The Who responded to allegations they sold out in licensing their songs to the CSI TV show franchise (CSI - “Who Are You?;” CSI: Miami - “Won’t Get Fooled Again;” CSI: NY - “Baba O’Riley”) by recording the song “Mike Post Theme” about the prolific composer of such TV themes as “The Rockford Files,” “The A-Team,” “Hill Street Blues,” and “Magnum, P.I.”
[QUOTE=Pete Townshend]
Who songs have been used recently for TV shows. I thought a lot about why there are people who feel that isn’t a cool thing to do. Mike Post is a man who has written a number of TV themes that I feel have created a kind of regular sparkle in my life– they have reminded me that life comes one day at a time, and that it is truly the little things in life (like Soap Operas on TV) that help ease the big troubles.
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Shakespeare was pretty commercial in his day. He was a very savvy businessman who made his plays had something for the educated people in the expensive seats and something for the groundlings standing in front. He also wasn’t the type to provoke authority or bite the hand that fed him.
Fair point. Artists like that aren’t likely to be accused of selling out in the first place, but people often assume they know what the artist’s intention are even if they have no way of knowing.
Developing a unique style or sound is the toughest part of becoming a successful musician. Sometimes it takes an outsider like a music producer to nail it down. I gave the Beatles example earlier. They’d spent years performing and just barely making a living. I mentioned Brian Epstein earlier. He gave them that distinctive look and sound that made them a huge hit on the Ed Sullivan show. Was it selling out or just being smart? They wanted huge success and they got it.
Meh. Their music stayed their own; and got more so as they experimented in the studio. Now if you want to discuss McCartney’s Ebony and Ivory duet with Stevie Wonder, you may have a case for a sellout. ;). Or, a bit more seriously, those tracks that were recorded for the Anthology series with old demo tracks John recorded - Free as a Bird and Real Love. They didn’t sound good and felt a little sellout-y as a result. I wish they’d just released the demos…
I think that’s an fairly good if succinct definition of “selling out”, but I think we can do better.
And here’s why Neil Young has not sold out, and why Rod Stewart has not sold out.
They have different goals, as you note, Exapno.
Rod Stewart just wants to be performing. He doesn’t care what he’s performing, as long as he’s onstage in front of people. So he does whatever it takes to realize that goal.
Neil Young just wants to make music that he wants to make. He doesn’t care if people like it as long as he likes it, so he does whatever it takes to realize that goal.
The difference between the two of them is that Rod Stewart could virtually never sell out while Neil Young could sell out, and that is because to Mr. Young, his integrity as an artist is more important to him than his acceptance by the public.
And that’s the real thing that makes someone a sellout: having a desire for integrity and then intentionally violating that integrity.
Paul McCartney has joked about the idea that the Beatles weren’t interested in commercial success. He said “John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool’.”
I read the Grantland review you linked to, and I didn’t really get the sell-out vibe that you did. More I got a “half-baked” and “grasping but not sure at what” vibe. Which, from my perspective, is understandable for this band and so many others of their kind.
The Wilson sisters are uber-giddy Zep mega-fans, plus Ann can nail the vocal pocket of Plant’s voice. And Nancy can play circles around Page. They’ve always done Zep covers for as long as I can remember.
I agree with the rest of your post, but not this part. Much respect to Nancy Wilson - she’s a groove machine - but she couldn’t bring what Page brought to Led Zeppelin.
But, it’s really Page’s brain that’s exceptional. I’m sure you or I can play anything his hands can do, but conceiving those solos and riffs in the first place is akin to magic.
True. It’s not what you steal, it’s what you do with it and how you share credit.
All music is in the brain first; that’s why I phrased my post the way I did - Page brought a complete package - writing, playing, producing, performing, etc - that made Zep what it was…
Many people think that The Black Album was where they lost some of their hardcore fans but it happened a couple of years earlier. I don’t remember any particular criticism of the song itself (they had done ballads before and the subject was appropriately bleak) but the fact that they were going to release a video raised quite an uproar in some circles.
I didn’t get it. I thought it was a non-issue. They were not writing an album of disco covers. Actually, I was delighted when I stumbled upon it one afternoon. You have to bear in mind that in the late 80’s, guitars were decidedly not cool. This was the sort of things that were popular: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KigNbUxx6X8. The message was clear: if you liked rock (or worse, metal) you were a pathetically out of date weirdo. Seeing Metallica on a regular show meant more people being exposed to good, real music.
I didn’t really have a problem with The Black Album either. Sure, it sounded different. No abrupt meter changes. James was… singing! But I had moved on musically by that time so it was no big deal for me. And again, I was happy that guitars and musicians really playing their instruments were fashionable again.
Megadeth took slow but steady downturn following Rust in Peace.
I’d conjecture this was in direct response to the success of The Black Album, and while it could be considered a success - Countdown to Extinction, Youthanasia, and Cryptic Writings all went platinum, IMO the quality and style of the music steadily deteriorated until bottoming out with the horrifically bad Risk. It’s my understanding that they have since returned to their original sound, but I, for one, have been permanently lost to them.
Amazing how they undervalued their work: I would think even the lowliest Lennon/McCartney song in their catalog is worth far more than a swimming pool. Now, if he said “Let’s write a $5 million revenue stream that the copyright owner can draw on for the next 50+ years”, that would have been about right.
If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many it’s research.
Wilson Mizner
This is pure hindsight. At the time a swimming pool was as much as they could have hoped to get. They had signed away publishing rights and almost everything else. They were receiving pennies on the dollar, when they got anything at all. Nor did they or anyone believe their music would be valuable 50 years in the future. They would change the culture to make the music valuable forever, but they couldn’t possibly know that in the early 1960s.
