All Time Low...Selling Out?

So, All Time Low was on MTV today. It upsets me a little, but you know, bands get bigger, you can't keep them as your little secret forever. There's, unfortunately, nothing you can do to stop them.

Alex, from All Time Low, put up a YouTube video asking what our definition of selling out was, and it made me think. I threw that term around like a baseball for awhile when I talked about Fall Out Boy, but in all actuality, I wasn't using it in the right context.

His definition of selling out: 'When a band or artist or someone in that position changes what they do creatively based on money that they are usually going to recieve.'

To me, that is the best definition of selling out that I've heard, if you can call a definition of selling out good.

A video being on TRL isn't selling out. Some people think that being on MTV is causing bands to sell out when in all actuality, they're making bands more mainstream. [Personally I believe MTV is stealing artists souls, but that's not the point] Becoming mainstream and selling out are two different things.

I think what I'm most afraid of is seeing a band that I've been able to interact with, and see at smaller venues appear on MTV. It scares me to think that they could turn into another Fall Out Boy where tickets for a concert are $40 and they as people become people who instead of doing what they love for the fans, they're doing it because of money.

I know that the guys from All Time Low tend to brighten up my shitty days, like when they're were in Milwaukee with BLG and I got to meet them and yes, even a little bit today, when I was home sick, flipping to TRL and seeing their video as opposed to another rapper who will have one song and disappear.

So right now, they're not selling out. But when [and yes, I mean when, because as much as I want to keep them as my secret little awesome band that never goes multi platinum] they become this HUGE phenomenon, I sincerely hope that they don't forget the little guys who had to search four Targets on September 25th to find the CD they (im)patiently waited for.