Our culture still perpetrates the myth of the rich, pampered and famous Rock Star. When music artists grieve in interviews about their true state of affairs, they are perceived as jaded and ungrateful. The repetitiousness of these myriad complaints make it seem, cliched, and even less creedence is granted.

Getting depleted grosses due to label ‘recroupment’, management and middle management percentages, concert venue promoters etc, your favorite music artists make less per hour than a McDonald’s employee.

The big advantage to being a songwriter (albiet, a successful one)is when you earn income for licensing the use of the songs you ‘ve composed.

Consider that many of these people have families and children, long suffering poverty while these songwriters are paying their dues in obscurity. Making it in music is not for lazy people. It takes a tenacity and a hard work ethic. It also costs the musician lots of money on instruments, maintenance, rehearsal costs, recording costs, promotional materials,etc. There is no limit in products and services geared to the struggling musician,all enforced as neccesary to get to the ‘next stage’.

The cry of ‘Sell out!’ is such a selfish, fan-derived derivative. It infers that there is some kind of betrayal of some value system that the fan has implied on the artist. It is like that old adage I heard,”Contempt for the rich is a plot against the poor, to keep the poor from wanted to become rich.” In my opinion, you have to stand for something first, declare it, and betray it to ’sell out’.

I always thought The Clash were more image oriented than anything. The politics were more of an rebel/image thing. I suspect that if Strummer lived long enough he would have licensed a Clash song to some product, just like the more political Dead Kennedy’s did (albeit without Jello Biafra’s support).

And spending money on instruments? Get real. For developed acts, a lot of those instruments are placed by the manufacturer, hence the credits in the record sleeves.

The problem with “selling out” is that we, the public, can be relatively sure that “Rock and Roll” wasn’t written about a Cadillac, and that “Revolution” wasn’t written about a running shoe. I mean, what political cause does a Nissan embody that Strummer would have seen fit to support with “Pressure Drop?”

This disconnect between the original meaning of a song and its later commerical incorporation isn’t “projected” by an elitist fan base; it’s real. For an artist to contribute to this eroding of principle indicates desperation at best, and greed at worst. Yes, artists may get ripped off by everyone in the industry, but I’d bet few are doing so badly that they really have to stoop to these levels. Then again, it’s their song, so shame on us for investing any emotion or attachment in it at all.

However, given that that was 1967 and apparently we’re still having the debate, I don’t see it ending any time soon.

I think what everything is going to boil down to is the artist or who owns the rights to their songs. I don’t think it’s an integrity issue or an association issue- didn’t the association between music and visuals come up during the debate over music videos?

I understand that some people feel squeamish about the idea that the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” is now used for a Luvs commercial and I get that. I personally think it’s disconcerting. Then again, it seems that when George Harrison died, the last Beatle who cared to keep the catalog out of bed with advertising died. So, I’m not terribly surprised.

Then again, if you want to go that route, it could be argued that by releasing albums under a major record label, artists are selling out. (And there are PLENTY of those arguments.)

To be honest, it’s all just intellectual masturbation. Listen to music you like, realize that the artists are human and prone to temptation just as much as any other, and get over it.

Bastardization is the real problem. The worst example I can remember is the use of Creedence’s “Fortunate Son” for a Wrangler ad that prominently displayed an American flag (and not in the “social-critique-IS-patriotic” way).

To the people saying that Joe Strummer would have succumbed, it is very interesting to me that the only use of a Clash song in an ad that I can recall didn’t occur until after his death. Do we have Mick to thank for that?

And if you feel that The Clash, and Joe in particular, were just striking a political pose, please revisit their music and, in particular, their lyrics. From what I’ve read, seen, and heard, they sure seemed serious to me. Was he human, so that perhaps he may not have lived up to his idealistic nature all the time? Sure, but if you think you’re different, you’re almost certainly fooling yourself.

It’s very easy to say that if one has problems with capitalism, especially with the way it interacts with/controls/shapes art, one should either drop out (off the grid) or shut up, but that’s not a statement that opens dialogue, it’s just a simplistic, reductionist imperative.