The rse and decline of the "sellout"

[Serial_Apologist]

An interesting article which just popped up on my screen poses the suggestion that, especially since the 1990s, the commercial takeover of arts sponsorship has effectively led to the demise of the notion of artists and musicians putatively selling out on creative and other principles in the name of wider public support and validation.

http://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-rise-and-decline-of-the-sellout?utm_source=pocket-global-en-GB

This may be the latest in a long history of pressure to conform, in the past directly imposed by states, backed by religions and other apologists of existing power and economic relations, but today using the simplistic myth and non-durable symbols of consumer choice as alibi.

[RichardB]

We're living in a time where cultural activity is dominated by a "capitalist realism" which stifles it as efficiently as did the "socialist realism" demanded by the USSR and its satellites. Just as in politics more generally, it's assumed that there's no alternative to assimilation by neoliberal priorities, so that what used to be called "selling out" is regarded as an inescapable fact of life rather than a choice.

[Ein Heldenleben]

An interesting article which just popped up on my screen poses the suggestion that, especially since the 1990s, the commercial takeover of arts sponsorship has effectively led to the demise of the notion of artists and musicians putatively selling out on creative and other principles in the name of wider public support and validation.

http://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-rise-and-decline-of-the-sellout?utm_source=pocket-global-en-GB

This may be the latest in a long history of pressure to conform, in the past directly imposed by states, backed by religions and other apologists of existing power and economic relations, but today using the simplistic myth and non-durable symbols of consumer choice as alibi.

I wonder if in the case of once principled rock musicians flogging their back catalogue to advertisers it is more to do with good old fashioned greed and alimony payments.