I often hear (and read) comments about musicians "selling out".  I have my own notions of what constitutes selling out, and, having listened to lots of this music that supposedly sold out, I have come to a conclusion.

Frankly, I think the phrase sell-out has become a tool for the lazy critic. 

Don't misunderstand me, there are most certainly examples of musicians/artists/people who have sold out.  But there are a lot of artists who get the label of sell out and don't deserve it.  I define selling out musically as compromising your standards, desires and musical vision in order to make music that record companies like.  You know, records that sell.  The desire to sell records is a great one.  I encourage any artist to have that desire.  I want to buy albums, so it helps if they want to sell them.  And when coupled with a real musical vision, the desire to sell records can lead to even better music.  Case in point, Ayreon.  The first Ayreon album did well.  Well enough that Arjen Lucassen made a second, "Actual Fantasy".  While still a great album, "Actual Fantasy" didn't sell as well as its predecessor.  Knowing that sales were an important component of the music industry, Arjen writes that he knew the third Ayreon album had to sell better.  And so what did he do?  He wrote a better album.  "Into the Electric Castle" is an all time masterpiece of progressive music.  Sure, we might have had this amazing album anyway, but the desire to sell more records was carried by the desire to make a better album, and so we all win.

However, when the drive to produce marketable music overrides the drive to produce music the artist is truly proud of (as an artist), then yes, that is selling out.  There are many examples of sell outs, and many examples of wrongly labeled sell outs.

Much pop music began life in the form of sell out stuff.  So it is hard to fault them I suppose.  Britney never became big because of some musical vision she has.  No, she became rich, famous, and popular because her music was designed to do one thing: sell albums.  I could list countless other names here, names of people (I refuse to call them artists) who have built up careers around selling music rather than making it, but I won't.  Suffice it to say, at least we knew where they were coming from since the beginning.

Then of course we have those artists who, at some point in their career, make some change that ends up earning them the label "sell out".

But is this always deserved?  I don't think so.  Too often artists are labeled as sell outs because their newest work didn't come out as expected.  Suddenly listeners and reviewers have in their hands an album that doesn't meet their expectations.  So, lazily, they say the band sold out, changed their style.  What many fail to realize is that musical evolution does not necessarily equate selling out. 

I respect bands that evolve.  Even if I am not a big fan of the band, or the way they evolved, I applaud them for not sitting on their laurels and making the same album over and over again.  There are countless bands that took a turn in their style and got labeled as sell outs for it.  Shame on the lazy reviewers who refused to examine the evolution of the music and only thought "Hey, this is different.  These guys sold out!"  No, it is the musicians who make the same record time and again, knowing that version A sold well, so version A.1 will too, who are the real sell outs.  Don't confuse musical evolution with selling out.