Sell Out!

One beef I hear quite often is that bands “sell out”.  That is, they betray their fans and their heritage by changing their sound to sell more albums and make more money.  I’d like to address this issue.

As professional musicians their job is to write and record music, then perform it, to a sufficient level of competence that a critical mass of people are willing to purchase the music and pay to see them perform it.  It would be odd to suggest that a band deliberately write music to minimize their audience and income.   “We need to write music good enough that people actually buy it, but not so good that too many people like it.”

Having said that, I rarely watch the Grammy award shows and almost never listen to the bands and artists who win the most.  My own tastes center around AC/DC and Black Sabbath, plus stoner rock, the Beatles & Beach Boys, and progressive rock like Pink Floyd (who played stadiums in the late 70s, including Montreal!) and King Crimson (not the same level of popularity).   Some bands I like only play clubs and very likely will never play any larger venues:  Clutch and many stoner rock bands.  But if by some miracle Clutch had a top 10 album and were thrust into a spotlight headlining hockey arenas or music festivals, I’d be just as happy to see them there as I am to see them at the current places they play, mainly small local clubs.

Here are some examples.

Aerosmith.  Originally a classic rock band in the 1970s with an excellent album, Toys in the Attic, years later they hit it big with Permanent Vacation and other similar albums.   These are clearly more commercially oriented than Toys in the Attic, though you can be sure they continue to play the older material live.  Did they sell out?  Probably.  Are they worth seeing?  Sure.   Is the new material worth listening to?  Maybe on Spotify, but I wouldn’t spend my money on it.

Metallica.   Three thrash-defining albums with Cliff Burton on bass:  Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets.  Cliff died touring the last album, replaced by Jason Newsted, and the band blew everyone away with …And Justice For All.  Here’s an example of an album which achieves commercial success based on its merits rather than any deliberate attempt to sell for the sake of selling.  I’d argue the following album, self-titled Metallica, aka the Black Album, is more of the same, roughly the same running time of music divided into 12 songs instead of 9.   Because if you really thought the Black Album was the sellout, you’re wrong: it was the next album, Load.   Subsequent albums Re-Load and St. Anger gave us more of the same, Death Magnetic as well, and Hardwired…to Self-Destruct sounds like a return to the more traditional Metallica sound.

We saw the band tour recently in 2017, but the last show we saw was 1997, on the Load tour – our first show was (yes, I’ll mention it yet again) Donington 1985, on the Ride the Lightning tour.  We were not impressed with Re-Load through Death Man-getic and only Hardwired persuaded us to return to the camp.    

Def Leppard.   Did they sell out?  Yes.  Did they get away with it?  Remarkably, yes.  Initially yet another New Wave of British Heavy Metal band like Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Metallica-inspirers Diamond Head, Def Leppard had a forgettable debut album, On Through the Night, a killer second album, High’n’Dry (my favorite) produced by John “Mutt” Lange – the man responsible for AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, Back in Black, and For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) – and an excellent, if somewhat more commercial third album Pyromania which blew the doors open for them.   The next album, Hysteria, really threw off the pretense of metal and said, “ladies, line up here.”   However, it did eventually catch up with them after subsequent albums simply gave us more of the same and fans lost interest.  They still tour, but none of the albums have come close to matching Hysteria’s sales. 

Pink Floyd.  Here’s a weird case.  Obviously Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall sold far more than Piper At the Gates of Dawn through Obscured By Clouds, the prior albums.  But arguably they should have – they are much stronger albums.  How often does anyone listen to “The Grand Vizier’s Garden Party” or “Sisyphus” (Mason and Wright’s studio contributions to Ummagumma)?  I certainly watch “Live at Pompeii” and enjoy Atom Heart Mother, but I’d say the later material is still better.  

  

Some bands actually go backwards, starting out trying to sell millions of albums and then switching to simply writing whatever material they feel like, without any concern for sales.

Deep Purple.  Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Nick Simper, and keyboardist Jon Lord were frustrated with the lack of success of their respective bands in the late 60s and recruited singer Rod Evans and drummer Ian Paice to form Roundabout, quickly retitled Deep Purple.  From spring 1968 to summer 1969 they had three albums, Shades of Deep Purple, Book of Taliesyn, and (self-titled) Deep Purple, but despite touring the US opening for Cream and Vanilla Fudge, couldn’t get anyone much interested in them.  Their material was 50% covers and generally calculated to sell – and didn’t.   By July 1969 they’d persuaded singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover to quit their now-stagnant prior band Episode Six and by early 1970 had In Rock out in the record stores.  This was followed by Fireball and Machine Head.   Note, of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and this band, only Deep Purple released a live album, Made in Japan, at the same time as the tour it was recorded on.  The band only became successful AFTER it stopped trying to be successful.  So much for that.

The Beatles.   Same deal here.   The earlier material was intended to move units, by Sgt. Pepper they decided to stop touring and record whatever they wanted to.  Of course, by then they had established themselves as a band people wanted to hear, so John-Paul-George-Ringo aren’t quite the same as Ian G-Roger-Ritchie-Jon-Ian P (aka Deep Purple Mark II).  Be that as it may, they also quit touring, foregoing what could have been lucrative tour income – if only they could get all those screaming girls to shut up.   

Note:  Frank Zappa is famous for hating the Beatles, and my understanding is that he disagreed with the prior analysis of Sgt. Pepper representing a break with their prior commercial tendencies, cynically concluding that the band simply changed its tactics but not its strategy.  In fact, he titled his third Mothers of Invention album We're Only In It For The Money and designed the cover as a deliberate parody of Sgt. Pepper's famous cover.  It's hard to miss the point Zappa was trying to make.

Oddly, he liked the Monkees, who if anything were far more egregious than the Beatles.  Zappa’s distinction was that the Monkees themselves were trying to break out of the commercial prison they’d agreed to play in, insisting on playing their own instruments on the albums and writing their own material.  Fair enough, except that the Beatles had been doing so since Please Please Me.  I can scarcely imagine that the Monkees themselves, or their biggest fans, would compare Headquarters to Sgt. Pepper.   Mind you, the bands themselves got along with each other, and the Beatles encouraged the Monkees to expand beyond their original commercial constraints.  In terms of 60s psychedelic idiocy, Magical Mystery Tour and Head are probably about equal.  Getting back to Zappa’s assessment of the Beatles, though, even Rubber Soul and Revolver are far different than Please Please Me, “Tomorrow Never Knows” lights years apart from “Love Me Do”.   I’m a big fan of Zappa, but I’m also a fan of the Beatles, and on this issue I’ll side with the Liverpool guys over Frank.

In general I find this tendency to scream “sell out” whenever a band begins to achieve more commercial success to be the rock equivalent of “snowflake” status.   It’s really convenient that this seem to happen AFTER the person has already been seeing the band in concert.   Anyhow.   Sometimes the material sells more because it’s better, sometimes not, not necessarily one or the other.  As noted, there’s Def Leppard and there’s Pink Floyd.  Decide after listening to the music itself, NOT because the band wound up at the Grammys.   

The Monkees

I’ve covered the Beatles in various different blogs, now it’s time to address a VERY similar group, the Monkees.

 My first exposure to them was growing up in the US in the 70s, when I saw the TV show in reruns.  My friend Mike and I were big fans and used to watch it as often as possible.  We watched, in vain, for the episode featuring “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone”, the song which consistently stood out among the others in the “buy our greatest hits album” commercial which played during the show’s breaks.  [I also liked the Sha Na Na variety show – no accounting for tastes when you’re under 10, I guess.  Unfortunately – or perhaps, fortunately – that show is still not on DVD.  Demand?]

 The Band.  The group was Davy Jones (vocals), Mike Nesmith (guitar), Peter Tork (bass) and Micky Dolenz (drums).  Actually, Tork was a better guitar player than Nesmith, and Jones could play drums better than Dolenz, who only learned as the show was beginning – the lineup should have been Jones (drums), Tork (guitar), Nesmith (bass) and Dolenz (vocals).  Initially they didn’t even play their own instruments on the albums, but eventually, after learning them and actually touring, they reached the point of fighting Don Kirshner for the right to play their instruments and write their own music – a campaign which earned them the respect of their peers, if not the general public.  Kirshner was eventually fired and learned his lesson: his next project, The Archies, was 100% animated (Archie & Jughead on strike?  I don’t think so.)

 TV Shows.  Indulging my nostalgia yet again, I decided to watch these, expecting to dislike them as much as an adult as I enjoyed them as a kid.  The reality was somewhere in between.  The plots strike me as silly, but apparently gave the Scooby Doo writers some major inspiration.   Any “live” performances are invariably lip-synced.  Aside from name-brand Vox amplifiers (no Marshalls) the instruments typically look low-budget, with the exception of Nesmith’s 12 string.   Practically every episode has some “chase scene montage” to the tune of one of their songs, plus lots of idiotic slapstick lunacy; other episodes have some sort of dancing scene (Monkees as the band) and a fair amount of babe-age is also evident, though most often Davy Jones is the Romeo.  The shows also feature a fair amount of actors and actresses who were either mainstream at the time or went on to greater fame in the 70s.  Part of the amusement of watching these episodes – as I find watching any TV on DVD from the 60s – is recognizing such later stars early in their careers.  The show premiered in September 1966, and went on for two seasons before everyone decided to pull the plug.

 I seem to recall as a kid my favorite was Micky Dolenz, but as an adult I seem to prefer Mike Nesmith.  Dolenz hams up a bit too much, a bit too cute, whereas Nesmith is more wise-ass, a smart-ass.  In fact, he gives the impression that he doesn’t even take the show itself seriously – which is more points in his favor. Jones, of course, is the straight man and the target of feminine attention (despite the fact that, invariably, his female love interests tower over him), and Tork plays the fool and the victim of practical jokes, etc.  Overall the impression they give is “going along” with something which is ultimately pretty stupid.  After the show they put out “Head” and began focusing on developing a legitimate career and reputation as a recording and live band (no, really).

 Head.  This is the Monkees’ artsy, pretentious full-length movie.  It really doesn’t have much of a plot, so much as – like “HELP!” – a series of situations.  Unlike “HELP!”, “Head” seems to be considerably more psychedelic, as if to say, “we’ve done acid too, see?”  Jack Nicholson, of all people, was involved with it, and you can see brief cameos of Annette Funicello and Frank Zappa (I didn’t catch Teri Garr, but she’s supposed to be in there somewhere).  Victor Mature, looking like a 60s version of Mr. Big from “Sex And the City”, is here too in a bizarre, “Jolly Green Victor Mature” role.  I suppose his agent told him this would help him somehow (similar to his role in “Chasing the Fox” with Peter Sellers).  Entertaining, in a limited fashion, worth watching ONCE but only die-hard Monkees fans need include this in their permanent DVD collection.

 Music.  Although slammed as a ripoff of the Beatles, the Beatles themselves were big fans.  David Bowie’s actual name is David Jones, but he had to go by the name of Bowie (based on Alamo hero and knife inventor Jim Bowie) to avoid confusion with the Monkees vocalist.  In the 80s, some genius put Metallica on the same festival bill as Big Country and Phil Collins; in the 60s, another genius had Jimi Hendrix (!!!) open for the Monkees.  I didn’t feel especially compelled to get the first two albums, which are mostly Boyce & Hart compositions recorded by session musicians, instead focusing on the next few, on which the band exercised far more creative control and began playing their own instruments and composing their own music.  If there was anything truly legitimate and worth listening to, it would be found there.

 Headquarters.  This is their third album. Not bad. It’s certainly NOT Sgt. Pepper, or even close, but it is competently written and performed late 60s pop music, similar in style to Rubber Soul.  Disc 2 is mono with extra tracks (mostly alternate versions) and Disc 1 is the stereo version.  As you might expect, the stereo version is MUCH better than the mono version. 

 Pisces [Dolenz], Aquarius [Tork], Capricorn [Nesmith] & Jones Ltd.  Their fourth album, coming after Headquarters, (also in mono disc/stereo disc + alternate tracks format).  Typical late 60s commercial music, though fairly well done.  Some of it actually reminds me of Jefferson Airplane – Dolenz does a good Grace Slick impression.  This was the first album by any group to have a Moog synthesizer on it, and remarkably, the Monkees outsold both the Beatles and Rolling Stones combined in 1967.  Nothing on here is really psychedelic in the real sense, but it does have more of a flower-power than a British Invasion feel to it.  Even so, the Monkees aren’t the innovators the Beatles were, so much as competently latching onto a popular style of music other bands such as the Beatles were actually developing as original music.

 Eventually the band broke up in the early 70s, reunited in the 80s and 90s, but is currently dead.  Nesmith’s mother invented Liquid Paper, so he was independently wealthy, but his limited participation in the reunions had more to do with his other commitments and was not a principled refusal to join in.  At this point the band members cite each other’s substance abuse and ego problems as the reason the band is no longer a going concern.  A Monkees reunion is not likely in the near future – much to our relief or dismay.

 Pontiac Angle.  As explained by Jim Wangers in his book Glory Days, not only did the Monkees have a heavily customized GTO for the show, aka The Monkeemobile (which I can’t stand) they were also provided with normal GTOs to drive around.  Wangers was upset that the band members didn’t really appreciate the gesture, and used to open the studio gates with the cars’ front bumpers if the studio’s security guard wasn’t around to let them in.  Also, one of them was caught driving his GTO at 120 mph in Los Angeles.  Wangers thought it would be excellent publicity for the car if this made the headlines, but the band’s management succeeded at squelching the story.  Pontiac actually came into the Monkees picture due to marketing tie-in’s with Kellogg’s, who were obviously a blatant sponsor of the show.  Wangers’ overall impression of the Monkees and the whole experience with the show was fairly negative, but he was very impressed with the marketing prowess of the Kellogg’s team.

While I won’t claim that the Monkees are really a top band or their shows were “neat or cool”, they are a substantial piece of late 60s American pop culture, to be endured and enjoyed in small doses by anyone with either extreme patience or heavy nostalgia.