There’s a very simple reason that artists don’t worry about selling out anymore (a phenomenon that was much more widespread than just the early 90s): the music industry finally finished their project of extracting nearly all of the money. These days, you’re more likely to have a hit because your song was in an advert than have your hit song used in an advert. Merchandising and the rest is pretty much your principal revenue stream.
Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
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Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#52Lady Gaga is also a playable character in the video game Fortnite, lol
So is Kelsier from Mistborn, Isaac from the binding of Isaac, lots of fun nerd characters
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#53I don't know if I buy this framing. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame). Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars we…
Michael Jackson, Bill Cosby, and Ronald Regan are all great examples of people who were considered sellouts at the time. It didn't hinder their mainstream commercial success, but there were a large number of people that definitely did not consider them cool. Sellouts have always existed at some level, but now it's different, I don't even think a lot of kids know what "sellout" means.
I was alert to popular culture by the time Thriller happened and I don't recall anybody thinking Michael Jackson was a "sellout". Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson did not one but two duets together.
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#54Stop eating oreos because they changed the formula, the filling can now be described as white paste product, and they want $4.99 for the "family" size now. I know this isn't what the article is about, but I'm sad by what Oreos have become.
Nostalgic for lard?
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in those examples you don’t see any difference to: >Maroon 5 is covering Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” as a tribute to Hyundai Because that sentence hits hard in the smh.
A band covering a song for a Hyundai ad? Michael Jackson did a parody of his own song Billie Jean for Pepsi ("You're the Pepsi generation")
One of Nancy Ajram's most popular songs was originally made as a Coca Cola ad soundtrack
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#56I read and enjoyed this article but strongly disagree with the thesis. Oreos are as important a part of life as anything else. People have feelings, memories, and good experiences with it. Just because a big company makes them instead of a small doesn't make that any less valid. Hell, michaelangelo had to balance the art of his soul with what his patrons wanted. And the same artist can make one spiritually deep, unto…
But that makes them a hypocrite and undermines their previously produced works, no?
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#57Ten years ago, around the time Instagram started allowing influencers to monetize their posts, I remember thinking that the bar for “selling out” had suddenly been drastically lowered. In the past, companies had to weigh a lot of factors before selling out, usually for millions of dollars. Now, an individual gig worker may, out of economic necessity, have to sell out for $500.
As people become brands—or aspire to become brands—every meaningful aspect of life, from intimate family moments to vacations, is pushed toward commodification and monetization. The craving for fame becomes intertwined with that process, with each reinforcing the other. And when you're a modern equivalent to a hunter and gatherer, there's little time or (incentive) to step back and reflect on the system that led you and your cohort to this bleak place.
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#58> Why don’t the poor people vote to take all the money away from the rich people and redistribute it amongst themselves? It's because the Powers That Be don't put it on the ballot. If you put "take 99% of the money from the 1000 richest billionaires (about $10 trillion, I think), and nobody has to pay any income taxes for the next four years" on some sort of national ballot, I think there's a very good chance that it…
They dont put it on the ballot because it woulndnt work. Those fortunes are not liquid, but stuck in stocks.
There is no market to buy all of Amazon, or all of Tesla. Not at the current valuation.
You can take their fortune, but you cant spend it. Not in 4 years.
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#59I don't know if I buy this framing. The intro Pearl Jam story is only noteworthy because it's unique. Cobain wasn't one of a million examples of counter-culture; we still talk about him today because it was uniquely his brand (to be incredibly famous while seemingly rejecting the fame). Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984. Bill Cosby famously hawked Jell-O Pudding. Sports stars we…
I think it's cyclical. Punk in the early 80s was a reaction to the excesses of 70s superbands (e.g. Johnny Rotten's "I hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt). Then things built up again to "monsters of rock" arena tours, The Spice Girls, and hair bands before getting torn down again by the likes of Nirvana. (Hell, rock and roll was born as an anti-establishment thing in the 1950s) Maybe we're just due for another one of the infle…
Ok, the Spice Girls were formed 1994, the same year Kurt Cobain died, but Take That and lots of other boy/girl bands and other extremely commercial pop acts were contemporary with Nirvana and the whole grunge phenomenon. So it's not cyclical, it's actually two sides of the same medal. There are to this day still lots of bands that hold their "indie ethos" high, the only thing different in the 1990s was that some of those indie/alternative bands were actually successful enough to be considered (shudder) mainstream...
Re: Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
#60I was in Vegas a few years back with friends. While walking the strip, notice this massive throng of kids all around us. I learned they were in town for the BTS concert.
I noticed this young girl, no older than 20, wearing a Pink Floyd "Dark side of the Moon" t-shirt, I asked her what she thought of the band.
To my abject dissatisfaction she responded "I bought the T-shirt because it looked cool".
In that moment I a GenExer, felt a profound generational dissonance.