So I am reading official confirmations that Andre 3000, of the group Outkast, was not at all into this years 20th anniversary festival tour.
I get it; the dude doesn’t like touring, or probably live performance in general. But he needed the money, as musicians tend to do when they stop doing music stuff for long periods of time. All of this is acceptable, and at the end of the day, I don’t really care, because I got to see Outkast live. Frankly, it doesn’t matter all that much how he feels to me. If he agrees to do it, and I agree to pay for it, then I am entitled to a good show, and that’s what I got (Others, it would seem, were not quite as lucky).
He’s even entitled to be open in public about how he’s not really feeling it, and it isn’t his thing, AS LONG AS HE BRINGS IT WHEN THE LIGHTS GO DOWN. We’re not putting money is his pocket for him to enjoy himself; we’re doing it so we can enjoy ourselves. Hopefully, he did well enough this time that he won’t have to do this again in another ten or fifteen years (at which point it would just be super sad).
Anyway, I’m fine with him not being into it; sometimes I have to take out the garbage, and it’s like, “Enough!”, you know? But when he spec
I’ve never liked the word “sellout”. Mostly because it spent many, many years being the go-to insult for proprietary douchebags. Everything is cool when only you know about it, and when you get to be the guy that introduces others to the cool shit that only you know about, you little tastemaker, you. But when EVERYONE knows about it, suddenly, they’ve sold out.
Ugh, fuck you, guy. Shut up with that stuff.
Which is not to say that actual sellouts don’t exist. But I don’t care about that, either, because it’s really fucking difficult to make money being an artist. I have so many friends that are super talented actors, writers, musicians, dancers… that have to work (BLARG) real jobs.
If you’re able to make a living doing something you love to do, and the cost is maybe McDonalds gets to use your song in a commercial about the McRib, fucking sign that contract. Having nerds question your artistic integrity is WAY easier to deal with when you can avoid the comments section at Pitchfork as opposed to when you go there on your lunch break because you’ve got nothing better to do before getting back to
But bringing me back to Andre 3000, the only thing that bugs me is trying to figure out what he actually means when he says he feels like a sellout. Is live performance his idea of selling out? Is it the idea of doing something you don’t want to do in order to make money? Because, news flash, Mr. Benjamin: we ALL do that. It’s called having a job. Which is how we were able to afford tickets to your shows so you won’t have to get one yourself in the first place.
(Actually, I asked my mommy and she got them for my birthday. But let’s leave facts out of this, shall we?)
Andre 3000 is welcome to complain. And I feel his pain. And I appreciate that for me at least, he was able to put on a good show, even if he wasn’t feelin’ it. But when he calls himself a sellout for having to earn money, it just sounds arrogant and out of touch.
Think before you speak, man…
Pryorball. 