=gEgXDhiayz4

One word to explain that.
>Gay