7 Big Rock Bands That Are Open About Being Sellouts
Aug 25, 2020 9:23:06 GMT -5
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Post by AeroCooper on Aug 25, 2020 9:23:06 GMT -5
7 Big Rock Bands That Are Open About Being Sellouts
These guys are doing it for the money and they are not ashamed of it.
While "selling out" or putting monetary gains before the artistic value of the music is usually deemed as a bad thing, there are a number of bands and artists who don’t share the notion and openly seek profit wherever they can. Notably, those who succeed in selling out don’t get ostracised as much as those who try and fail. Let’s take a look at 7 bands that put money first and had no regrets about it.
Aerosmith
Despite having the same line-up with Steven Tyler hitting those instantly recognizable high notes and Joe Perry’s brilliant guitar work, Aerosmith circa 1976 is a very different band from the one we heard in the ‘90s and ‘00s. While in the early days, the band had a heavily blues-influenced rock sound, in their later years they’ve realized you can have a lot more money if you lean a bit into the world of pop and more digestible music. It began with a very fruitful collaboration with Run D.M.C. and continued on with the famous videos for "Crazy" and "Cryin’" featuring Alicia Silverstone. However, the pinnacle of their success and money-making was the soundtrack for the movie "Armageddon" — the iconic "I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing" that showed the true power of mainstream music.
Bring Me the Horizon
Things are not exactly clear with Bring Me the Horizon. The British band started out playing straight-up deathcore with maybe 2 minutes worth of melody on the whole album, then making a huge step into more of a mainstream direction with 2013’s "Sempiternal" where we’ve heard much more of Oli Sykes’ singing voice along with softer arrangements and a more produced sound. But even that shift couldn’t prepare fans for "Amo" that made Linkin Park-ish "That’s the Spirit" sound like death metal. That doesn’t mean the shift in style didn’t have a positive impact on the band. Despite losing some of those deathcore fans, Bring Me the Horizon gained so many more listeners, it didn’t even matter. New electronic sound appealed to a much wider audience that otherwise would have passed on them.
Metallica
This is a hard one since Metallica has both prioritized money over "staying true to their original sound" and continued creating new music and experimenting (not always leading to financial gains). Yet the sheer fact that Metallica became a multi-million dollar corporate entity with motion pictures, hundreds of employees, and very focused vision in terms of profits makes them a worthy addition here. The band had the attempts of making more commercially viable records with "Load" and "Re-Load" but they were not as popular as expected, just like "St. Anger" which saw the band walking into almost Nu-metal territory. In the end, they’ve figured out that the best way to succeed and become more viable is to be larger than life, and that’s what they did. Concert movies playing in cinemas, a show in Antarctica, unique live performances, and much more that made Metallica the biggest band in the world, surpassing even their more mainstream competition. In the end, guys in the band are proud of what they have accomplished and that they don’t have to grind anymore to make ends meet.
Yes
Starting off as a jazzy band partially doing cover versions of famous songs, Yes grew into a progressive rock powerhouse with albums like 1971’s "Fragile" cementing their legacy as one of the most influential bands in the genre. Yet, by 1980, the inner turmoil has torn the band apart and the original members have gone their separate ways. Chris Squire and Alan White decided to form a new, more pop-oriented project under the name Cinema that would see the two write shorter radio-friendly songs with the US market as the target audience. When they added Jon Anderson as the vocalist and Tony Kaye (the original keyboard player for Yes) to their line-up, they were coerced to change the band name to Yes, although that was not the initial idea. The new pop sound worked miracles though, and the "90125" album they came back with became their absolute best selling one outperforming their best progressive rock attempts by a large margin. It’s safe to say the band had no regrets and second guessings as they continued on with the style for several more albums.
Nickelback
Nickelback have been the butt of many jokes for quite some time now, starting from the quality of their music and ending with Chad Kroeger’s plastic surgeries. The truth of the matter is, that Nickelback adapted their sound to the widest possible audience so well, they are stamping hits with every new album. Even the fact that people love to hate Nickelback is playing in their favor as it’s creating free publicity with every new meme and mention. And the more people hear their generic Canadian brand of alternative rock, the more listeners the band gets. Kroeger himself is unapologetic for the shift the band made after the success of their single "This Is How You Remind Me" claiming that he can just write catchy hit songs better than others and it’s really hard to argue with him.
Genesis
Genesis mirrors Yes in many aspects and these bands are here for very similar reasons. Coincidentally, it is another major British progressive rock band that began with creating some of the most influential albums of the genre in the ‘70s and later refocusing on the US market with shorter more pop-oriented songs and electronic sound. After Peter Gabriel left the band in 1975 after creating the powerful "The Lamb Dies on Broadway", Phil Collins took over the vocal duties and over the course of a couple of subsequent Genesis albums changed the style of the band to a much more commercially viable one. He didn’t hide the fact that monetary gains influenced the decision to stray away from long progressive compositions and into simpler pop-rock arrangements.
Kiss
Well, of course, they are here. The band that has become the epitome of selling out and who did it for the sole purpose of becoming rich and famous from the get-go. But let’s give credit where credit’s due — no one can touch Kiss when it comes to marketing themselves. The four musicians from New York City have never written anything as iconic as what the Beatles or Led Zeppelin came up with, but boy did they know how to use every opportunity to make the most out of their efforts. Attempt after attempt, Kiss tried everything from releasing four solo albums under the Kiss name, to writing a grunge album when it was a thing in the ‘90s, to releasing comics and video games, to selling branded toilet paper. You can admire or hate their practices, but the results are undeniable, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley can never work again for the rest of their life. As a matter of fact, that’s what they intend to do after the final farewell tour is over.
www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/7_big_rock_bands_that_are_open_about_being_sellouts-110153
These guys are doing it for the money and they are not ashamed of it.
While "selling out" or putting monetary gains before the artistic value of the music is usually deemed as a bad thing, there are a number of bands and artists who don’t share the notion and openly seek profit wherever they can. Notably, those who succeed in selling out don’t get ostracised as much as those who try and fail. Let’s take a look at 7 bands that put money first and had no regrets about it.
Aerosmith
Despite having the same line-up with Steven Tyler hitting those instantly recognizable high notes and Joe Perry’s brilliant guitar work, Aerosmith circa 1976 is a very different band from the one we heard in the ‘90s and ‘00s. While in the early days, the band had a heavily blues-influenced rock sound, in their later years they’ve realized you can have a lot more money if you lean a bit into the world of pop and more digestible music. It began with a very fruitful collaboration with Run D.M.C. and continued on with the famous videos for "Crazy" and "Cryin’" featuring Alicia Silverstone. However, the pinnacle of their success and money-making was the soundtrack for the movie "Armageddon" — the iconic "I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing" that showed the true power of mainstream music.
Bring Me the Horizon
Things are not exactly clear with Bring Me the Horizon. The British band started out playing straight-up deathcore with maybe 2 minutes worth of melody on the whole album, then making a huge step into more of a mainstream direction with 2013’s "Sempiternal" where we’ve heard much more of Oli Sykes’ singing voice along with softer arrangements and a more produced sound. But even that shift couldn’t prepare fans for "Amo" that made Linkin Park-ish "That’s the Spirit" sound like death metal. That doesn’t mean the shift in style didn’t have a positive impact on the band. Despite losing some of those deathcore fans, Bring Me the Horizon gained so many more listeners, it didn’t even matter. New electronic sound appealed to a much wider audience that otherwise would have passed on them.
Metallica
This is a hard one since Metallica has both prioritized money over "staying true to their original sound" and continued creating new music and experimenting (not always leading to financial gains). Yet the sheer fact that Metallica became a multi-million dollar corporate entity with motion pictures, hundreds of employees, and very focused vision in terms of profits makes them a worthy addition here. The band had the attempts of making more commercially viable records with "Load" and "Re-Load" but they were not as popular as expected, just like "St. Anger" which saw the band walking into almost Nu-metal territory. In the end, they’ve figured out that the best way to succeed and become more viable is to be larger than life, and that’s what they did. Concert movies playing in cinemas, a show in Antarctica, unique live performances, and much more that made Metallica the biggest band in the world, surpassing even their more mainstream competition. In the end, guys in the band are proud of what they have accomplished and that they don’t have to grind anymore to make ends meet.
Yes
Starting off as a jazzy band partially doing cover versions of famous songs, Yes grew into a progressive rock powerhouse with albums like 1971’s "Fragile" cementing their legacy as one of the most influential bands in the genre. Yet, by 1980, the inner turmoil has torn the band apart and the original members have gone their separate ways. Chris Squire and Alan White decided to form a new, more pop-oriented project under the name Cinema that would see the two write shorter radio-friendly songs with the US market as the target audience. When they added Jon Anderson as the vocalist and Tony Kaye (the original keyboard player for Yes) to their line-up, they were coerced to change the band name to Yes, although that was not the initial idea. The new pop sound worked miracles though, and the "90125" album they came back with became their absolute best selling one outperforming their best progressive rock attempts by a large margin. It’s safe to say the band had no regrets and second guessings as they continued on with the style for several more albums.
Nickelback
Nickelback have been the butt of many jokes for quite some time now, starting from the quality of their music and ending with Chad Kroeger’s plastic surgeries. The truth of the matter is, that Nickelback adapted their sound to the widest possible audience so well, they are stamping hits with every new album. Even the fact that people love to hate Nickelback is playing in their favor as it’s creating free publicity with every new meme and mention. And the more people hear their generic Canadian brand of alternative rock, the more listeners the band gets. Kroeger himself is unapologetic for the shift the band made after the success of their single "This Is How You Remind Me" claiming that he can just write catchy hit songs better than others and it’s really hard to argue with him.
Genesis
Genesis mirrors Yes in many aspects and these bands are here for very similar reasons. Coincidentally, it is another major British progressive rock band that began with creating some of the most influential albums of the genre in the ‘70s and later refocusing on the US market with shorter more pop-oriented songs and electronic sound. After Peter Gabriel left the band in 1975 after creating the powerful "The Lamb Dies on Broadway", Phil Collins took over the vocal duties and over the course of a couple of subsequent Genesis albums changed the style of the band to a much more commercially viable one. He didn’t hide the fact that monetary gains influenced the decision to stray away from long progressive compositions and into simpler pop-rock arrangements.
Kiss
Well, of course, they are here. The band that has become the epitome of selling out and who did it for the sole purpose of becoming rich and famous from the get-go. But let’s give credit where credit’s due — no one can touch Kiss when it comes to marketing themselves. The four musicians from New York City have never written anything as iconic as what the Beatles or Led Zeppelin came up with, but boy did they know how to use every opportunity to make the most out of their efforts. Attempt after attempt, Kiss tried everything from releasing four solo albums under the Kiss name, to writing a grunge album when it was a thing in the ‘90s, to releasing comics and video games, to selling branded toilet paper. You can admire or hate their practices, but the results are undeniable, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley can never work again for the rest of their life. As a matter of fact, that’s what they intend to do after the final farewell tour is over.
www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/7_big_rock_bands_that_are_open_about_being_sellouts-110153