2freaky4church1 said:

Who do you like Hardcorejollies? Watch this.

Tons of artists/bands. Faves include ...

Prince

P-Funk

Stevie Wonder

Led Zeppelin

AC/DC

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Jimi Hendrix

Neil Young

Herbie Hancock

Ohio Players

Jack White

Eric Gales

Chaka Khan

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ernie Isley

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

I've heard that EW&F's Powerlight is also a really good album from after their "classic" period, do you guys tend to concur or not?

Powerlight is a very disappointing album.The two singles ("Fall In Love With Me" and "Side By Side") are decent,likable tunes.Unfortunately,the rest of the album lacks energy.

RJOrion said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

I've heard that EW&F's Powerlight is also a really good album from after their "classic" period, do you guys tend to concur or not?

Powerlight has 2 good songs..."Something Special" and "Fall In Love With Me" the rest is almost unlistenable.. its their 2nd worst album...after the embarrassing "Electric Universe"

the funny thing is....I like Electric Universe I know I'm in the minority,but I really like songs like "Magnetic","Touch","We're Living In Our Own Time" and "Could It Be Right".

If this album had been recorded by somebody else,it would have been a smash! EW&F fans didn't want to hear them with such a 'modern',high-tech sound.but I like that they were willing to take some chances,especially after the lackluster Powerlight album.

RJOrion said:

the best post classic Earth Wind & Fire albums are: "In The Name Of Love" 1997 "Now, Then & Forever" 2013

I think Touch The World (1987) and Millenium (1993) are their best post-classic era albums.

MotownSubdivision said:

From what I've heard and seen, Charlie Wilson sold out.

I was a huge fan of The Gap Band,but I can't listen to Charlie's solo stuff.It reminds me of that "Mr.Biggs" crap that the Isley Brothers started doing in the 90s...focusing on slow/midtempo R&B grooves instead of the wild funk that they used to do.

Pink...I LOVE Pink...She's Soulful & LaFace records wanted to make her a bonafide R&B artist, but it simply did not work..OL'girl had to go straight Pop-Rock and she blossomed into a ROCK Goddess..

I cannot believe this wasn't mentioned, but this tells all that needs to be said:

Stevie did Ebony And Ivory as well. blind motherfucker. lol

HardcoreJollies said:

I am guessing this has been done in the past but have at least not noticed it in quite a while. And I am sure there will be those who disagree with my choices and maybe the whole concept of a "sell-out." In this context, a sell-out is a musical artist who demonstrated a certain level of artistry or commitment and expertise in a given genre and then for whatever reason (e.g. personal preference, seeking more commercial success/money, bad advice, substance abuse, fading capabilities, band personnel changes, finding Jesus, etc.) released material that was either far inferior or betrayed that artist's roots and core following. Sometimes these artists return to form but more often than not they never regain that special something. Also, I am not talking about those really special artists who can teeter on selling out and then fully regain form (e.g. Prince, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock). I'll get the disgraceful list rolling . . .

• George Benson (post Breezin', forsook being one of the great jazz guitatists for schmaltzy pop)

• Lionel Richie (post Commodores, although by late 1970s he was steering them in that direction too)

• Kool & the Gang (post 1978's Open Sesame, Ladies Night beginning of end despite success)

• Earth, Wind & Fire (post All N All, although they had flashes of a return to form)

• Aerosmith (post Permanent Vacation, although they also have had flashes of a return to form)

• Kenny G (believe it or not he was once good when part of the Jeff Lorber Fusion)

Gotta disagree a bit on the Aerosmith one, PUMP is the best album they ever did start to finish, raw, and no BS, granted they got of track a bit as it went on.

Lionel i kinda disagree too, I mean artists like him and Phil Collins get shitted on for the bands and what they did to them, but truth be known, Phil didnt make them commercial, thats what got on the radio then for that time, he and Genesis were still doing 10 minute songs on albums. Lionel hit on something with a few songs with The Commodores that were ballads but these bands never complain when the $$$ is rolling in, Dennis DeYoung of STYX got booted in 1999 for being too "soft" and yet no one had issues with it in the 70's and 80's when he topped the charts for them.

thedoorkeeper said:

I don't think of Elton John as a sell out - more like he just stopped writing good music. He was very popular and then in the late 70's his albums just started to suck and the hits stopped coming. Since then he just keeps trying to catch the wave but never manages to hang ten. His drug use and splitting with his lyricist didn't help.

Elton didnt stop writing good music, sorry but that is just not true, people become attatched to a time when you were hot and its natural to not let it go. But Elton had good stuff in the 80's and 90's though the 90's were to me his weakest albums, but 80's albums like JUMP UP and TOO LOW FOR ZERO are good records. And then in 2001 he did one of his best "Songs from the West Coast" with Ryan Adams, many people cant accept his voice now, well, he learned to have to sing in a deep register after surgery, that surgery saaved his life and the only reason he still is here, while other singers are still struggling not adjusting their voices (Mariah an example).

MotownSubdivision said:

I knew Lionel Richie would be mentioned and I disagree.

The people who talk about Lionel changing his music, must haven't listened to the Commodores stuff after Lionel left. They just didn't have much success with it like Lionel did.

Chancellor said:

Pink...I LOVE Pink...She's Soulful & LaFace records wanted to make her a bonafide R&B artist, but it simply did not work..OL'girl had to go straight Pop-Rock and she blossomed into a ROCK Goddess..

NO P!NK didnt took control of her career at LaFace and took what worked best for her. That isnt a sellout.

I think one of the biggest sellouts were the Black Eyed Peas. When they first started they were doing socially conscious hip-hop much in the vein of Common. And they were loved by the critics for that, but they didn't sell any records. Then will.i.am added Fergie to the group and went almost totally pop with Elephunk. And after it blew up and spawned a bunch of top ten singles they went totally pop after that.

The other person often listed as a sellout was Liz Phair. She became a alt-rock goiddess with her debut album Exile In Guyville, and she kept her rock street cred with Whip-Smart and Whitechocolatespaceegg. But then she settled down and had a familly and took a break from the music biz. When she came back in 2003 with her self-titled album, she had sent in a bunch of tracks she had written with other indie artists and producers, but her record label thought it wasn't quite good enough, so they hooked her up with Britney Spears' songwrtiters to write some additional tracks. She only worked with them on four tracks, yet she was villified in the rock press for selling out.

SoulAlive said:

728huey said:

I think one of the biggest sellouts were the Black Eyed Peas. When they first started they were doing socially conscious hip-hop much in the vein of Common. And they were loved by the critics for that, but they didn't sell any records. Then will.i.am added Fergie to the group and went almost totally pop with Elephunk. And after it blew up and spawned a bunch of top ten singles they went totally pop after that.

But a couple of them were protégés of Eazy E though and were on a couple of his songs.

728huey said:

I think one of the biggest sellouts were the Black Eyed Peas. When they first started they were doing socially conscious hip-hop much in the vein of Common. And they were loved by the critics for that, but they didn't sell any records. Then will.i.am added Fergie to the group and went almost totally pop with Elephunk. And after it blew up and spawned a bunch of top ten singles they went totally pop after that.

The other person often listed as a sellout was Liz Phair. She became a alt-rock goiddess with her debut album Exile In Guyville, and she kept her rock street cred with Whip-Smart and Whitechocolatespaceegg. But then she settled down and had a familly and took a break from the music biz. When she came back in 2003 with her self-titled album, she had sent in a bunch of tracks she had written with other indie artists and producers, but her record label thought it wasn't quite good enough, so they hooked her up with Britney Spears' songwrtiters to write some additional tracks. She only worked with them on four tracks, yet she was villified in the rock press for selling out.

I reject the Liz Phair sellout idea. Yes, she worked with successful pop producers--but the songs aren't really that different. She always wrote some catchy pop-tunes. The production's a bit shinier, the edges were a bit smoother on those tracks... but they were still Phair tunes.

.

And that's as someone who listened to Exile non-stop for quite a while. But low-fi sound and thin vocals don't change the fact that she was writing catchy, hooky songs.

.

The whole idea of saying someone sold out, of course, is problematic. It requires that the person making the accusation be the judge first of what the artist's work should be, based on the accuser's sense of the artist's genre and true artistic path. I don't really know how you do that for someone else. The strangest thing to me is the assumption that many people make that the early work is somehow truer--people have many reasons for starting where they do artistically. A making ends meet gig might lead to connections that mean that one musical interest gets emphasized, but others might be just as legitimately important to the artist, but they get pushed to the back burner because the guy offering the contract is interested in this aspect, not the artist's other ideas. So, when the artist gets the basic security of a few dollars in the bank, he starts pursuing those other interests. Those take him outside of some of the fanbases' comfort zones... but not the artist's comfort zone. He always heard these sounds in his head, but didn't have the freedom to pursue them.

.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's a money grab. But you can't know whether it's a sellout or a general artistic move unless the artist says. And you can't know then, either. People can call themselves sellouts or repudiate their own musical choices for as many reasons as they can originally make them. "Those albums were not my real self, I was just prostituting myself and my art" sounds like an admission... but the fact is, someone might say it after an honest artistic exploration is rejected by the fanbase the musician thought would be behind him, and he's retreating back into a dishonest but reliable "give-them-what-they-want" strategy, becoming a "sellout" in reality while the derided work reflected honest artistic expression.

.

I tend to give musicians the benefit of the doubt. I don't know why they do what they do, any more than I actually know why people do a lot of things. If I don't like what they're playing, I can stop listening--but to say that someone's sold out just because what they're doing isn't my thing anymore and for a while I thought our things were kind of the same? I don't really get that way of thinking.

.

[Edited 5/2/15 20:29pm]

HardcoreJollies said:

MotownSubdivision said:

I knew Lionel Richie would be mentioned and I disagree. The dude went on to prove that he has one of the most versatile voices in all of music post-Commodores. Not everyone can convincingly sing funk, R&B, country, reggae, and other genres of music like Lionel can. In retrospect, it would have been a crime to relegate his vocals just to funk and R&B. And EWF? Wow. So one song ("Boogie Wonderland") off of one album (I Am) makes them a group of sell outs? Get outta here with that. Just because their music at some poiny wasn't as good as it used to be doesn't mean they sold out.

Stevie Wonder is a cat who does it all, all those genres you mentioned for Lionel but he still brings the funk and grit. Lionel managed to strike a balance with This Is Your Life/Slippery When Wet, Gimme My Mule/Sweet Love, Fancy Dancer/High on Sunshine, Brick House/Easy and Zoom and then with the crossover of the "Blue" album it all began to go haywire.

Boogie Wonderland was a major offense. It was like Lebron James at the height of his powers deciding he would instead play professional badminton. I mean, WTF? So they wanted a taste of the disco craze, the Rolling Stones did Miss You and managed to hold onto their essence, why couldn't EWF? And that I Am album was such a step down overall after all that the greatness that had preceded it. They never again put out songs as strong as Shining Star, Serpentine Fire, On Your Face, Sing a Song, Mighty Mighty, Devotion and on and on, nor albums as consistent and powerful as the Open Our Eyes through All N All run. Have you read Philip Bailey's recent autobiography? Recommended. Although he does not trash I Am he does talk about how Maurice White went off the deep end and the band lost its way.

I get some of your points especially Lionel. I agree with Motown in that Lionel should have been free to express himself outside of R&B but once he had pop success all of a sudden he for the most part turned his back on the music and fans that gave him his start. As for EWF you are the first person I know of that shuns the I Am album. Yes Boogie Wonderland is too disco ish for my taste but the rest of the album was

A material but I also prefer All N All to I Am. Foreigner got a lot of shit too

for recording I Wanna Know What Love Is.

Red Hot Chili Peppers spring to mind. They're just quite bland MOR Alt-Rock these days.

Ellie said:

Red Hot Chili Peppers spring to mind. They're just quite bland MOR Alt-Rock these days.

As much as I hate to admit it have to agree. And now especially without Frusciante it is disappointing.

EddieC said:

728huey said:

I think one of the biggest sellouts were the Black Eyed Peas. When they first started they were doing socially conscious hip-hop much in the vein of Common. And they were loved by the critics for that, but they didn't sell any records. Then will.i.am added Fergie to the group and went almost totally pop with Elephunk. And after it blew up and spawned a bunch of top ten singles they went totally pop after that.

The other person often listed as a sellout was Liz Phair. She became a alt-rock goiddess with her debut album Exile In Guyville, and she kept her rock street cred with Whip-Smart and Whitechocolatespaceegg. But then she settled down and had a familly and took a break from the music biz. When she came back in 2003 with her self-titled album, she had sent in a bunch of tracks she had written with other indie artists and producers, but her record label thought it wasn't quite good enough, so they hooked her up with Britney Spears' songwrtiters to write some additional tracks. She only worked with them on four tracks, yet she was villified in the rock press for selling out.

I reject the Liz Phair sellout idea. Yes, she worked with successful pop producers--but the songs aren't really that different. She always wrote some catchy pop-tunes. The production's a bit shinier, the edges were a bit smoother on those tracks... but they were still Phair tunes.

.

And that's as someone who listened to Exile non-stop for quite a while. But low-fi sound and thin vocals don't change the fact that she was writing catchy, hooky songs.

.

The whole idea of saying someone sold out, of course, is problematic. It requires that the person making the accusation be the judge first of what the artist's work should be, based on the accuser's sense of the artist's genre and true artistic path. I don't really know how you do that for someone else. The strangest thing to me is the assumption that many people make that the early work is somehow truer--people have many reasons for starting where they do artistically. A making ends meet gig might lead to connections that mean that one musical interest gets emphasized, but others might be just as legitimately important to the artist, but they get pushed to the back burner because the guy offering the contract is interested in this aspect, not the artist's other ideas. So, when the artist gets the basic security of a few dollars in the bank, he starts pursuing those other interests. Those take him outside of some of the fanbases' comfort zones... but not the artist's comfort zone. He always heard these sounds in his head, but didn't have the freedom to pursue them.

.

Or maybe not. Maybe it's a money grab. But you can't know whether it's a sellout or a general artistic move unless the artist says. And you can't know then, either. People can call themselves sellouts or repudiate their own musical choices for as many reasons as they can originally make them. "Those albums were not my real self, I was just prostituting myself and my art" sounds like an admission... but the fact is, someone might say it after an honest artistic exploration is rejected by the fanbase the musician thought would be behind him, and he's retreating back into a dishonest but reliable "give-them-what-they-want" strategy, becoming a "sellout" in reality while the derided work reflected honest artistic expression.

.

I tend to give musicians the benefit of the doubt. I don't know why they do what they do, any more than I actually know why people do a lot of things. If I don't like what they're playing, I can stop listening--but to say that someone's sold out just because what they're doing isn't my thing anymore and for a while I thought our things were kind of the same? I don't really get that way of thinking.

.

[Edited 5/2/15 20:29pm]

Really enjoyed your thoughtful take on this whole concept. Still, when you have so much spiritually invested in an artist you love and there is not really any other to take their place it is very difficult not to pine away for them to once again scratch that itch like they used to. Knowing they seem to be going at half speed or through the motions makes it all the more confounding.

phunkdaddy said:

HardcoreJollies said:

Stevie Wonder is a cat who does it all, all those genres you mentioned for Lionel but he still brings the funk and grit. Lionel managed to strike a balance with This Is Your Life/Slippery When Wet, Gimme My Mule/Sweet Love, Fancy Dancer/High on Sunshine, Brick House/Easy and Zoom and then with the crossover of the "Blue" album it all began to go haywire.

Boogie Wonderland was a major offense. It was like Lebron James at the height of his powers deciding he would instead play professional badminton. I mean, WTF? So they wanted a taste of the disco craze, the Rolling Stones did Miss You and managed to hold onto their essence, why couldn't EWF? And that I Am album was such a step down overall after all that the greatness that had preceded it. They never again put out songs as strong as Shining Star, Serpentine Fire, On Your Face, Sing a Song, Mighty Mighty, Devotion and on and on, nor albums as consistent and powerful as the Open Our Eyes through All N All run. Have you read Philip Bailey's recent autobiography? Recommended. Although he does not trash I Am he does talk about how Maurice White went off the deep end and the band lost its way.

I get some of your points especially Lionel. I agree with Motown in that Lionel should have been free to express himself outside of R&B but once he had pop success all of a sudden he for the most part turned his back on the music and fans that gave him his start. As for EWF you are the first person I know of that shuns the I Am album. Yes Boogie Wonderland is too disco ish for my taste but the rest of the album was

A material but I also prefer All N All to I Am. Foreigner got a lot of shit too

for recording I Wanna Know What Love Is.

It was the one-two punch to my gut of Boogie Wonderland and then After the Love Has Gone that was too much. That ballad is so far beneath (IMO) the spirituality and soul of the long line of superior ballads that had preceded it (Reasons, Devotion, I'll Write a Song for You, Love's Holiday, All About Love, Can't Hide Love, Imagination). I did not dig the new writers/producers that came on the scene with I Am.

HardcoreJollies said:

"After The Love Is Gone" is a pure classic.That's a perfect ballad....great lyrics,wonderful arrangement and chorus.Yes,it's more 'pop' than songs like "Reasons" and "Can't Hide Love" but it's still a superb song.Full disclosure: I also like The Commodores' "Three Times A Lady"

Sometimes,what we refer to as "selling out" is really just the artist trying to survive.If something ain't selling,the record companies will drop these artists/bands.Earlier,I used Kool & The Gang as an example.The musical landscape is always changing and some of these people had to adapt to those changes in order to stay relevent.

thekidsgirl said:

MotownSubdivision said:

I knew Lionel Richie would be mentioned and I disagree. The dude went on to prove that he has one of the most versatile voices in all of music post-Commodores. Not everyone can convincingly sing funk, R&B, country, reggae, and other genres of music like Lionel can. In retrospect, it would have been a crime to relegate his vocals just to funk and R&B.

My usual gripe when people cry "sell-out!", is to ask when is an artist allowed to experiment with his or her art or show some growth without the original fans labelling it sell-out material?

It's one thing if an artisit like a Meshell Ndegeocello were to sign with Rihanna's people and have them start writing and producing her music and styling her; but if jazz performer gets an itch to try making a poppier song, who is to say that that person didn't just crave an artistic challenge.

Yep
And the 1980s definately had a turn of 'fusion' in all genres
The 1980s was a great time to hear blasts of experimental sounds and directions form the artists

You had new groups and you had people who were veterans from the 60s and 70s being huge in the 80s

.
Prince was call a 'sell out' for Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day and Parade

.

And I remember gospel performer Amy Grant doing a Pop album or two and the hell she went through. That example opened my mind a lot to what music is all about and why people write songs and such.