Okay. Here's a question for opponents of "selling out." Is it a bad thing that Feist's The Reminder is on sale in Starbucks? I'll admit that when I saw the album there I was disturbed. Upon a moment's reflection, though, this is just snobbery. I don't like the idea that, in the future, if I praise Feist this may indicate to other people that I'm the sort of person who gets his music recommendations from Starbucks rather than the sort of person who knows a lot about Canadian indie music. But that's selfish and petty. She's welcome to as big and middlebrow an audience as she can find as far as I'm concerned.
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The Starbucks Factor
22 May 2007 12:10 pm
Comments (61)
Oh god. We could be so lucky as to roll by an IED. Now on deck: the ever insipid Klosterman.
As an independent artist myself, Feist's arc gives me hope. Don't dash it against the rocks, please. ;)
Um, how do I put this nicely, Matt...after scanning your "Ultimate 90s Party Playlist" the other day, I feel you probably don't need to worry too much about your indie-rock credibility sinking any lower. In fact, getting your music recommendations from Starbucks might well be a step up.
Um, how do I put this nicely, Matt...after scanning your "Ultimate 90s Party Playlist" the other day, I feel you probably don't need to worry too much about your indie-rock credibility sinking any lower.
Because when I set out to compile a list of mainstream radio hits I came up with a list of mainstream radio hits?
I think it is also worth pointing out that Starbucks offers health insurance to all its employees (including part timers), and has been one of the biggest supporters (both in terms of publicity and money) of corporate social responsibility. You can always fall back on the "I'm supporting my values" card and keep your indie credibility.
canadian indie rock or not, feist sounds exactly like starbucks music. I think we can be shocked and have the selling out debate when the new propagandhi disc gets a display next to the biscotti.
Probably no different than bloggers posting their FRTs. I imagine the Starbucks employees got tired of being asked what was playing on the stereo. Now they can point to the kiosk.
I think the whole concept of "selling out" is flawed at best.
In skateboarding, it is accepted as the peak of cool to be sponsored by companies for your shoes, board, etc.
I have a theory on the subject, which is that "selling out" is a real but extremely specific phenomenon - when artists change their music in order to make it more accessible, poppy, simplistic, in order to bet their music sold at Starbucks.
A more common phenomenon is when an obscure artist you like strikes it big, and is then accused of "selling out", even though the music hasn't changed.
This leads to phrases like "I was into Green Day before they got big", which is more a complaint about how the music made you feel socially. When a fan feels that they are the band's number one admirer and have a personal connection with the group, one feels warm and fuzzy. When all of a sudden 5 million other douchebags picks up the record, the warm and fuzzy feeling is gone, the fan is embittered, and the fuzzy feeling is gone.
Sadly, this hurts most for musicians - it's really, really, really hard to make money as a musician, and when attempts to make rent are greeted with accusations of artistic dishonesty, it's the drummer that suffers.
Think of the starving drummers!
this weekend, not only did I see Feist on the starbucks rack, but also Of Montreal and some other obviously indie-done-good bands. starbucks is prime real estate to find people willing to spend 15 bucks on a cd they've never heard from a band they've never heard of.
but its still good no matter where its sold or who buys it.
Funny, but I worry that praising Feist or Metric will mark me as someone whose musical tastes are informed by dyslexic hipster political bloggers.
I skipped this whole "sellout" thread because it's...utter bullshit. Two quick anecdotes:
I'm hanging with my homies, and one of them is telling us that Clash's new album, "Combat Rock," is a sellout, insufficiently political. I'm starting to furrow my brow, and the other homie breaks in: "You looking to the Clash to fuel a revolution--how pathetic is that? They're A FUCKING ROCK 'N ROLL BAND." QED.
A few years later, I'm sitting in my flophouse above Patsy's pizzeria (the real one), listening to King Sunny Ade, and a fine French girl is opining that he's a sellout because his music eez eefected weez European influences and instruments. What a great night it could have been until she opened her mouth....
You know, I had the same experience a month ago. I was walking by a Starbucks and Lonely, Dear was playing on the in-store strereo system. I was immediately very disturbed and it made me question some of my most basic assumptions about Starbucks and myself. Either my tastes are much more mainstrean than I assumed or Starbucks is so good at co-opting hipster chic that all hope is lost.
This really gets at what's been staring me in the face through this whole discussion. If Feist's getting big with a middlebrow audience, that just goes to show that *she's* middlebrow. If the Shins make money by selling their songs McChuck's, that just means the Shins is music for people who think Big Macs are good burgers.
Which is all to say, although I don't see anything wrong with struggling artists picking up a few dollars however they can, isn't there something else to worry about here? I.e., that it's even *possible* for so many alleged indie rockers to sell their music to fastfood chains and whatever should make us think it's not all that "alt" after all. A lot of indie rock has become straightforward pop, just with cheaper production values. It's Herman's Hermits recorded in a basement.
Okay, enough of me being cranky.
How can you hear that album and not assume that it's for sale in Starbucks? Here's a guess - I bet it's been discussed on NPR as well!
"I think the whole concept of "selling out" is flawed at best."
I'm all in favor of artists being able to pay the bills. On the other hand, the list of idiosyncratic artists whose work got unarguably suckier after they achieved mainstream success is a long one. Do you know anyone who honestly prefers "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" to "The Moon And Antarctica," or "Big Fish" over "Edward Scissorhands?"
....or (ahem) "Combat Rock" to the self-titled first Clash album?
"The Moon and Antartica" WAS the major label debut. Huge style and production change. See JMC's comment above.
i've found a lot of good stuff on Starbucks samplers. ex. from they're Hear Music comp #6, i discovered Gillian Welsh, The Shins, Lucinda Williams and Whiskeytown - two of which are among my all-time favorites, now.
if it helps good artists find new fans, everybody wins.
Scott E,
Right on. Pop is pop and has had the same general structure and approach for over 50 years now. The songs are about 3-4 minutes, with a certain structure with 3 or 4 parts, with bass & drums rhythm and generally written around the guitar. Feist is "poppy" as anything you can think of, but without a major label putting hundreds of thousands of dollars behind it. The result is a different aesthetic, sure, but that "indie" spirit will surely be co-opted by middlebrow buyers like any other movement in pop music over the past 50 years. The idie movement really has resulted in a proliferation of pop music, not some grand reinterpretation of it.
The whole discussion is predicated on the fact that you had to be in Starbucks, presumably buying something, to notice that the Feist CD was on sale there. If one is okay, why isn't the other?
"if it helps good artists find new fans, everybody wins."
not everybody: the hipsters lose when their faves are no longer underground. so there's a side benefit. anyone know where i can find some sneakers from the 70's?
In addition to the signaling mechanism concerns pointed out by Matt, there are at least two other selfish and snobby reasons one might have against Feist ‘selling out’.
One is that Feist’s search for a big middlebrow audience might lead her to dumb down her music, or get stuck keep repeating the same formula in order to keep her audience happy. See Coldplay.
Another is that if she becomes popular among the hoi polloi, we’ll inevitably be subjected to a plague of second rate, dumbed down Feist imitators. We've already went through this with Nirvana.
In some ways, this dynamic of cultural creative destruction is actually a good thing, since it forces the underground to keep innovating in order to stay ahead of the mainstream. It also keeps the hipsters on their toes, since they have to keep finding new obscure artists to champion.
Anyway, now that Feist has graduated to the mainstream, I nominate Sara Shannon to fill her spot in the hipster pantheon:
http://www.myspace.com/sarahshannonmusic
I worry that the entire discussion revolves around our insecurity that if someone less cool than us likes the same music as we do, then we are ourselves tainted by their uncool nature, as is the music/band.
This is, of course, ridiculous.
If you consider the proportion of Beatles fans (for example) who logically MUST be douchebags, since almost everyone likes the Beatsles, it doesn't taint the fact that they happen to be the best band ever.
I hope that made some sense.
from they're Hear Music comp #6
f'n a
s/they're/their/
Anyway, now that Feist has graduated to the mainstream
frankly, i always thought she was mainstream - "Mushaboom" sounds like every other Adult Alternative song out there. i was pretty surprised to learn that she was part of B.S.S..
"Because when I set out to compile a list of mainstream radio hits I came up with a list of mainstream radio hits?"
Was your goal just to nail mainstream radio hits that fall into the "alternative" category, with a smattering of rock & pop? Because, while I enjoyed the list - it took me back - it seemed like that was your goal, right? Otherwise, you missed a lot of pop and some rock.
As for those who specifically seek "credibility" in their musical taste - ick. First, I listen to music when I'm in the car. I want to listen to good music. If your music is good, find a way to get it on my radio or in my car. Second, work is filled with status pressures. My social life has enough status pressures. I refuse to allow music to become another. Thanks.
Why did it take until Sean to ask the obvious?
What the hell are you, some sort of indie lover, doing in a Starbucks?
Answer: trying to "come down and meet the people"
What a godawful act of broderism.
This is getting really irritating. Nothing you list or talk about is even remotely "underground", so why bother even discussing selling out?
I don't listen to the radio, read Pitchfork, or any other music magazines or website (except 7inchpunk, strangereaction, and somethingilearnedtoday, but that's an entirely different animal), yet for some reason, I am entirely familiar with Feist. It's like she's being forced upon me. She's no secret. She's mainstream. Deal with it.
I think you think your musical tastes are more indie and edgy than they really are. I was getting irritated with the tendencies of the comment to be "attack Matt no matter what", but now I'm starting to see the logic of it.
As I get older concern about my 'coolness' becomes less and less important. I listen, I like, I get. It simpifies my life, alot.
Also, the staff at the Strbucks I stop at has played my non-label, self-produced cd on occasion.
if she becomes popular among the hoi polloi, we’ll inevitably be subjected to a plague of second rate, dumbed down Feist imitators.
Feist's music already IS watered-down indie pop. That's not to say I don't find it enjoyable, but I always get the impression I'm listening to a three-minute long commercial jingle.
And I never understood the Starbucks hate. As corporations go, they are one of the better examples of how NOT to be evil, with examples cited by szr above.
Speaking for myself as a former vegan, in the past I've walked into plenty of mom-and-pop coffee shops hoping to support the little guy, only to find them unsympathetic to my requests for soy milk. I've never had that problem with Starbucks, and for that reason I hold a generally positive association with them.
It would be useful to distinguish two forms of alleged selling out: procedural and substantive.
(1) Procedural - this refers to the ways that a band's music gets to the market. Examples include signing with a major label, doing mainstream promotion, selling your albums at Starbucks, etc.
(2) Substantive - this refers to the band's actual sound. This happens when a band smooths out the idiosyncracies of its sound, making it more palatable to the middlebrow ear, or attempts to join the latest musical fad that is selling records.
If the music still sounds good, I don't think reasonable people should have a problem with (1). It is pretty much irrelevant, unless you identify with a certain type of music based on the image that it creates. As for (2), I guess it all depends on your taste.
Some snobs are worse than others, and music snobs are the worst of all.
Have hipsters always been this pissy? Good lord.
So Feist is selling an album at Starbucks. My guess is that Feist got into the music industry because A) she likes to make music and b) a nice side effect of A would be that should could, you know, make money and stuff.
If she wants to make more money, she has to reach a wider audience. It's pretty simple. Simply selling an album at Starbucks also doesn't mean that her music is going to be "dumbed down". What kind of logic is that? I guess it's the kind of logic that says everyone who goes to Starbucks must be some kind of rube (hell, I hate the fact that there's a Starbucks on seemingly every block in San Francisco, but I've got better things to do than to hate on people who want their triple nonfat latte with whipped cream).
Starbucks is a corporation that makes money by selling coffee drinks and trying to provide a pleasant atmosphere for customers. Pretty unobjectionable stuff. The Starbucks hate is just snobbery.
The Starbucks hate is just snobbery.
no shit. why would anyone bother having an attitude about coffee ?
"On the other hand, the list of idiosyncratic artists whose work got unarguably suckier after they achieved mainstream success is a long one."
Or maybe the vast majority of idiosyncratic artists only had 1 or 2 good albums in them and their work would get unarguably suckier whether they achieved mainstream success or not.
A talented singer like Sinatra or Bennett can last as long as their voice holds up since they have unlimited access to song writers. The list of artists who write their own songs who are able to produce a huge body of quality material is pretty small. It is only natural that the vast majority will only have at most a few good albums worth of songs.
Like the music you like.
You might as well bicker about which allergies are better to have.
Yeah the Starbucks hate is silly. It is hard to even justify it on some sort of favoring the little guy ala Walmart. Here in the NW (where we've had Starbucks since 1971) the typical pattern is within a couple blocks of a Starbucks there will be several local coffee shops opened, the Starbucks drives traffic to them. In my neighborhood in Portland for example I have a Starbucks 2 blocks in one direction, 3 blocks in another and a 3rd 4 blocks away inside a grocery store. In that same general area there are (off the top of my head, I'm probably missing some) 10 local coffee shops.
And from a how they treat their employees they are much more Costco than Walmart. I'm pretty sure the baristas at local coffee shops aren't getting medical and 401Ks.
Or maybe the vast majority of idiosyncratic artists only had 1 or 2 good albums in them and their work would get unarguably suckier whether they achieved mainstream success or not.
Or maybe the quality of their work remains consistent throughout their career, but by the second or third album they no longer have the novelty of their sound to help retain public interest.
Since we're taking about Feist, her old friend Peaches serves as a good example.
I bought myself some of that Harbucks black apron coffee from Zambia yesterday. Fourteen bucks for a half pound. I remember when Jamaica blue mountain was all the rage. Some girl (whose parents were government people or owned a sweatshop or slave plantation or something) brought some back to school. I'm slightly more impressed by the Harbucks but not fourteen bucks for a half pound impressed (at least not when you can still get Peets Major Dickasons for like eleven or twelve).
Besides, Starbucks is selling Ismael Beah's A Long Way Gone, one of the most amazing books published in this decade. So--um, what was my point? Starbucks--who cares either way?
And, yeah, Combat Rock. The problem, however was not that it was a sellout--it was kind of a fadeout. Two very different things.
I think her alubm being sold at Starbucks is slightly less problematic than the fact that her music sucks.
I like Starbucks. The green is relaxing and they have a good sausage english muffin breakfast sandwich. I don't like the whole taste-making thing with the music, though. I don't need some coffee executive suggesting what CD I should buy next. The reflexive anti-chain thing gets oppressive. Not all chains are the same, as has been noted.
its bittersweet when one's own little personal faves go into the wider public domain - the affirmation of your excellent taste warms your self-esteem but the loss of your worthiness as "the only one who really knows how special you are," well, its just so sad, such a heartbreak (what good is knowing "do ya" is the greatest single ever recorded when its on a monster.com ad? and don't get me started on the cruel trick reality played on me when "everybody's happy nowadays" became a theme song for aarp.) the risk for feist who, like many of the new handcrafted songsters, seems to show strong identification, almost unity, with her audience is what happens when that audience is no longer predominantly made up of smart and discerning hipsters like me and probably like you but is filled with bourgeois lite-music-listening coffee drinkers like people who aren't me? what will she think she owes them? how much audience love will she be willing to risk?
This post isn't about indie music OR Starbucks. The post is about Matt and how he fears what his behavior might reveal or say to other people.
So the question again is why is Matt worrying about what Feiss's music in Starbucks means when he should be worrying about what people think of him that he goes to Starbucks...
If he's curious I would never suspect that someone that pays $5 for a 1500 calorie latte filled with burnt coffee would even know how to spell "indie."
Also, this isn't about the knee-jerk attack Yglesias. I praise Yglesias and his ideas when he is due! But I try to keep the guy credible. It's my little gift to Matt because I care for him.
(Has Feiss ever topped her very first?)
when he should be worrying about what people think of him that he goes to Starbucks
personally, i don't care where he goes for coffee. and it's baffling to me why anyone would care.
Excellent point cleek, but it seems that apparently Matthew does care about these things. And to be honest, I think we all worry about how other people see us.
I think DeLong's take is similar to yours, which is that maybe Yglesias should care more about it himself than worry about what others have to say about it.
This whole thread is a good example of how much status competition drives everything people do. Steven Pinker has a funny section in one of his books about exactly this topic -- people who claim that bands sold out when they start making enough money to finally move out of Mom's garage and into a crappy studio apartment. It's just status competition straight out of a Tom Wolfe book.
Let me try to give some old fogey perspective. I was a college newspaper record reviewer back in the 1970s. The bands I loved -- Sex Pistols, the Clash, Ramones, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, etc. -- were either ignored or hated by almost everybody else on campus. Now, they are considered classics and some of their songs are used in TV commercials.
Guess what? I like that they got popular. They were good bands and they deserved to make money off music that gave me a lot of enjoyment. Further, their current massive popularity benefits me because other people will get my allusions to their songs. And I like that other people now get to enjoy music that is pretty enjoyable. It's an all-around win-win situation.
i've found a lot of good stuff on Starbucks samplers. ex. from their Hear Music comp #6, i discovered Gillian Welsh, The Shins, Lucinda Williams and Whiskeytown - two of which are among my all-time favorites, now.
Hear Music was putting good stuff on samplers before they were bought by Starbucks. While I haven't paid close attention, it doesn't seem like their taste has gotten markedly commercial or, for that matter, worse.
It would be useful to distinguish two forms of alleged selling out: procedural and substantive.
Remember: The first year of law school is a sunk cost. You don't have to go back for the last two years.
Remember: The first year of law school is a sunk cost. You don't have to go back for the last two years.
Too late.
The bands I loved -- Sex Pistols, the Clash, Ramones, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, etc. -- were either ignored or hated by almost everybody else on campus. Now, they are considered classics and some of their songs are used in TV commercials.
Guess what? I like that they got popular. They were good bands and they deserved to make money off music that gave me a lot of enjoyment.
"Popular opinion proves that I had good taste, and now I again dare to think outside the box."
You're such a rebel that you like it when music you love is used in TV commercials. Crazy, man.
Authenticity is crap. But diversity is awesome. The world would suck if everyone's favorite song was the same song--even if that tune actually was better than every other tune written in some probably nonexistent aesthetically objective way. I don't see anything wrong with peer groups enjoying unique collections of songs and passively avoiding songs that are too common to be unique.
It only becomes a problem when you declare your peer group's music to be "better" than every other peer group's music.
Each peer group's unique collection of sound is like a branch on the great tree of humanity's musical conversation. You should celebrate when your favorite indie band takes off, because that means it is time for your branch to divide into new branches, to bud new subcultures.
Hasn't Feist been thoroughly mainstream for a while now? I mean, her songs are featured on Maybeline commercials (or some other make-up brand). She's not quite Celine Deion, but I think you're mistaken if you're going to her to boost your indie cred.
Broken Social Scene and all those involved with it should be shunned and scorned.
If the is a Peets nearby go there.
I'm not sure I approve of any band so declasse as to want me to listen to them . . .
that it's even *possible* for so many alleged indie rockers to sell their music to fastfood chains and whatever should make us think it's not all that "alt" after all.
Exactly. Two completely fake concepts: 'Indie' and 'Alt'. What the fuck do they actually mean? Most of the stuff I hear which carries one of those labels is neither independent of anything, nor really an alternative to anything other than the most manufactured talento pop dreck. 'Alt' and 'indie' usually mean: music in 4/4 (always), with the same few chords as were ever used in rock or folk music, played by white American or British young people, with guitars and drums (and maybe a cello - an idea a thousand bands have decided is unique and fabulous). Lots of minor seconds on the minor chords. boring and mediocre. What is there to 'sell out' in these cases?
"Authenticity is crap. But diversity is awesome. The world would suck if everyone's favorite song was the same song-"
For everyone to have the same favorite song, our brains would probably work very differently, and we would quite likely think that it was a good thing that we all had the same favorite song.
Why would this suck?
For everyone to have the same favorite song, our brains would probably work very differently, and we would quite likely think that it was a good thing that we all had the same favorite song.
Good point.
Why would this suck?
Suckitude is of course purely subjective. But which do you think are cooler--birds that sing just one song, or humpback whales that generate a great variety of complex songs? Sure, if humans were a different sort of species that just sang one song, or judged the worth of all songs based on their nearness to the True Song, I guess we would still have worth as a species. But we wouldn't really be making music, we'd just be making The Herding Call of the Humans or something. It might be fascinating that our ultimate herding call would involve artificial instruments, but it wouldn't be music.
Comments closed June 05, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
But that's selfish and petty.
But what if you're all about being selfish and petty, and you want your musical choices to reflect that? What then?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | May 22, 2007 12:18 PM