Double Standard

[Leafy]

I was watching the Grammy's and the Target commercial came on with the Black Eyed Peas. And this gave me an interesting idea. Why does the Pop community accept artists "selling out" while the rock community shits on a group if they aim for the larger audience?

Take for example Metallica's Black album. This is the album where they "sold out" and in doing so many fans expressed their distaste by not buying the albums and going against them. Why has aiming for the large audience such a horrible thing? Are they selfish? Or do they think the band will focus on getting lots of money with less quality music?

In the current pop community, it's fairly common for an artist to be shown during a target commercial. Only selling their album at Walmart, or other ways of "selling out". But the pop community keeps buying records and is the opposite reaction of the rock community.

Why do the two different communities have such different reactions? Discuss.

 

[Super Crazy]

I think it's because, as much as metal is his mainstream in it's own, it's still frowned upon by many people as music of the devil and what not. Pop is just what is says, popular, not just among a select amount of people, but popular among millions and millions and millions of people.

It's frustrating to me when people say, " this band sold out, they changed their sound to appeal to a wider audience ". This angers me, as everything adapts over time, and even bands do this. If they want to change and adapt to a wider audience, that is fine by me, I won't stop them from making more money.

But I think's mostly because rock/metal and whatever else you want to call it, it's not about selling out, it's about being an individual, and not looking to change to appeal to everyone. Rock is supposed to be an alternative to popular music, not be played along with the popular music. At least that's how I look at it.

 

[Hacksaw Highway]

In my opinion as a metal fan, it's because the artist should be making music because they are passionate about it and have original ideas and talent to express, and when you deliberately change your sound to make more money, you have turned your back on what makes you an artist. Plenty of bands have changed their sound, and sometimes the new sound does appeal to a wider demographic, and thats ok with me. Its only when an artist changes their music for the sole purpose of gaining more record sales and fans that it bothers me. For instance, Tool have sold millions of records and had plenty of videos on MTV, but they're not doing it onsciously, they're experimenting and playing music they want to play and other people just happen to like it. Whereas Metallica made a conscious decision, not as much on the Black Album (which was still a good album) as with Load/ReLoad (which weren't good) to make their sound much more mainstream and make more money. The reason its so acceptable in pop music is, let's face it, those people are mostly in it for the money anyway. Nobody is under the impression that Black Eyed Peas or Justin Beiber or Beyonce or whoever are making music soley for artistic expression; they're looking to make money, and have been sicne day 1. The 2 different genres of pop and metal have very different ideologies behind them and therefore different rules apply to them.

 

[Dagger Dias]

When it comes down to it, nearly every mainstream band is in it for the money in the end. We all have things we love to do, they might really enjoy playing music, but if it makes them money they might be motivated to try to get more money. The fans of pop music are possibly more aware of this than the fans of rock. Also the fact that a trait shared by many fans of rock music is that rebellious feeling, to go against the crowd and do whatever they want. If a band "sells out" then of course a rebellious fan is going to be angry. Those are examples of why a pop artist "selling out" is more accepted by most of their fans rather than a rock group.

It's not a horrible thing to aim for a larger audience. What makes the fans angry often is when a band changes its sound to something that isn't as good as the original sound that made that band famous. Leafy brought up Metallica as an example. Great example. The general consensus among fans is "everything after The Black Album sucks", I mostly agree with that myself although I liked The Black Album, but much prefer their 80's stuff. When a fan is used to a band sounding a certain way that they like, it can be hard for those fans to adjust to the new sound if a band changes. Sometimes it leads to more success, and sometimes it leads to failure. They deserve credit for trying something new even if a band fails at making new fans with a new sound. It's not selfish of them to try new styles because they are trying to make more fans, which means more money too.

In the end, honestly.... it all comes down to making more money because there are very few bands out there anymore who aren't in it for making money.