For me, hearing Who songs in commercials is always cringe-worthy, so Pete Townshend gets first nod, although I don’t despise him now, as some of my friends do. Also, hearing Peter Coyote do commercial voiceovers for everything under the sun, while recalling he was one of the founding members of the Diggers, is cause for concern. But my most recent mindblower has got to be the Dennis Hopper ads for Ameriprise Financial…truly nauseating.
(Note: I’m fully aware that many celebrities are lured into hawking Japanese products, knowing their rep won’t be as sullied back in their homeland - mention of those can be included here, but I’m more curious about your heroes…)
I couldn’t agree with you more about Dennis Hopper - what a tool.
As a musician, I really don’t have the issue you have with Townshend. He has never come across as anything other than someone who wants to get his music heard. Commercial placements are one way of doing that.
I’d rather he didn’t, but have no problem with him choosing to…
I truly hope this won’t be seen as threadshitting because I don’t mean it that way, but…
How can a celebrity “sellout”? They’re entertainers who get paid to entertain. How does doing a voice-over for a commercial impact that? It’s not like Degas was going to paint lilies, but decided to change them to mums because the Florist’s Association thought that would go better for Mother’s Day. For that matter, how much “art” was created as a commissioned or directed piece? How is that different?
There’s been a recent spate of celebrities appearing in commercials in the UK - clearly the Japanese market isn’t able to support them all. Most offensive to me recently have been John Lydon selling butter and, most egregious of all, Iggy Pop is currently appearing in a number of insurance adverts.
Consenting to have your songs used in a commercial is not “selling out”, in my opinion. Someone who dumbs down the music that s/he makes in an attempt to appeal to a larger audience & make more money is a sellout.
Of course, that’s just me. People hawking Microsoft on the side aren’t really changing their primary artistic output.
How is Dennis Hopper, a professional actor, appearing in a commercial and getting paid for it any more selling out than a professional carpenter making a table and getting paid for it? Do you get disappointed every time you walk past a restaurant and mutter to yourself “The chef in there, a total sell out”.
I think the whole concept of an artistic “sellout” is a slippery slope. For instance, punk bands used to rage against the machine, the “establishment” as it were, and play to that small subset of real music fans who turned their back on popular culture and mass-produced artists. Then the punk bands became more popular, and ultimately became the mass-produced artists. But they still played the same music. The Clash? Green Day? I’m lookin’ at you.
So they became their worst enemies, in a way. Eventually they realized- hey, this isn’t such a bad gig. We play the music we like and we actually get paid for it, so now we can afford tour buses and new equipment and nice hotel rooms, and at the end of the tour we can go home to our houses, instead of sharing a room in a flophouse like we used to do.
They’re artists and they reap the benefits of having their art experienced by more and more people. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Dennis Hopper has pretty well established himself by this point. Someone wants to offer him a nice payday for a couple hours to film a commercial? Let’s see… a big fat check like that will help offset the royalties from Easy Rider, which seem to be trailing off these days… it’s a no-brainer.
Because certain performers rose to stardom by tapping into the anti-authoritarian youth market. It’s cool to flip the bird at “The Man” and rise to the top on raw talent and charisma. But, as many have found, it’s much harder to write edgy songs or remain enraged with the system while watching the help polish your Porsche. Those who elect to give up their youthful angst for the comfort of a steady paycheck (read: those who succumb to having their lifestyles underwritten by corporations) are often derided as “sellouts” by those among their fans who see such behavior as evidence of a lack of principals.
I second the people who don’t view appearing in commercials as “selling out”. It has to be their primary artistic output. Or if they themselves have spoken against doing something, which they then do.
Manowar, when they released an album they themselves would’ve called “false metal.”
Robert De Niro for the lame comedies.
Queen for putting synthesizers on their 80s albums.
Who decides which music is “dumbed down”? For instance, I used to be friends with a guy who hated the Goo Goo Dolls because they used to be more of a metal band (apparently, I haven’t heard their early stuff) but then went to more of a pop sound and sold tons of albums. My response was “How do you know they didn’t just realize they were a lot better at making pop music?”
I mean, it’s not like just anyone can make tons of money by becoming a pop star (as we see from the many failed American Idol contestants). If someone succeeds in making tons of money off of it, isn’t it evidence they had a genuine, rare talent for making pop music? Why is choosing to do something they’re abnormally gifted at a bad thing?
I guess I can see the point if they’d spent their whole career to that point saying “pop music sucks” or “making money is evil”, but not every alternative artist feels that way. If they never said anything against it, it’s not hypocritical.
Agreed. Like with the aforementioned Liz Phair example - I adored her first album, liked the next two, and just Did Not Like the rest. I bitched about her selling out, too. Then I heard an interview with her on NPR where she talked about the fans who just took it so deeply personally that she’d “sold out”, when she thought of it as exploring a different sound, and I felt stupid.
If you want to change what you’re doing with your life because you just don’t enjoy what you’ve been doing or think you need a change/want to expand your horizons, then you’d feel pretty awful too if people screamed at you for selling out.
It doesn’t mean you’re bound to keep buying their stuff, of course, if you don’t enjoy it. Metaphorically wish them well, maybe they’ll find a new audience who appreciates the work, who knows. But I’m not going to wave around the “sellout” epithet at Phair any longer, no matter how much I miss the rough guitar and vocals from Exile in Guyville.
