The question of “selling out” was a defining concern of the independent music scene during the 1990s. Some bands who had paid their dues, like R.E.M. and Sonic Youth, saw the act of signing to a major label as a path forward to sustain their ambitions.
Younger and less experienced acts, like Mudhoney and Nirvana, found the opportunity they had dreamed of through lucrative recording contracts, only to confront corporate pressures and stifled aspirations, even when they achieved a high level of commercial success. Others still, like Fugazi and Bikini Kill, rejected outright the terms on offer from the corporate mainstream.
Selling out was not simply a question of money — after all, every musician wants to make a living — but one of how to attain financial independence without sacrificing artistic credibility. Pavement, the feted indie rock band founded in 1989 by Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannberg, made this critical point of deliberation an integral part of their music.
Over the course of five studio albums, they brought an astute sense of the Faustian bargain that seemingly faced every artist of talent at the time, displaying a caginess toward the allure of fame while also understanding the concessions required to make a career out of music.
“Can you treat it like an oil well, when it’s underground, out of sight?” Malkmus asked rhetorically on the track “In the Mouth a Desert” off their 1992 debut Slanted and Enchanted, posing the principal question on everyone’s mind about what might happen to the alternative music scene circa 1991. Dissatisfied with playing the game by the established rules, Pavement made a game of thwarting expectations.
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Auteur: Christopher J. Lee
