Online Forty Niner: v8n19: Musicians shamelessly selling their souls

All are grossly over-paid and over-rated. All would better serve the world if they were dropped in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and forgotten about.

At least none of them have sold out.

Perhaps the most over-used and most often misused term thrown around the music world today is the term "selling out." People tend to use it when referring to bands when they become popular and break into the mainstream music arena.

However this definition is far from accurate.

The original definition of the term was selling your songs or image to promote commercial products. Perfect examples of this are the movie "Wayne's World" or The Who's brilliant 1967 concept album "The Who Sell Out" which shows Roger Daltrey endorsing a brand of baked beans and Peter Townshend giving his seal of approval to some deodorant.

In "Wayne's World" Wayne, played by Mike Myers refuses to let the show's sponsor promote his business on the show.

"That's where I see things just a little differently," said Cambell. "Contract or no, I will not bow to any sponsor. Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for me the beast doesn't include selling out."

This shameless trend has become increasingly prevalent in recent months. It seems like every channel on TV features Busta Rhymes driving a Mountain Dew truck, Macy Gray shopping at Target or Eve 6 telling us how they use 1-800-COLLECT when they are out on tour.

In addition to these painfully obvious cases of artists trying to cash in on their celebrity status any way possible, there are the sickening promotional deals that fast food restaurants are beginning to strike left and right.

Backstreet Boys, ëN Sync and Britney Spears all have been featured on commercials for various fast food restaurants offering limited edition discs.

Perhaps the saddest example of selling out and most surprising is rock legends U2.

U2's songs have been played nonstop during the Olympic games including classics such as "Bad" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday." However that is not the worst transgression. Their newest song "Beautiful Day" has been used incessantly in Coke advertisements that have run during the Olympics. This soon-to-be classic song was just released to the radios this month and is not even available for listeners to buy yet. The song is slated to appear on their next album "All That You Can't Leave Behind," to be released Oct. 31.

U2 is a band that once mocked the whole idea of selling themselves before kicking off their hugely successful Popmart tour in 1997. The band even went as far as announcing the tour in a Kmart advertisement.

"We're here to sell our tour to the world and I don't think there is any place better really, than Kmart," joked U2 guitarist Edge.

Apparently, things have changed for the band.

It is one thing for bands who are well past their prime to wring every last dollar out of their songs buy selling them to advertisers, like the Rolling Stones did when allowing their song "Start Me Up" to be used in conjunction with the release of Windows '95. The Stones stopped being relevant 20 years ago, who can blame them for trying to make an extra buck?

This recent trend of top artists being so obsessed with money that they stoop to using their songs to sell soft drinks or distribute their music at fast-food restaurants is just another sad commentary on the state of music today.

Perhaps Dana Carvey, in character as Garth Algar provides the answer in "Wayne's World."

"It's like people only do things because they get paid. And that's just really sad."

Chris Lew is the Diversions editor.