By Ezekiel Buchheit
Arizona Daily Wildcat
October 23, 1997

Yeah, So I Sold Out

Arizona Daily Wildcat Ezekiel Buchheit

I am very annoyed right now. I have just been affronted on something very near to my heart: My love of music, more specifically, my love of the band Reel Big Fish. And I am very hurt. The words this girl used were painful, shocking and upsetting. She accused Fish, my Fish, of being - please stop reading now if you are a RBF fan - sellouts.

Before I start raving, let us establish a couple of things. The term "sellout" is highly overused and misinterpreted. People accuse any band they have a personal dislike for as a "sellout." It's reminiscent of the Red scare of the '50s; if you were disliked by someone, they could simply label you as a communist and the radio stations would then over play your songs. People would call Mr. Bungle a sellout if a radio station played a song at some ridiculously accessible hour. To clarify the term "sellout," here are a few inequalities:

1) Popularity does not equal selling out. Just because a band managed to have a hit song after several years together doesn't mean they sold their soul to get it. Many bands sold their souls long before they ever even had a hit.

2) Underground does not constitute talent. People seem to have this concept that underground bands - bands that any label, even the one that runs Cannibal Corpse albums, wouldn't buy no matter how in the hole they were - contain more raw artistry and talent than mainstream pop bands.

This is confusing to me. So what I see here is, if someone else shares your taste in music, which is in essence what happens when a band gets popular, then the band - who still plays the same schlock that you've been drooling over for the past three years - suddenly becomes less talented and an artistic sellout. Explain this to me. Remember, with the possible exception of the Spice Girls, every band was underground once. No matter how shitty they are now.

3) Radios create what they want you to hear. Just because a radio station overplays a song, it doesn't mean the band caved in to commercialism. This is how they, the band, get paid. This is their job. If a station plays their music, good. If you don't like it, then don't listen to the station.

4) Accessible does not equal untalented. Just because a band wrote a song that was a little catchy, doesn't mean that they have no music writing ability. It seems as soon as a song becomes popular, people come out of the woodwork to proclaim their hatred for it to the world and everyone around who rather not be listening to them, and would prefer to hear the song. By the same logic, inaccessible gibberish does not equal genius. Just because you don't understand what the hell is going on, it isn't always because the band is ahead of their time. Maybe they're just stupid. To quote Type O Negative, "Don't mistake lack of talent for genius."

The term "sellout" I think should be defined as follows: Any entity that sacrifices artistic endeavor for monetary means.

Now this doesn't mean that they necessarily have to succeed in making money. Primus could attempt to sell their little hearts out, but I still don't think people would buy their albums while remaining sellouts under the definition. This definition also specifically says "sacrifices artistic endeavor," in other words, talent, or art, or something along those lines. Some bands were never talented. In my humble opinion, Mxpx has the raw musical talent of a bus, with something less of a voice. Therefore they could never be sellouts, because they'd have nothing to be sold.

I hear a lot of music, 99.9999 percent of which is utter crap. There are so many bands out there who play three-chord progressions, grunt, slur and get paid billions of dollars by mindless 13-year-old drones that sometimes I think that I could quit college, get my musically illiterate butt up, buy a guitar, throw together some Gs and some Cs and make gobs of dough singing crap like "Chick Magnet." (Lyrics sung with tongue deep back in esophagus: "Bob ba ba bob gawagunggggarfff." Now that's talent.)

Now I'm not going to accuse any band of being a sellout here. I know how painful those words are. I could never, not with the love I have in my heart for mankind, hurt a fan of say, Metallica or Marilyn Manson, by rightfully pointing out what a bunch of commercialistic corporate money-hugging junkies they've become. I realize that's just an opinion, and that opinions are subjective, and that mine is right.

So to avoid a situation like that, I will instead say that I stand by my Fish. I love them, and this will never falter. I don't care what you have to say, I don't care how much you hate them, or how much they aren't ska, or how much they aren't punk or whatever mindless dribble you spout out at me, the Fish are Gods. Granted Aaron is a complete jerk, but they still put on a good show. I have got to go now, there's a raving group of 12-year-old boys in drag chasing after me with their mascara. Damn those Manson fans.

Ezekiel Buchheit is a freshman majoring in English.