Top 10 Biggest Musical Sellouts

[Angel Eyes]

According to WatchMojo:



Jewel's only an honorable mention, but of course the first thing you see is the Intuition video.

10: Aerosmith
9: Liz Phair
8: Nicki Minaj
7: David Guetta
6: Taylor Swift
5: Maroon 5
4: Ice Cube
3: Metallica
2: The Black Eyed Peas
1: Green Day

Honorable Mentions:

- Jewel
- Linkin Park
- Sugar Ray
- Weezer

At least she's not #1, I guess? 

[Jessica]

"Sell out" is one of those phrases that gets a little more meaningless as I grow older. Things I like change. I used to like No Doubt, but I put on Tragic Kingdom sometime last year and it was awful.  By 15 year old me standards, that's selling out, but by 30+ year old me standards, that's just plain change.

Though the intuition song is selling-out by anyone's standards, I think  

[Fabio]

Mojo is about independent music, right? To them, selling out means having pop success. All of those examples were when the band had some/major pop success. Considering Jewel has had pop success since the beginning, she's just an honarable mention because of it, it's not like she was a big alternative hit and then did Intuition, much like Liz Phair did.

[Angel Eyes]

WatchMojo is just a site/youtube channel that makes a bunch of top 10 lists. Anything to do with music, movie, tv, games, politics, pop culture in general etc. They're not a "serious" channel by any means, really, but if you're not careful you could watch one video and then somehow end up watching 5 more or something. I've done that before.

But yeah, I rewatched the video where she talks about Intuition for the Greatest Hits album, and she's right. Nowadays you see so many newer artists who by the very definition "sell out" from the getgo and teens/early 20-something fans don't seem to care as much.



Rewatching the Intuition video itself makes you realize that it sort of was ahead of its time spoofing the whole sponsored products in music videos thing, even though no one knew that would actually become a thing! Britney's Hold It Against Me is just one blatant example.




And I actually like the intro to Avril's Rock N Roll just because they play it up to how ridiculous it is.

[Simon]

Pretty surprised they didn't include Bob Dylan in that list. Not that I know enough about him to make a judgment, but I'm often seeing articles about fans turning on him for becoming more commercial.

I'm not sure about Jewel. I can kinda see why she'd be an honourable mention - because she made an album of a completely different genre (or two) - but I never got the sense it was purely a cash grab, which is what should constitute a 'sell out' IMO.

[Angel Eyes]

I think with Jewel it's a weird combo of being a "sell out" writing Intuition with the intent of giving it to Schick, but musically going pop really wasn't a sell out for her because it was something she just wanted to do, not something she felt she had to do, ya know? Non fans who never followed her career wouldn't get that, though, which is both understandable and frustrating. Probably why Atlantic didn't seem to want her to do the album!

[NathanLevi]

It's funny because serve the ego went #1 on the dance charts so the dance fans probably saw it coming. Except then 0304 didn't really deliver on the dance part like you might have expected from hearing the remix of serve the ego.
I sometimes think and wonder what things would be like if the release of her albums was in different orders. Like if after 0304 she put out picking up the pieces instead still being with Atlantic. Or if the way she produced PUP was the same as say PC or GBAIW what things would be like.