The term "sell out"

Does anyone find the term "sellout" as it relates to music offensive? To me it implies that the musicians no longer care about the music they make and only care about the money, which is untrue. While its true that money is a motivator for bands, the main goal of any band is to write music you enjoy. Even if the music is more commercial, the bands still put all their heart and soul into it.

Yeah it definitely is. It implies pure selfishness on the part of the fan. I would rather be happy that the artist is pursuing their dream and own peraonal taste. I either try to find something I like about it, or I just don't listen to it. No need to be hateful towards them, people change and thats just the way it is.

I guess Gene Simmons was always a sellout..he (and all kiss members) have repeatedly said that he didn't get into the business for the music but for the money and that everything he does with Kiss (and everywhere else) is for the money...

^ Then you have Gene Simmons who says stuff like that.

The term "sellout", even though I agree is a pejorative term, can apply to someone who certainly still cares about their music, but makes a change on behalf of money or other reasons.

I think the secular scene would consider me to be a sellout because I scrapped my secular project (based on Welsh mythology) for a Christian project of a similar style. While not the only reason, money was definitely a motive.

...because Christians actually BUY music, whereas the secular scene would rather circulate my albums for free on torrents and file sharing sites. The rest of my motive had to do with writing something reflecting my faith, rather than just have cool metal stories.

WildWorld wrote:Does anyone find the term "sellout" as it relates to music offensive? To me it implies that the musicians no longer care about the music they make and only care about the money, which is untrue. While its true that money is a motivator for bands, the main goal of any band is to write music you enjoy. Even if the music is more commercial, the bands still put all their heart and soul into it.

No, but I think it is often overused.  I'm not so certain that the blanket statement you make is really accurate.  I think the line I would draw between "commercial" and "sellout" is when bands don't really seem to be putting their heart and soul into their music, but instead just crank out another album that sounds like the last three just because they sold well.