In Their Own Words: Adele, John Lennon, and Tyler, The Creator on Selling Out

Does anybody care about "selling out" anymore? It seems like a thing of the past, probably because we've mostly become immune to it. In hip-hop, they've found some clever ways to form corporate partnerships (sneakers, clothes, alcohol) that seem either natural or at least obvious enough to let us accept them instead of feeling tricked by subliminals (thanks T-Pain). Plenty of artists from all genres have licensed their music for commercial use, and even the former indie darlings who kind of almost got too popular to be cool (just kidding, kind of) let their big single get used in a Taco Bell commercial. And nobody flinched.

Check the Internet, check YouTube, check Pigeons & Planes. There are ads everywhere. I read a statistic once about how many advertisements the average person in New York City sees every day and it blew my mind. I forget the exact number but it must have been in the billions. Of course, everyone still hates a fucking advertisement, but we're so used to it that we don't even notice it anymore. We just deal with it. We all understand how and why advertising exists and as annoying as it is we understand that it's not going anywhere.

As a result, we're coming to terms with the fact that artists are going to do what they have to do to get paid. Licensing songs out for commercials, partnering up with a label mate, suddenly turning pop to sell singles, holding up products in videos, the list goes on, but who cares? It is just one small gear in a very large machine. Yelling "sell out!" and turning on your favorite artist for going pop is unfashionable and frowned upon these days.

But as a concept, "selling out" still exists, and it happens every time an artist compromises artistic integrity in exchange for a check. It's not a black and white issue, and everyone's got their own opinion about when it's okay, when it's not, how much it hurts or helps music, and who's guilty of it. To better understand the artists' take on it, click through to see what musicians like Adele, The Black Keys, John Lennon, and Tyler, The Creator have said about selling out.

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2. Feist

3. Paul Simon

Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel has very strong views about the negative impact of licensing music for commercials, and after explaining that a company called 'Midas Mufflers' wanted to use "The Sound of Silence" for their commercial, tells David Letterman:

"No. There would be no offer that would tempt me. I actually really resent it. They've taken the music of my generation, and all this music I treasured so much and they've assoicated it entirely with selling and I actually really deeply resent it... The fact that the culture is co-opted and made to be entirely about money, that's what I resent most of all."

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5. John Lennon

6. Tyler, The Creator

With Tyler, The Creator confirmed as a guest on Miley Cyrus' new album, we're sure at least one OFWGKTA stan is going to accuse Tyler of selling out, but this is what he wants, and this is what he has been talking about for a long time. Just check out these tweets from 2010 and 2011:

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12. The Black Keys

The Black Keys have enjoyed a unique kind of success, making the transition to the mainstream without changing their core values. But there was a time when making that big step had the band facing some difficult decisions. The duo explains to NPR:

Patrick Carney: "A lot of people see a Nissan ad and they see a finished product in a record store or on iTunes and that's the face of the band. What they don't see is that we made [Brothers] in a cinderblock building in the middle of nowhere in Alabama, with five microphones and a guitar amp and a drum set. I don't know what that means, exactly, but I do know we didn't spend a lot of money making this record, and it's an honest way of approaching making music. And once the music is out there, when you're selling a record and selling music and people are going to do whatever they want with it, it's kind of hard to resist certain opportunities, especially in the record market now.

"The first offer we ever had to have a song in a commercial was from an English mayonnaise company, and they offered us a lot of money — crazy money. Especially at the time, it was insane."

A manager advised the band to pass, in order to avoid alienating the fans.

Dan Auerbach: "We're hearing this, seriously, as we're driving around in a 1994 Plymouth Grand Voyager that smells like pee. And going home to our modest apartments, and we were scared. We were 23 years old. So we passed on it."

Eventually, the decided to license "Set You Free" for a Nissan ad to see what would happen.

DA: "It's helped us immensely. Before 'Tighten Up,' we'd never had a real song regularly played on rock radio. We didn't have that support, and getting these songs in commercials was almost like having your song on the radio."

(NPR)

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THE 15 BEST BLACK KEYS SONGS

14. Immortal Technique

Immortal Technique speaks on selling out. Of course, he ties it in with government control, third world countries, guerrilla warfare, and the true nature of hip-hop. A little over the top, but he's got a point.

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16. Adele

17. Kurt Cobain

Throughout his career, and especially when Nirvana become famous and successful, Kurt Cobain was paranoid about selling out. He made a point to counter this in many of his interviews by making it clear that he associates with the punks and the slackers. He distanced himself from the jocks and the popular kids, and he went out of his way to make sure he kept true to his punk roots as best as he could.

Of course, being "punk" is difficult when you're the lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world, but this was always important to Kurt. He was very aware of "selling out" and very uncomfortable with the idea of it. He even poked fun at his own band often.

In 1991, shortly after Nirvana signed a major label deal with Geffen, Kurt introduced his band to an audience in Washington: "Hello, we're major-label corporate rock sellouts." The most famous example of Kurt's self-degrading humor—perhaps more revealing than funny—is a quote that ended up on posters and t-shirts worldwide. It reads:

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