The first shaky topics are bands like Def Leppard and Duran Duran, which largely became stars through their videos. This has led to the idea of MTV products. Duran Duran and Def Leppard certainly do know how to bring in the zeroes, and wrote songs with the intention of making hits. But so did Michael Jackson, and he enjoyed writing. This ultimately leads to the idea of setting out to write music that you enjoy while keeping Top 40 hits in mind. While it certainly is more like pop music, you can't calling it selling out. Selling out is trading musical integrity for money, which these groups have never done. Although avoid rock acts that have other people write their hits (Bon Jovi).
The second topic concerns bands that can change over time. We can see which ones are clear and aren't. Fleetwood Mac, for example, is pure coincidence. Bringing in new musicians after personal conflicts with the last ones and have them contribute their California pop style to Rumours is called spreading ideas, not selling out. Others can be tough. Groups like Metallica and Green Day changed their styles and shocked fans. Metallica has certainly been greedy (Napster incident), but the Black Album issue is touchy. It was still heavy metal, so how did it sell 10 million? Imagine in the 80's when all your friends were telling you to listen to Metallica, and this album comes along and you can finally agree. Besides Metallica's Load experimented with blues and country, hardly commercial. Green Day is probably the big one. They had bombed on three albums after Dookie and finally returned with American Idiot. But did you know that they had an album planned originally? It was lost, though. Not to mention the band members all went through therapy and admitted to having different mindsets (which probably lead to different songwriting). There were also numerous breaks from punk on Nimrod and Warning. And finally, vocalist and primary songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong, stated that Green Day took influence from The Replacements, a largely respected indie group which switched from punk rock to alternative and stadium rock. The Replacements however, never achieved success, so of course they never sold out. There ya go -- next time you listen to American Idiot, you know you're listening to quality musicians, not sell outs.
But of course there are those who did trade their music for money. Let's start with the Bad Boys from Boston, Aerosmith. Once a great raunchy blues/rock band, after several years of obscurity, they released Permanent Vacation. This album would've been decent, had it not been for the fact that Aerosmith had thrown in the towel and hired shlock writers from outside the band to write them hits, such as the Desmond Child written "Angel." I doubt that they wanted to experiment by hiring other people to write for them. That's not to say they didn't accomplish anything. It's incredible that they became video stars with a singer as ugly as Steven Tyler. Of course it can always get worse. When Aerosmith sold out, they only had shlock writers help them write hits. They still wanted control over their music, so at least they still wanted to perform music they loved. So hey, it can be okay to like these guys still.
On the other hand, we meet the Wilson Sisters of Heart. They pioneered female hard rock, and opened room for Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, and the Go-Go's. Heart, however, sold out with no dignity. They tossed out the triplet riffs in exchange for shlock writers doing their work for them in putting out power ballads. What a shame.
I hope that was helpful, and to any musicians out their. Music is art, not money. Keep on rocking.
