Metallica sold out with the No Life Til Leather tape - they were way cool before that, and then they had to go and put that piece of cheese out. And don’t get me started on them changing the name of their first album just to keep some record company happy …
(Actually, as I remember it, lots of folks at the time thought that Justice For All was too commercial and boring, and that the Black Album was the last nail in the coffin)
And Justice for All was so hate filled that I cant see how it would be close to being comercial. Its by far their angriest album.
Since we’re on a metal theme here…
Pat Boone 
Henry Rollins was also the host of a short-lived TV series, Shadow Realm, it was a bad Twilight Zone imitation. If he’s not a sell-out for doing a show like this or most of his film work, then I don’t see how co-hosting FMC qualifies him for sell-out status. Rollins was defanged to me after sitting through Johnny Mnemonic.
SandWriter, do you mean James Garner doing voice overs for car commercials? Garner has been a pitchman for a long time. His long-running series of commericals with Mariette Hartley for Polaroid in the 80s, for example.
David Brinkley shilling for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) was suprising and a little disappointing. Granted he had retired from his job as a journalist at that point, but it’s not like he was doing PSAs on behalf of a social cause he believed in or for a charitable foundation.
While cars are obviously not a boon to the environment, I can wholly understand a mindset which separates the issues presented by use of cars from the problems of deforestation, and the specific mission of the Rainforest Foundation which Sting created and continues to champion a decade later.
Plus, a lot of people support certain environmental concerns and not others. I may happily carry the banner of the World Wildlife Fund with diehard enthusiasm while considering the ideals of the Natural Resources Defense Council to be a farce, and the activism of Greenpeace or The Sierra Club to be repulsive.
In any case, the most pressing problem in rainforest areas has been clear cutting to claim land for other uses. This is what Sting has been fighting. So as long as Jaguar (which is owned by Ford IIRC) isn’t building cars or their components on what used to be forested land, I don’t think you can label Sting’s ads as hypocrisy.
Wasn’t it Lars from Metallica who when asked have they sold out said “Yeah, every night” - Prick that he is.
James Hetfield in a interview I’ve seen said that while he’s quite happy with where the band has gone he’s sure that if the J. Hetfield from 15years ago could come forward in time he’d kick the shit out of his present day self.
Master of Puppets, Ride the lightning etc all great albums then they released Justice for all. One was their first real video(Brilliant IMO) but that was the beginning of the end of the Metallica that I loved. Now there nothing but power ballads and watered down shite. Feh.
[Bill Hicks]
Suckers of Satan’s cock, every one of them
[/Bill Hicks]
I got a bit of a shock when I saw a Primal Scream song on a disc promoting Microsoft’s X-Box
Moby spent the early 90s producing ruff acid house and techno and got v little mainstream recognition.
Back then he was deffo ‘underground’ and non-commercial - he often recorded under different names to preserve the ‘purity’ of the music (eg. Voodoo Child, UHF etc). His early tunes were written strictly for the warehouse scene.
IMO he did his bit for the underground and ‘kept it real’ but didn’t get much monetary compensation for it. For me, it’s not such a problem that he sold his later tunes - he’d already shown he was underground, but we all have earn a living somehow!
I would also place the Prodigy into the same category - they were underground from 1990-1992, happened to produce a track (Charley Sez…) which did well in the charts (and unfortuntely spawned loads of hideous “cartoon rave” cash-ins) and then decided they wanted some dollars and went mainstream.
Fair play I reckon… I’d have done the same most likely 
Aerosmith rockin’ it for Best Buy
Krusty the Clown. I can’t respect him ever since he did those Canyonero commercials.
Billy Connolly. Now pimping for the idiot-tax lottery. For shame.
First of all Sleestak, this isn’t The Pit so watch the personal assaults. I made no comments towards you and I would appriciate the same. Unless you have a vested interest in Metallica you seem to be taking this more personal than you should.
Now I have no problem with the band growing musically but to regard their past work as inferior to thier current work is a cop out. I prefer their earlier work and to me that is them saying “What you liked and what we made in the past was crap.” Their inflated egos (Lars) don’t help either. You can become successful without trying to act better and cooler than you were or are.
I am also a Radiohead fan and if you know anything about them there last two albums were totally different musically from previous work. I do not think they sold out (others may feel differently). One quirk they have is that they won’t play Creep (a great song) in concert. However, they don’t play it because they think its crap but because they are more than a one song band. They will still gladly play other songs from their first album (Pablo Honey).
When did you start to listen to Metallica? What’s you favorite album? Least Favorite? If you didn’t become a fan until after their commercial radio and MTV success it is easy to see why you don’t think they sold out. That’s not a knock at you or any of their newer fans. Every band gets a larger fan base when they become more popular. Especially one that has been around this long. But if you were listening to them in the 80s I can’t see how you don’t see the change in their personalities. To me the change in music would be more acceptable if they kept their heads in the atmosphere. But I would still prefer their older music.
Yojimbo’s post says it best, even the band knows they sold out. They have accepted it and so have I.