Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms has decided to offer his thoughts on the ever-going debate about compromise and selling out in music on his personal blog. Kelly talks about a friend who has played in a few minor bands, and has seen other bands get big, despite his personal opinion that the band sucks.
Kelly then turns to the discussion about bands selling out, stating that it isn’t a matter of compromise as much as running out of good ideas. As he states, There are tons of bands who change up their sound and don’t get worse, and a lot of times they even become more accessible and better all at once. There are a zillion ways a band can grow, change direction and stay good. But when they get shitty, that’s always just because they ran out of ideas, or their ideas that used to be good are now bad. That’s the only thing that happens. Again, integrity doesn’t enter the picture.
Kelly also makes a very good point by stating, People don’t write and play music that they hate. If the guys in, let’s say, the Ataris (one of the bands he mentioned) are playing some kind of music that my buddy finds to be gross, well, that’s because they have different tastes. I promise you that the guys in the Ataris are writing the best songs they can, and they’re doing it in a style they think is cool.
You can check out the blog post in its entirety here.
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