Nicole Seymour Seymour is in a band
called The Blood Arm. E-mail her at [email protected].
Click Here for more articles by Nicole Seymour
It’s a really old story that gets retold every few months,
when the Next Big Thing goes from virtual unknown to household
““ or at least campus ““ name. It happened when Bob Dylan
first plugged in an electric guitar, and the audience booed him
offstage. It happened when No Doubt became an “overnight
success” you could hear on KIIS, KOST, Star 98.7 and KROQ. It
happened a few months ago when Modest Mouse hopped from the tiny
indie label Up to Epic Records. And every time it happens, there
are the same predictable reactions: critics call it a loss of
integrity, fans act as if they just lost one of their best friends
and, of course, at some point, the label “sellout” will
be slapped on the artist.
While in many cases this may seem like a heartfelt, passionate
reaction to how a band’s style or status has changed,
it’s often nothing more than a fundamentally skewed vision of
how art and the artist should function, and a selfish, not to
mention immature, conception of fanhood. Even worse, often these
cries of “sellout” are lobbed around with no
understanding or appreciation of a band’s goals and
circumstances, by the very same people who purport to be their
biggest fans.
The hubbub usually happens in underground or hometown circles,
when bands that were formerly on small record labels, on no labels
at all, or simply had previously small-but-loyal followings get a
lot of press, get major label deals, or start having their video
played on MTV (or make a video at all!). Fans get angry,
disappointed, self-righteous and begin to complain; a lot of them
even stop listening. A large part of this is due to the misguided
notion that fans own the bands, or that the bands exist solely to
serve their fans. In fact, we even call them “our”
favorite bands.
While a personal connection with the music is probably what
makes people feel this way, it’s unfair to expect a band to
follow anyone else’s artistic or aesthetic dictates besides
its own. Moreover, if bands followed such expectations, it would
lead to a compromised artistic vision and to repetitive music. The
same albums would keep getting made because previous albums were
loved by fans, and no artists would experiment because they would
fear alienating their listeners.
 Illustration by ZACH LOPEZ/Daily Bruin Of course,
it’s hard to blame fans when they start becoming possessive,
disappointed or even jealous because bands have changed, expanded
or grown. What a lot of fans of underground or
previously-not-famous musicians have that people who like, say,
Britney Spears or Eminem don’t have, is access to their
musicians ““ you can see them with just 50 other people in the
room, you can walk up to them and tell them how much you like their
music, and you may even find yourself washing your hands next to
them in the bathroom at a club. It’s naturally hard to be a
fan on this level when they start playing stadiums where
you’d be ejected for even trying to get within 100 feet of
them. But this doesn’t excuse people from invalidating a
band’s work or progress by simplistically accusing them of
“selling out.”
For one thing, when people make these kinds of accusations,
often it’s due to more than just a loss of access or that
refreshing one-on-one feeling. There is an undeniable element of
snobbery to it. You are no longer “special,”
“unique,” “cool” or “cutting
edge” because you like a band that just you, your friends and
people in a certain “scene” like.
You now like a band that ““ oh horror! ““ the masses
like, that anyone might know about. (These “anyones”
are apparently not perceived as good enough to enjoy
“your” band.) Your coolness points go down, along with
your ability to impress people by being the first to know who
so-and-so are. Therefore, of course, the reaction is hostile, the
response a backlash and a name-calling fest.
Sometimes the issue goes beyond simple underground provinciality
to a lack of empathy for these bands, especially when it comes to
issues like money and access to production. A lot of the bands that
get accused of “selling out” were previously on small
labels where they were paid little or nothing and received little
recognition for their work. To call someone a “sellout”
simply because they no longer have to struggle is to demonize this
same band or artist for doing what most of us would do ““
thankfully accept the opportunity to do what we love and be
rightfully rewarded for it.
What’s probably most disturbing is that it is often young,
privileged suburbanites who levy these accusations of
“selling out.” Such fans have never had to hold day
jobs on top of being an unrecognized or uncompensated fledgling
musician. Such fans have never had to deal with scraping together
barely enough money to play gigs in tiny, run-down clubs, and end
up losing money.
They fail to recognize that, while art should never be about
money, sometimes it’s nice to get some for doing it,
especially in a culture that undervalues and even devalues it.
Accusing a band of “selling out” also undermines and
discounts artists’ own visions and desires, substituting what
“their” fans assume the artist wants for the
artist’s actual desires. For example, when Elliott Smith was
“discovered” by Steven Spielberg, Jefferey Katzenberg
and David Geffen and picked as one of Dreamworks’ first
record releases, his music went from the mostly acoustic, sometimes
home-recorded music of his three previous albums to occasionally
bouncy tunes complete with pianos, drums and strings.
The “selling out” process might appear inevitable
““ artist gets more money, starts playing for “the
Man,” making more accessible, poppier music. But few fans
take into account the possibility that Smith and other artists
whose music have changed or whose production values improved once
they got on a major label never shunned these things ““ they
just never had the economic and cultural cachet necessary to
achieve them.
Of course, this is not to say that fans are obligated to like a
band or artist whose music has changed or become more mainstream
over time. I have frequently lost interest in bands that have
undergone these changes, but not because I think they no longer
have integrity or that they care more about money than anything
else. It’s simply more mature and more respectful to the
artists to accept the fact that you no longer like their style and
move on.
What’s not mature, what’s not respectful, and
what’s wholly unfair is labeling them “sellouts”
or questioning their principles, simply because they’ve made
certain decisions for themselves. It may be hard to part with a
band when you’ve considered yourself “their” fan,
but that’s what art and personal opinion ““ not to
mention growing up ““ is all about.