"Selling Out"

What? Of course it matters, and the change has nothing to do with it. If Phil Collins decided "I want to write really simple pop music because I lurve it" that would not be selling out no matter when he decided that. Everybody assumes he did it because of the money, and maybe he did, but we, as observers, have no way of telling the difference.

Not that I am complaining at all. :D

You've missed the important part of my post though, that its selling out when the change in direction is fairly quick (over one album to the next, or covering two albums, for example) and only to sell more records and therefore make more money. The reasons behind it could be external or internal, but the results are still the same and that its because the band/artist is looking to make more money/become more famoues/whatever.

 

I never suggested that Collins sold out in his solo career.

 

Uncyclopedia is terrible and unfunny.

 

I agree. Love Beach, Giant for a Day, and Then There Were Three are a bit contrived by managment and record company. Can you picture some smuck in the control booth telling Ian Anderson what to write and how to write it? Or how to go about changing some grand composition to be more appealing to the mass? Could you imagine how suck egg we would feel if we heard the pieces before they were changed? Again I must say that the mere fact staring me in the face is that.....these people are not musicians. Look at what they have done to music. Think of all the great epic prog pieces or even rock songs they have toyed with. They so often have not received the blame by the mass. The mass is confused. There is no justice in this particular area. After being successful you are lucky to be in a position to tell the record company of your demands and coming to an agreement in favor of the artisitic approach of things. You are basically dealing with criminals. White collar criminals. It's not at all like running the plumbing supply business in which your father has handed down to you.