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Last week, it was rumoured that Fergie had accepted several thousand dollars to wear a certain clothing brand in her next music video and the blogosphere was crying “sell out”. This week, it turns out the rumour was untrue. But what if it was true? Does that make Fergie a sell out? No.

“Sell Out” has to be the most misused term in music. Wikipedia defines selling out as a term “used to imply that an artist has compromised their artistic integrity in order to gain radio airplay or obtain a recording contract”. I would extending this to agreeing to something you morally disagree with for payoff. The key thing to note here is the person has to have disagreed with it to start.

So, if an artist says, “I hate credit- I think it’s evil” then sells their song to Visa for a commercial, that’s selling out. If the artist never cared one way or another about credit cards and then sold it- it isn’t selling out. Neither is if they make an album that is more appealing to a larger audience after a very indie debut- so long as the artist never cried foul over popular music to begin with.

We need to stop hating on bands just because they got popular or because you heard their song on a car ad. It’s just 1 more way to make a living for them and making a living does not equal selling out.

Posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 at 11:12 am by Unknown and is filed under Celebrities & Pop Culture.

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