How the Music Industries Killed “Selling Out”: Autopsy of a Concept

The concept of “selling out” has played a key role in popular music culture since the 1960s, when some forms of popular music began to be viewed as art, rather than mere entertainment. Used to describe the act of compromising artistic or political values for money or power, “selling out” has been applied to musicians who are seen to put money before the music, go against their values, or change their creative vision for a chance at commercial success. The phrase has been attached to different activities at particular moments in the history of popular music: across examples and time, proximity to brands, advertisers, and big corporations has often proven contentious for musicians claiming cultural autonomy and artistic freedom. Even for genres given more commercial leeway, partnering with a brand can be tricky territory. Nevertheless, from the 2000s, the use of the phrase “selling out” was in decline, a reflection of the growth of promotional culture and its impact on popular music culture, artist strategies, and the ways we experience music listening. With artists given little choice but to participate in the promotional machine in one way or another, the foundation of art versus commerce on which “selling out” had been built crumbled. In this chapter, I conduct a post-mortem examination of “selling out,” looking at business practices related to musicians’ revenue streams, contracts, and promotion. Brands and advertisers have filled the space that “selling out” once occupied, with troubling implications that point to the value of policing commercialism in popular music culture. Could there be some life left in the body after all?