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This is the third and final part of a three part series of blogs about bands, fans, and attitudes.

Part III: My thoughts on ’selling out.’

First, Some notes on selling out, from wikipedia:

“Selling out is a common slang phrase. Broadly speaking, it refers to the compromising of one’s integrity in exchange for money or other personal gain. It is commonly associated with attempts to increase mass appeal or acceptability to mainstream society. A person who does this is labelled a sellout.”

My problem with using the term ’selling out’ to describe a band is overusage. Selling out requires going against previously held beliefs, and fans tend to throw the term around whenever the band has not met their expectations. Is that really accurate? Can a fan really know what ideals, beliefs, or creative desires an artist has? The answer is usually a resounding no.

What winds up happening is that bands make a shift in artistic direction, and if the fans don’t like it, they immediately judge it as selling out. The problem with this is that it doesn’t really take any artistic development into account – just because it’s artistic development in a direction the old fans don’t like doesn’t change the fact that it’s artistic development, a natural process.

No band worth it’s salt releases the same album with the same sound and the same type of songs over and over again; it gets boring.

Let’s connect the dots now – the old fans want the band to keep producing material on the same level as their older classic stuff. Why? Because it’s what the fans like.

Seems reasonable, right? If the fans don’t like the change in direction, the fans want the band to produce the material that the fans like. But a change in direction means that’s not what the band wants…

That sounds familiar… where have I heard something like that before?

“…Broadly speaking, it [selling out] refers to the compromising of one’s integrity in exchange for other personal gain…”

Well I’ll be damned, I was right – I HAVE heard that before.

What’s the point? What am I getting at here? Why have I spent so much time and inconvenienced so many electrons to post these three soapbox rants?

It’s easy. The bottom line is this:

Hardcore fans, don’t piss in in the cheerios. Just because you aren’t happy with a band’s performance doesn’t mean that you should shit in everyone else’s shoes, and not everyone who IS happy with the current state of things is a ball washing ass kisser blinded to the truth.

Ball washing ass kissers blinded to the truth, just because others aren’t happy with a band’s status quo or think they could do better doesn’t mean that they are rotten grumps who aren’t true fans – not everything your favorite band does is solid gold.

And to those who classify themselves as the voice of reason? Keep on truckin’.

It’s just music. Either you dig it, or you don’t. It’s that easy. If you dig it, great. If you don’t, more power to you.

This is the second part of a three part series of blogs about bands, fans, and attitudes.

So there’s three groups of fans, and between them, they generally share two different attitudes about what direction a band’s music should be going in. While I understand the logic and ideas behind each philosophy, I think that one philosophy is great and the other tends to be a load of crap.

Philosophy 1: The band has been able to get where it’s at and succeed because of the longterm/serious fans, and their preferences should at least be considered. In the case of DMB, this means playing songs like Dreaming Tree and Typical Situation at concerts and putting out albums on par with 1994-1998’s material.

Philosophy 2: The band makes music for the band, they write and play what they want and go in directions that they want to go in. If the fans decide to listen, that’s great, and if not, there’s plenty of other bands to check out. In the case of DMB, that means working with producer Mark Batson (despite the giant moan of dissatisfaction from fan group #1), and that means playing ‘When the World Ends’ and ‘Old Dirt Hill’ just because they want to. If the fans decide they want to join along for the ride, that’s great; if they decide that they don’t like the direction the band is heading in, well, thanks for the support for all these years, but the band is going to do what it wants.

Neither of these philosophies apply perfectly to any band or their fanbase. These two examples are more along the lines of extremes on a spectrum; most tend fall somewhere in the middle and try to give at least a little bit in each direction. Most bands realize the importance of their ‘classic’ material and their hard core fans, and try to mix that in with whatever new direction they wish to go.

This only gets truly messy when the ‘hardcore’ fans decide that the band owes them something. It could be setlists with more classic songs, albums of the same style or direction as older material, or any number of other things. This is usually the time when the word ’sellout’ comes into play – more on that later. At this point, things in the fan community pretty much go to shit: the old school fans are bitching about, well, everything; alternatively, the loyalists defend everything the band does – the term ‘true fan’ gets thrown around alot here like it means something.

Finally, things get a little ‘for us or against us.’ If you genuinely like something new the band has done, then your lips are securely fastened to the ass of the band. Alternatively, if you’re critical of the band, all you do is piss and moan and you’re not really a fan.

This leave the ‘voice of reason’ group in a really neat position: they’re ballwashers who do nothing but bitch and moan and aren’t really fans.

It’s like these people (who are all fans of the same band, mind you) are political adversaries. Music is subjective and everyone is entitled to their opinions, but unless you agree with MY opinion YOUR opinion is wrong. …And you’re probably an idiot.

Pretty cool, eh?

Coming soon: The Last Stop – Some thoughts and notes on random topics.

This is the first part of a three part series of blogs about bands, fans, and attitudes.

If I were writing a paper on this, I suppose it could be called ‘a working model of band, fans, and attitudes.’ That is, if i wasn’t trying to use song lyrics for titles.

If you’ve at all been reading the DMB fan boards, you’ve probably seen a little bit of discussion about Dave and his attitude towards the ‘hardcore’ fans, who are often very ‘bitch-moan-gimme-gimme-mine-mine’ about the band. Dave even made a comment at red rocks to the fans chanting ‘Last Stop’ that the band would pretty much play whatever the hell they want, and some of the hardcore fans have expressed a dislike for that attitude.

So it goes something like this: The hardcore fans bitch and moan that the band does’t play what THEY want. They complain about the band and how misaligned their priorities are, and that the band should cater to the people who put them where they are today. When the band doesn’t do this, they’ve ‘become too commercial,’ ’sold out,’ or ‘have really gone downhill.’

The opposite of this, of course, are the ‘loyalists.’ These are the people who will blindly follow and listen to anything the band produces regardless of quality or content, and continually slam the ‘hardcore’ fans who piss and moan about everything the band does – ‘you’re not a TRUE fan,’ ‘the band isn’t indie enough for you,’ ‘this album is better than 99% of the stuff on the shelves right now.’

Left in the middle are a group of people I like to call ‘the voice of reason.’ The voice of reason tends to enjoy the band, but without ballwashing. They are capable of finding good things to like and enjoy even on albums that are sub-par for the band, but when the time is right, they are also capable of realizing that the band has laid a turd in the punch bowl.

This is true of any band with a respectably sized fanbase, not DMB specifically, although the model certainly applies to them. There’s certainly no right or wrong in terms of what group you should belong to, but as with most things in life, a little moderation is often best. Being the superfan doesn’t leave much room for reality, but bitching and moaning doesn’t seem to leave much room for fun or enjoyment.

Coming up next, Part two: Philosophies of making (and enjoying) music