What constitutes selling out for you?

[L4hlborg]

Replacing quality, uniqeness, and your original fans for quick cash. If someone wants to expand in terms of what they provide, I am fine with it if the quality remains and the original fans are not kicked to the curb like garbage. Metallica may have expanded there music variety, but that is not like they went from metal to kids pop. Why should the original fans be pissed?

Oh way, and making reboots/remakes that are nothing like the original except for character names.

This is quite true. I do believe Metallica did sell themselves a little when going to the Black album. The development so far was towards progressive metal, which is awesome. After that, they make a full turn to a very radio friendly music type, that I can hardly even concider any sort of metal. IMO it isn't very good, but it did make the band rich as hell. I don't know if it should be concidered selling themselves, I just think it was development towards the worse. It took them around 15 years to make an album I like after that.

 

[Mozared]

I mostly use the term when talking about bands who basically forego everything (musical quality, own believes, etc) in order for cash. Nelly Furtado's an excellent example; she used to make 'pop' music, but at least it was slightly original. The trend of the past few years has been dance-like pop music with 'daring' lyrics almost directly about sex, while ballads have to be about a lost love. Nelly Furtado has completely changed her style to follow that trend, and it seems all too obvious that she's only doing so for the money.

And there's Greenday as well. If you make a whole album about the stupidity of mass consumerism and then set up a huge marketing plan to make sure that album is sold far and wide to as many customers as possible, you're just being a hypocritic *****.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

When a band stops making music because they enjoy it and instead their production company tells them they can earn more money playing songs that someone else wrote for them. That is when a band has sold out. -cough-Jonas Brothers-cough-

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Selling out is merely when a band/artist stops doing the style they want in order to adopt a style that is more likely to bring in revenue. If the artist genuinely wants to use this other style and then gets more income, I'd consider it more of a smart creative choice. However, if it is clear that someone else wrote the songs for them, or whatever, and they're just playing it to become famous/popular, then they're sell outs.

 

[hermes]

To me, selling out is not believing in your own morals, and selling your beliefs for cash. Nothing more, nothing less.

I quite agree, this and only this. Doing something you don't want to in order to gain money, is selling out.

Selling out also means something that you always stand against (or said you did), but doing it when the oportunity presents for economic reasons.
It is not so much about what they want as to what they say they wanted and what they stand for to their fans, it is more a synonym of hypocresy than of extenuating circumstances... Meaning, most bands/people that sold out did it willingly and voluntarily.