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Would you consider this selling out?

I never cared for them anyway, so meh.
 
Weezer hasn't made a good album in about 10 years, so I could care less.
 
Selling out? That's funny.

If you make your living as a musician, you are selling out each and every time you put on a show, release and album, or charge some emo 14 year old $45 for a crappy t-shirt from your website.

Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained to me how allowing art to be commercially viable somehow deteriorates the credibility of the artist.

Of course, I make my living as an artist, so I'm a sellout too.
 
Bronco70 said:
Nobody has ever satisfactorily explained to me how allowing art to be commercially viable somehow deteriorates the credibility of the artist.
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Because art is usually pouring your self/soul into the senses (like on a canvas or music). It's visualizing your own creative ideas.

However, when you are making "art" commercially viable, you are then following a formula for success, losing your own artistic integrity and leaving out your "soul" of the entire process. It's very mechanical, and is less involved with your own creativity.

It's easy to see why one would respect the former over the latter, why it's harder to be inspired by the latter, and that's what selling out is.

And yes, Weezer are are nearly the definition of selling out, although their music has always been yearning for commercial success anyway, it just has gotten worse.
 
It's absolutely selling out. But Weezer ceased to exist back in 1998 when the underrated and unknown Matt Sharp left the band. These people sold out a long time ago, but the Weezer of Blue and Pinkerton will always be close to my heart.
 
Craig K. Manscill said:
However, when you are making "art" commercially viable, you are then following a formula for success, losing your own artistic integrity and leaving out your "soul" of the entire process. It's very mechanical, and is less involved with your own creativity.
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That's pretty presumptuous. I would also say it extremely general and dismissive. Absolutely there are cases where artists betray their true vision to make a buck, but it is nonsense to assert that anything that is commercially viable is automatically soulless and creatively vacant.
 
Well, obviously not completely, but the more you put in your mind how the "public" will take your art or how "commercially viable" it is, the less it is about creativity and your own vision.
 
Do what you like, if you can make money off it more power to you. If you decide to do what you are good at to make money, I say go for it. It has nothing to do with a "creative soul" it is just the choices people make. Trying to say there is some kind of standard for "true art" is ridiculous. Art is different to each person who creates it and each person who enjoys it (or not). No one can say that someone who decides to make commercially viable art has "sold out" or has lost their creative vision. That is the height of arrogance to make an assumption or statement like that. Only the individual knows if he or she has sold out what they believe. You cannot tell that from the amount of money they may make on it or where you see it. To someone that cool billboard, or jingle, or modified popular song for a commercial, may be their greatest pride as an artist, or may have just been a fun way to make some money. Whatever. More power to them.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Do what you like, if you can make money off it more power to you. If you decide to do what you are good at to make money, I say go for it. It has nothing to do with a "creative soul" it is just the choices people make. Trying to say there is some kind of standard for "true art" is ridiculous. Art is different to each person who creates it and each person who enjoys it (or not). No one can say that someone who decides to make commercially viable art has "sold out" or has lost their creative vision. That is the height of arrogance to make an assumption or statement like that. Only the individual knows if he or she has sold out what they believe. You cannot tell that from the amount of money they may make on it or where you see it. To someone that cool billboard, or jingle, or modified popular song for a commercial, may be their greatest pride as an artist, or may have just been a fun way to make some money. Whatever. More power to them.
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spoken like a sell-out. The question, then, is "Who isn't?" Me, I never made a penny off my art, and nobody has ever seen it or heard it either. All mine, mine, mine, mine. And I'm a sellout to my own vanity, and I sell out for nothing.

Seriously, there's been a lot of commercials sung by the best artists money can buy, and we all listen, and then go out and buy the products. I always understood that in terms of everybody needs to make a living somehow. This is a pure commercial with no pretensions of being anything but that.

I say live and let live.
 
babe said:
spoken like a sell-out. The question, then, is "Who isn't?" Me, I never made a penny off my art, and nobody has ever seen it or heard it either. All mine, mine, mine, mine. And I'm a sellout to my own vanity, and I sell out for nothing.

Seriously, there's been a lot of commercials sung by the best artists money can buy, and we all listen, and then go out and buy the products. I always understood that in terms of everybody needs to make a living somehow. This is a pure commercial with no pretensions of being anything but that.

I say live and let live.
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Pretty sure that is what I said. Now I am confused. Thanks a lot.
 
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