How about Wes Anderson directing Ikea commercials?
India Arie in GAP commercials.
Hello everyone, I’m a newbie 
I think the Sex Pistols reforming to do the Filthy Lucre tour was a bit of a sell-out.
Being a huge Damned fan, I think there’s nothing wrong with a band reforming to do a reunion tour when they’re a bit low on cash, and if like me and you got into them after they ‘split up’, at least you get to see a band you wouldn’t have had the chance to otherwise.
But in John Lydon’s autobiography, he repeatedly said ‘No reunions. It won’t happen. No way. Uh-uh.’ I guess its an aging punk’s perogative to change his mind- but they got Glen Matlock to play bass??? After all the things John said about him? (i.e. he was a total moron who wanted to be in the Bay City Rollers.)
And songs in adverts aside, at least the Clash never did play Top of the Pops! 
Um… I completely fail to see how him being in a tv show counts as selling out. I think he’s PERFECT as a host for that show, and it looks fun as hell. Why does that count as selling out?
Really, people are too hasty to call artists “sell-outs” for making money. Simply because they’ve begun to make money doesn’t necessarily mean they’re somehow lesser for it…
I think when a lot of people call someone a sell-out, it’s only because they want to distance themselves from something that’s suddenly popular in order for them to retain some kind of perceived coolness (“Dude! Metallica has totally sold out with their black album!” “Way! Not as much as Aerosmith, man!”).
Hell, Ozzy has been a sell-out ever since he left Black Sabbath, if you go by the definition used in this thread.
As for Henry Rollins…seriously, he hasn’t done anything of musical importance in a long time. I thought he was concentrating on standup and acting?
First making money != selling out.
Second, I heard ‘Crazy Train’ played before the kickoff on multiple football games yesterday. Does that make Ozzy a sellout? Nope.
Ozzy is Ozzy. The fact that the TV show took off doesn’t really matter. Ozzy is the God of Heavy Metal because he just does his thing. He has been around for 30 years because he has never sold out. If Ozzy went Disco in the 70’s or went Grunge in the 90’s, then he would be selling out. He didn’t. He just kept on being himself and writing his music.
On the Metallica issue. I remember James Hetfield saying “Hey, we aren’t a bunch of angry teens anymore” about the change in their music. It happens, people grow up. Growing up is not selling out. If Metallica started rapping, then I’d say they sold out. But growing musically is not selling out. If you don’t like the direction they take, fine, but don’t assume that they are selling their souls for money. Hell, Metallica doesn’t need anymore money.
Slee
How did Busta sell out?
Oh, the show’s entertaining, but as with Diogenes’s comments about Ozzy, Rollins is definately defanged in the show. There’s no insane screeds by Rollins, and much of what he says could be spoken by just about any color commentator. Rollins seems more concerned with showing that he’s “safe” to cast in something, rather than the witty, erudite, ranting fiend he presents in his spoken word performances.
But Sleestak, if we both saw the same interview, didn’t Hetfield also make a comment that the earlier work (as angry teens) was not as good as their current work. Find a better song on written by Hetfield than Fade to Black.
I think the problem with Metallica is that they became very popular without virtually any radio play and without MTV (until the One video). When they finaly reached that level on their own (and thanks to dedicated fans) instead of maintaining that status it seems they joined the “machine”. The change in their music style seemed to coincide with the MTV popularity.
Hell, I remember when MTV first played the One video. They started off playing the entire song/video for the first week or so and then kept reducing the length because it was too long. Metallica had said the whole purpose of making the video was the way it interacted with the movie Johnny Got His Gun. Now their videos are just the right length for MTV.
My vote is for sell out.
Lauren Becall shlepping Arby’s Christmas glasses.
I don’t know how much this counts as a sell-out, but I was seriously embarrassed for Val Kilmer in his digital camera ad (I can’t remember the name of it; maybe Kodak?). He looks awful, smiles entirely too much, and I thought I caught a hint of desperation in his eyes. I guess it’s more of a shameful celebrity shill.
I remember when Metallica’s [Black] album came out. We were all pretty disappointed. They still make decent music as far as radio fare is concerned, but to me they’ll never be the same band they were on Master of Puppets. Is that selling out? I don’t know. They definitely underwent a huge change in personal style and musical style. This style appealed to a larger range of people. Without someone in the band definitively saying, “Hey, we only did this for the money” it could never be conclusive, but, yeah, they seem to fit the “selling out” prototype.
Green Day’s style radically changed on Dookie. I liked Dookie. But it was a huge change from their older albums. Of course this went with a label change. Some say, “Coincidence? I think not.” Now, is this how Green Day always wanted to sound but Lookout!'s sound studios (or wherever they went for recording) couldn’t make it? I dunno. The content of their songs also changed. But it went from high school rants about girls to more “mature” matter. Again, content change. Again, “Coincidence?” Again, no way to tell short of the band saying so. But, most people I know count them as sell-outs.
Nirvana’s “Bleach” album, released on the indie label Sub Pop, is way different from their later work. But I don’t know many that consider Nirvana to be sell-outs.
Anyway, IMO, the term “sell-out” applies to bands that achieve popularity through a signing of a major label and (I don’t say “and or” because it never works the “or” way) a change of content, music-wise, lyric-wise, and often appearance-wise. Often this change, even discounting popularity itself, ostracizes original fans. But, since I would hazard a guess that all major-label bands probably came from somewhere, that is, from some smaller indie label, most major-label bands would then be sell-outs.
I even know people that think that way. So what can I say?
Just to give you an idea, the catalogue of songs to which Michael Jackson owns the rights is rumoured to include 300,000 works (no, that isn’t a typo, three hundred thousand). If you take into account the early songs released by artists (the rights to which are more than likely owned by the record label which took a chance on releasing them), there are an awful lot of well known songs out there which the writer/original performer has absolutely no control over.
Ahh, since you liked Metallica in their teen years you seem to think that Metallica sold out by growing up. Get a life. Metallica grew up. Growing includes changes. If you don’t like those changes that is fine but accussing Metallica of selling out just because you are stuck in ‘Angry Teenage’ mode and Metallica didn’t stay there is just stupid.
Slee
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned Sting. ‘I care about the rainforests for a while! Later, I forget about them and do commercials for cars!’ Hypocrite much?
Having commercial success, IMO, is not the same as selling out your principles. I don’t resent one, but I do resent the other.
Oh, and I hate hearing some song I love, that meant something at some point, used to sell something. Buzzcock’s ‘What Do I Get?’ Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’. Isley Brothers’ ‘It’s Your Thing’. You get desensitised to them. You don’t appreciate them anymore. Irritates the fuck out of me.
Gah. Make that ‘Buzzcocks’’. I hate misplaced apostrophes.
James Garner is selling out by doing voiceovers? He has been doing commercials for almost 50 years, including a memorable series of 250 Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley in the '70’s and '80’s.
He’s no sellout, just a true working actor who gives his all to whatever role he’s playing.
He’s been doing Mountain Dew commercials.
Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) doing KFC commercials. Doesn’t he have enough money? Is he just trying to keep in the public eye? I don’t get it.
Here is a pretty good discussion of Metallica and the varying definitions of ‘selling out.’
As for Busta, it’s not the Mountain Dew commercials that bother me as much as the complete abandonment of what seemed to be the artistic integrity of his early career. He’s reduced to participating in hack jobs like “Pass the Courvosier” and rhyming endlessly about how you should either “Break ya Neck” or “Make a Hand Clap” when you listen to his soulless raps. Of course he had to leave behind the theme of his first couple of records, since the world didn’t end at the millenial changeover, but did he have to throw over the style that he showed in “Put Your Hands Where My Eye Could See” for the lame Sean John mimickry that he’s into now?