Would you Sell Out?

Zascar

I was just thinking there with all the recent discussion and slagging of various dj’s and genre’s – it brings it back to the fact that electronic music is incredibly snobby in regards to anything that is very popular is almost instantly uncool. There are a few exceptions but almost generally if someone is commercially well known they are going to get slagged by the elite’s as being shyte.

However I was thinking, just say you were a DJ/Producer, and you were getting fairly well known and successful – if you had the option of ‘selling out’ and making an absolute fortune, would you do it? There are a million variables here, but lets say you could click your fingers and be one of two things: a well known and well respected Techno DJ touring underground Berlin etc clubs and making a comfortable living, a good wage but nothing spectacular. OR if you could go a different route, produce some less sophisticated tracks, and become well known in the whole dance music scene, tour the world doing the big clubs and dance festivals etc, earn Millions, have your video’s on MTV etc and party like a rockstar - which would you choose???

People give Tiesto etc a hell of a slagging (me included) but in fairness the guy makes a ridiculous amount of money and probably has an incredible lifestyle, treated like a king everywhere he goes and has massive success – can you really blame him? In the example above I’m not really talking about him, more long the lines of Roger Sanchez or something like that.

Discuss!

VinylJunkie

For me it comes down to money, If i needed to sell records to put food on the table id sell out in a flash. There is always the chance to move more "underground" once your money is made.

Zascar

Sure but lets say you were making 100k a year - plenty enough to put food on the table but its not going to buy you a new Ferrari...

jimi_t

I think Eric Prydz/Pryda is the best example of the compromise that can be made. Release 'Call on me' under one name, then build up a whole reputation for beautiful underground techno like 'Armed' under a pseudonym. Prestige and Reputation all in on.

Executive Steve

Zascar wrote: »

I was just thinking there with all the recent discussion and slagging of various dj’s and genre’s – it brings it back to the fact that electronic music is incredibly snobby in regards to anything that is very popular is almost instantly uncool. There are a few exceptions but almost generally if someone is commercially well known they are going to get slagged by the elite’s as being shyte.

However I was thinking, just say you were a DJ/Producer, and you were getting fairly well known and successful – if you had the option of ‘selling out’ and making an absolute fortune, would you do it? There are a million variables here, but lets say you could click your fingers and be one of two things: a well known and well respected Techno DJ touring underground Berlin etc clubs and making a comfortable living, a good wage but nothing spectacular. OR if you could go a different route, produce some less sophisticated tracks, and become well known in the whole dance music scene, tour the world doing the big clubs and dance festivals etc, earn Millions, have your video’s on MTV etc and party like a rockstar - which would you choose???

People give Tiesto etc a hell of a slagging (me included) but in fairness the guy makes a ridiculous amount of money and probably has an incredible lifestyle, treated like a king everywhere he goes and has massive success – can you really blame him? In the example above I’m not really talking about him, more long the lines of Roger Sanchez or something like that.

Discuss!

Don't see why it's one or the other really...

Personally I probably reckon someone like Shy FX has the right idea... He's always got at least half a dozen rnb / girlbands on the go, producing them, managing them etc, he produces pop, he runs three labels, one for Jump-up stuff, one for more soulful stuff and one for proper no-limits dancefloor experiments unconstrained by genre... The DnB and the Dubstep he loves gets financed by the entirety of the businesses and the behind the scenes operations he runs.

Future Cut served their time in DnB making some seriously innovative headstrong music and then used their production skills to get into pop production, they've written and produced 75% of everything Lily Allen has done...

Many DnB heads as soon as they retire end up getting into the mastering business working for Hip Hop producers and doing soundtracks, there's far more money there than there is in trying to sell 1000 copies of a 12" to a small dance music scene

There's many more ways than one to skin a cat... A Polish mate of mine is hugely into his power electronics / drone / noise stuff and he was telling me about a bunch of his mates in Poland who run this really avant-garde purist electronica label i forget the name of, basically they went in to the studio drunk one day and decided to do a really really really cheesy Micky Modelle type Polish "clubland" tune for the laugh, they finished it, sent it off to a label as a pisstake of the genre, it got signed and it made them more money than the label had in a year - basically they now do it under a cloak of strict anonymity and secrecy because their fans and even their mates would be absolutely disgusted with them if they ever knew what they were up to, but they have enough fun knocking out superior clubland fodder and getting paid for it to be able to finance their other stuff properly for it to be worth their while keeping up...

Dillinja and Lemon D remortgaged their houses to buy a warehouse and to build a a soundsystem that got them into the Guinness Book of Records, which they toured and then used to buy a vinyl mastering studio and a dubplate cutting house so they have 100% control of every part of the process of making music from the sequencer to the speaker, they rarely even bother releasing music nowadays and just make tunes that have been tailor made for themselves to play on the soundsystem they've spent years building and tweaking...

Zascar

jimi_t wrote: »

I think Eric Prydz/Pryda is the best example of the compromise that can be made. Release 'Call on me' under one name, then build up a whole reputation for beautiful underground techno like 'Armed' under a pseudonym. Prestige and Reputation all in on.

Absolutely, totally agree, he would have been my example of the best of both worlds.

However, for the purposes of this argument, if you had to choose one path and stay on it...

colin29

jimi_t wrote: »

I think Eric Prydz/Pryda is the best example of the compromise that can be made. Release 'Call on me' under one name, then build up a whole reputation for beautiful underground techno like 'Armed' under a pseudonym. Prestige and Reputation all in on.

Masters at Work are another prime example, lots of commercial sucess under various names but still pretty much kept the respect they earned in the underground scene.

tman

Where do I sign up???

dubsbhoy

if i could do both i would, but if it was just commerical....no chance

colin29

If I could earn a livable wage while remaining in the underground scene I wouldn't be inclined to go commercial, I would never care to be famous.

electrogrimey

It's tough, but I'd say *cheesy emotional point alert* the feeling of having one of the next generation of big name DJs come up to you and say that you inspired them to do what they're doing is much more fulfilling than having 20 years of traveling in a helicopter until the money runs out.

Or else, you could have the absolute best of both worlds, not a secret pseudonym, but an act like Daft Punk. They've made millions, yet they're well respected everywhere, and have influenced so much of today's dance music.

Zascar

Actually yes they have pretty much done it better than anyone. And they remained almost anonymous at the same time too!

jtsuited

hmmmmm.....

right.
I'll give my own perspective on this.

Here's the way I look at it. If I wanted to be rich, there would be a million and one things I could do. Doctor, Lawyer, Business, etc. (in fact I'm tempted to go to med school the year after next).
I have a first class honours degree and an MA, I'm good at maths and economics, and generally fairly bright (enough to be in Mensa anywho). My point is, if I were to give up music and just make my life about a career based on money, I'd have relatively little trouble doing it.

I've earned good money in my life, and I've been completely broke at times. And tbh, neither situation really made that much difference to my happiness.

I have family who are very very wealthy and I have family who are very successful in the arts but don't have any sort of major financial wealth (that's not to say they struggle by any stretch of the imagination).

To me, money is a means to an end. I don't get a kick out of buying stuff. I DO get a kick out of buying new music, synths, gear, etc. but that's only because that's what I'm obsessed with. Music is my life really and there’s nothing more to it.

I don’t mind not going out getting hammered at the weekend in order to finish off a track i’ve been doing all week. In fact (and maybe some other producers might agree with me), when I’m out drinking I’m really just looking forward to getting back to making some music when I get home.

I’ve seen it with musicians that when they do become mega successful financially, they struggle to come to terms with it. Probably because they see that everyone else thinks that it should be a big deal and they just don’t feel that much different.

I think you only have to look at the self destruction of all the great musicians of the past 100 years to see examples of what happens when musicians are supposed to have ‘made it’.

I do music because I want to. I've made some sort of living from music most of my adult life (ironically I have feck all of a music income these days, even though I spend about 60+ hours a week on it).

I'd like to be successful in music. And by successful I mean it in real terms. I would like to be able to wake up everyday and do what I want musically and not have to worry about money, bills, etc.

To me that's success.

Now supposing a few years of hard work down the line and I'm playing around the world a good bit in this little ole niche of underground music. I'd easily be making enough money to survive and do what I want.
Sure I'm not buying ferraris and having a house in LA (which tbh looks like my idea of hell). But tbh, if I had enough to support a family and do my music I'd be as happy and content as I'd need to be.

I've sort of seen the inside of the mainstream industry (to an extent) before and tbh it's a world of hangers-on, gold-digging women, and people so thick it'd make you cry. In fact I've seen it in the world of the rich in general.

I'm not some hippy who thinks money is the root of all evil either. Far from it. But to me, it's a means to an end.

I read the financial times and keep up with economics and markets in general, because it interests me. I don't have some sort of aspirations to be super rich but I do have aspirations to be successful in what I do. The money is a by-product at the end of the day.

So to answer your question, no I wouldn't 'sell out'.

Some people are motivated by money. Some people are motivated by other things.

Was it Warren Buffet who said 'the money is only a scoreboard anyway'? think it was. I think his point was, that even though he spends every waking minute making money it’s not the end goal. He enjoys doing what he does.
I’ve met a lot of rich and ‘successful’ people who were miserable. And I’ve met a lot of rich and ‘successful’ people who were genuinely happy individuals because they love what they do.

Material wealth at the end of the day, is hugely over-rated, and when you think about it is only a way of advertising your access to resources to a potential mate.

Men are competitors, women are choosers. That’s sort of the crux of the matter of the accumulation of wealth.

To live one’s life mainly focused on wealth accumulation seems like a truly depressing concept to me. Maybe that’s just me though. To live one’s life being able to do what you want to do. That’s freedom. And money facilitates that. That’s all it is, to me anyways. A means to an end.

Executive Steve

Wish I could thank that post ten times, excellent stuff, agree with almost every word.

As the great Chuck D once said:

"It's not selling out, it's buying in."

jtsuited

Just to get all Kate Moss for a second....

Nothing pays as good as music feels.

(Someone please quote me on that!)

brianc27

no i wouldn't, probably because im not really a money driven person, ive never asked for a raise or been pissed off if in never got one in 10 years of working (thats not to say ive never been given a raise mind you), that plus im a complete anal fvcker, theres no compromise with me, i like what i like and dont really like anything else, i could never see myself being involved with some that i despise so much just to make a bit of money

dubsbhoy

I've just put my 2 kids on adverts.ie, 60 quid each or two for a 100.

If i had of been asked this question over 10 years ago it would of been a simple no way..........but now things are different, i have kids to sell

BaZmO*

In fariness though I think the whole notion of "selling out" is BS.

It's used as a stick to beat an artist with as soon as they achieve some success.

Zas asked would you "produce some less sophisticated tracks" to gain success? I don't think that's a good way to measure selling out. There are plenty of songs that would be considered being "sell outs" that are structurally sophisticated, and conversely there plenty of "Ubercool" tracks that are extremely simple.

What happens if you make an album and you get asked can it used in a big budget movie? Do you say no for fear of being perceived as "selling out" and as result miss a chance to reach a wider audience than you could ever dream of reaching?

For me the definition of a sell out is a person that is not being true to themself for the chance a quick buck, and therefore only the artist him/herselfcan know if that's truly the case.

If you make buckets of money for doing something you love doing well then fairplay but it certainly should not be the primary motivation.

electrogrimey

jtsuited wrote: »

Just to get all Kate Moss for a second....

Nothing pays as good as music feels.

(Someone please quote me on that!)

Are you thinking of her motto 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'? True story actually...What an good role model for children.

jtsuited

electrogrimey wrote: »

Are you thinking of her motto 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'? True story actually...What an good role model for children.

obviously.
to be fair, anybody who has children who look up to kate moss has bigger fish to fry than just that comment.

vinylbomb

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

............... they went in to the studio drunk one day and decided to do a really really really cheesy Micky Modelle type Polish "clubland" tune for the laugh, they finished it, sent it off to a label as a pisstake of the genre, it got signed and it made them more money than the label had in a year - basically they now do it under a cloak of strict anonymity and secrecy because their fans and even their mates would be absolutely disgusted with them if they ever knew what they were up to.............

This is similar to that Kernkraft 400 track - Zombie Nation. The guy who released it did it as a total pisstake of trance records, and initially it was released on International DeeJay Gigolos (a decent techno label). It was picked up some trance DJs, then the major dance imprints came in for it and the lad is rolling in it now.
I think it helps with him that it was widely acknowledged as a pisstake before it went overground though.

vinylbomb

My take on this whole thing is you should try and make music that you love. If it goes huge a la Ferry Corsten or Tiesto or Guetta or whatever, so be it. And if its the most minimal abstract stuff and only you can listen to it but you love it - go for it.


For me thats the real crux of it - I dont think I'd have the enthusiasm to do it if I didnt like the music I was writing/playing out.
It might be great to begin with having wedge thrown at you, but after a while you would get sick of it I think.

electrogrimey

vinylbomb wrote: »

This is similar to that Kernkraft 400 track - Zombie Nation. The guy who released it did it as a total pisstake of trance records, and initially it was released on International DeeJay Gigolos (a decent techno label). It was picked up some trance DJs, then the major dance imprints came in for it and the lad is rolling in it now.
I think it helps with him that it was widely acknowledged as a pisstake before it went overground though.

I was wondering about that, because he has some really good stuff these days: (and it's Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation by the way)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ZydY0rgV8

And he also has stuff with Tiga under the name ZZT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEDSYo_HMg

SteveDon

This is a very interesting thread!

Im just about to finish my degree in economics and politics. Which is bringing me to a strange sort of choice as of what to do with my life.

Im still undecided, but my options seem to be:

a) Get an office job, make a decent living and slowly work my way up the capitalist food chain

or

b) Focus full time on my productions (something i havent been able to do thus far with all of my college work) and try to make some sort of decent living for myself.

Option b is certainly more appealing to me as I would love to spend my time making music and being paid for the fruits of my labour, but it is far scarier, in the sense of financial security that option a holds.

To be honest i could see my ambition rotting away if I chose to work in a desk job. But I am in no way confident that I could make a living out of music.

So to refer to the original question of selling out, would i do it?

Part of me says no and part of me says yes.

If i could do it under an alias so as to keep intergrity through my real name, and if it provided me with an income to support my own musical projects that i had a genuine interest in, then yes i probably would.

jonny68

Some artists hit the big time by accident (Pete Tong is responsible for this with his essential new tunef some unknown person overnight)and then they go onto big things, you don't necessarily have to "sell out" to make it big,Carl Cox still plays Techno all these years later and hasn't suddendly started playing Euro Trance, in truth he is probably more in demand and universally known than Armin and Co considering the amount of time he has been on the scene and he appeals to both older and younger Ravers!

Me personally, ive always been into the underground scene and always will be i come from the old skool and that whats it was all about, the worst ever thing was the coining of this superstar DJ thing (Oakenfold was the first to be given that name), give me a warehouse Rave anyday over some glitzy so called superclub,ive never in all my 20 years raving "hero worshipped" DJ's and never will,i may have "raved" about some DJ's who ive seen play a brilliant set or for producing brilliant music but that's as far as it goes,jaysus i remember i used to cringe years ago at these Techno geeks with notepads looking into the DJ Box and trying to find out the name of tunes, or even worse some people years ago (thanks to bloody Mixmag:rolleyes:) saying Sasha was "the son of God" Jesus wept, they are just people who play music, allbeit talented in what they do, but you can bet your life theres a thousand and one bedroom DJ's out there who are equally as good just unknown.

Live and let live

jonny68

SteveDon wrote: »

This is a very interesting thread!

Im just about to finish my degree in economics and politics. Which is bringing me to a strange sort of choice as of what to do with my life.

Im still undecided, but my options seem to be:

a) Get an office job, make a decent living and slowly work my way up the capitalist food chain

or

b) Focus full time on my productions (something i havent been able to do thus far with all of my college work) and try to make some sort of decent living for myself.

Option b is certainly more appealing to me as I would love to spend my time making music and being paid for the fruits of my labour, but it is far scarier, in the sense of financial security that option a holds.

To be honest i could see my ambition rotting away if I chose to work in a desk job. But I am in no way confident that I could make a living out of music.

So to refer to the original question of selling out, would i do it?

Part of me says no and part of me says yes.

If i could do it under an alias so as to keep intergrity through my real name, and if it provided me with an income to support my own musical projects that i had a genuine interest in, then yes i probably would.

focus full time on music for now anyway id say, you'll be very lucky to even get an office job the way things are, 2 mates of mine in Dublin with degrees are currently out of work and broke.

vinylbomb

electrogrimey wrote: »

and it's Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation by the way

Mea Culpa - Work Xmas bash last night and its 1pm here, so I'm still in a bit of a hoop.

I Stand Corrected

Daroxtar

vinylbomb wrote: »

This is similar to that Kernkraft 400 track - Zombie Nation. The guy who released it did it as a total pisstake of trance records, and initially it was released on International DeeJay Gigolos (a decent techno label). It was picked up some trance DJs, then the major dance imprints came in for it and the lad is rolling in it now.
I think it helps with him that it was widely acknowledged as a pisstake before it went overground though.

Twas Dave Clarke that championed the track in the beginning much to the dismay of many.
As regards selling out or changing styles i recall the aforementioned Mr Clarke slaughtering Judge Jules a few years back for playing Techno. He pretty much told him that he was a house dj who jumped onto the trance bandwagon and to fuk himself if he thought techno fans would respect him. He was right.
Ben Sims wrote the following about sell outs

TO ALL THE PRODUCERS WHO CHANGED THEIR SOUND TO MATCH CURRENT TRENDS AND ‘HOPEFULLY’ SELL UNITS. WHERE’S YOUR HEART? FUCK YOU!

TO ALL THE DJ’S THAT ‘JUMPED SHIP’ TO MINIMAL FOR FINANCIAL REASONS OR EGO ISSUES, WHERE’S YOUR IDENTITY? WHO ARE YOU REALLY? A JUKEBOX, A WEDDING DJ? DO YOU EVEN KNOW? DO YOU PLAY MUSIC JUST BECAUSE IT’S POPULAR? IF COUNTRY AND WESTERN WAS THE NEXT ‘BIG THING’ WOULD YOU PLAY THAT TOO? FUCK YOU!

TO ALL THE NON HARDWORKING, NON SWEATING DJ’S THAT DON’T REALLY MIX, SCARED TO UP THE INTENSITY AND ENERGY LEVELS, WHO OCCASIONALLY PUNCH THE AIR WITH A SMILE LESS CONVINCING THAN AN AIR STEWARDESS, THAT HAVE 50 ‘FRIENDS’ IN THE DJ BOOTH, DRINKING CHAMPAGNE ‘MINCING’ LIKE FOOTBALLERS WIVES, TAKING MORE DRUGS THAN THE CROWD AND THINKING YOU’RE ‘UBER COOL’, HAVE YOU GOT ANY RESPECT AT ALL FOR THE DANCEFLOOR PAYING YOUR WAGES? FUCK YOU!

TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO FORGOT THE RAW STRIPPED TO THE ESSENTIAL BARE BONES MACHINE FUNK OF HOOD, MILLS ETC.. AND DECIDED TO CALL THIS NEW WEAK ASSED MINDLESS, SOULLESS, GROOVELESS SH!T ‘MINIMAL’. FUCK YOU!

DERRICK MAY ONCE FAMOUSLY SAID THAT TECHNO WAS LIKE ‘GEORGE CLINTON AND KRAFTWERK TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR’, A PERFECT COMBINATION OF FUNK AND ELECTRONICS , HOW DID THE BULK OF NEW SCHOOL ‘MINIMAL TECHNO’ GET IT SOOO WRONG?? THEY DELETED EVERYTHING BUT THE ELEVATOR. EMPTY, LIFELESS AND NO FUN AT ALL.

FUCK YOU AND FUCK ‘YOUR’ MINIMAL!

I like his passion.

My own take on it would be that i would rather stay true to what i really liked and if others like it then well done me and if they dont then so what. I'd rather be poor than a rich whore.

milltown

My initial reaction to the question was "YES! When do I get paid?". But the more I think about it I recall the amount of times people asked me to record a mix for them, then start listing the tunes they want in it, some tunes that I don't like and wouldn't normally play. Once or twice I tried it, for very close friends or family, and it just came out muck because my heart wasn't in it. I had no more interest in standing over the decks for an hour playing bad (IMO) music.

'Twould be easier nowadays though. Just load the music into VirtualDJ and set it to autopilot and record, and go and play the PS3 for an hour. Dunno that anyone would pay me Tiesto's wages to do that though.

Love the Ben Sims quote!

FLYNN-DOG

No, I actually don't think I would if I was given a choice. Yes, it's hypothetical but if I'd to hang around with people all day and every day who loved my trance tracks (i hate trance btw) it'd be hell to me. Would far prefer to be comfortable. People forget the amount of work it takes to be successful in dance music. I read an article about Afrojack (not my thing, but bear with me here) and they took out a loan of £10,000 each from the bank, promised themselves they wouldn't go out for a year, rented a studio and worked around the clock producing tracks. Do I have that level of determination though? I'm really not sure....still, beats an office job!

empirix

i read somewhere that Aphex twin has released club tunes but totally distances himself from them using an alias and takes no recognition, just in it for the dosh!