Overview

The relationship between popular music and consumer brands has never been so cosy. Product placement abounds in music videos, popular music provides the soundtrack to countless commercials, social media platforms offer musicians tools for perpetual promotion, and corporate-sponsored competitions lure aspiring musicians to vie for exposure. Activities that once attracted charges of ‘selling out’ are now considered savvy, or even ordinary, strategies for artists to be heard and make a living. What forces have encouraged musicians to become willing partners of consumer brands? At what cost? And how do changes in popular music culture reflect broader trends of commercialization? Selling Out traces the evolution of ‘selling out’ debates in popular music culture and considers what might be lost when the boundary between culture and commerce is dismissed as a relic.

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9781501339301

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In popular music, who is a sellout, who is allowed to be a sellout, and how has talk about musicians 'selling out' changed over time? Engaging with examples such as The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, the Clash, Nirvana, Jay-Z and Lady Gaga, Bethany Klein offers an historically informed, nuanced and engaging analysis of the complicated relationship of commerce and popular culture. * Matthew P. McAllister, Professor of Media Studies, Penn State University, USA, and co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (2013) *

Author Information

Bethany Klein is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. She is the author of As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising (2009) and co-author of Understanding Copyright: Intellectual Property in the Digital Age (2015).

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