I remember some 20-30 years ago you would sometimes hear about an artist (usually musician, or a group thereof) being sellouts, or having sold out. This of course in a pejorative way, as this was the most heinous of crimes an artist could ever commit against their fan base.
However, I can’t recall having heard this term for at least a couple of decades. Has the term been replaced with something else? Is it more accepted? Or is it simply so hard to make it nowadays that the concept of “selling out” is basically just synonymous with making a living?
Are there any modern examples of this and I simply missed the online chatter about it?
McDonalds started charging $15 for a Quarter Pounder Value meal, and everyone realized in this post 9/11 America, you need to make as much money as possible just to be able to survive, which is diametrically opposed to the 60’s and 70’s still post war boom(ers) playacting socialist/communist Hippies, pointing and laughing when an artist they liked took a big check, when they’re own rent was either subsidized by their parents, or cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year. Shit was different. Shit changed.
I think this is it. The cost of living was lower, so Boomers could get by without selling out. The attitude continued into the 1990s and early 2000s until it became harder and harder to lead a comfortable life on a modest paycheque.
I didn’t know I was living in post 9/11 America.
well, then you were mistaken, and being purposefully obtuse for some reason. there’s everything before 9/11, and then there’s everything after, and you can draw a clear line to differentiate the two time periods, in every country around the world