TL;DR: Your favorite musical act or artist might be a sellout.

It's 1991 and you've just waited in line for several hours to get your hands on what you hope is the greatest Metallica album yet. You finally get home, spark up a doobie, crack open a cold one, and prepare to get your face melted off again by your favorite band. You press play, and almost as quickly as the sound waves hit your ears you start to cringe and become confused. Your finger finds the stop button as quickly as it hit play—as you just stare blankly at the jewel case this newly found piece of trash came in. "Wtf is this shit?" you think to yourself, still snarling under your breath about what your ears just had to endure. "Maybe it's just me" you murmur, and you hit play once again. This time you skip ahead a few tracks hoping to find something familiar, something that you're used to. You turn the volume knob to your right, as far as it will go, and hope for the best.
But the best was doing its best to elude you. This was no Metallica that you were used to—a buzzkill at best. You grab the jewel case to make sure you didn't grab the wrong album out of excitement. You pull the booklet out and give it a once over. Produced by Bob Rock. "Wtf is a Bob Rock, and what in the hell did he do to Metallica?" you snarl to yourself. Angry, you throw the case and the booklet into the garbage. "These guys are a bunch of God Damn sellouts!" you yell as you storm out of the room.

Fast forward to today, you've found your own little corner of the internet to hide in—trying day in, and day out to convince those you meet that Metallica sold themselves to the giant corporate devil the day that The Black Album was released.

"Selling out" and the music industry goes as far back as we can remember. They seemingly go hand in hand, but why? Countless acts have been accused of selling themselves and their fans short to get to the next levels of their career. But what really makes an artist or act a sellout—and who or what are they selling out? Does it matter if you hear your favorite band in a car commercial? What if your favorite rapper is trying to sell you some "sugar water shit"? Where do we draw the line? Isn't the idea to get yourself as many opportunities in the industry as possible in order to further your career? Who's calling the shots here? We talk about this and so much more on season 3, episode 4 of your favorite industry sellout's favorite music podcast. LET'S GO!

Keep up with all of the music we talk about in each episode by listening to the Infectious Groove Podcast Companion Songs playlist, exclusively on Spotify.

Infectious Groove Podcast, part of the OddPods Media Network.