Dan Ozzi - Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)

T HEY ARRIVED WITH their business cards and with their checkbooks. They descended on dingy rock clubs and dimly lit bars. They talked a smooth game and their shirts were tucked into their jeans. They were major-label A&R scouts and, by 1993, they were everywhere.

The punk scene had names for these sorts of people. They were the corporate villains mocked in song lyrics and torn apart in fanzines. They were called vampires and leeches, and their sole mission was to suck the life out of independent bands and leave them dry. They were the enemy. And now here they were in the flesh, on the lookout for fresh meat.

This wasnt the first time that the majors had tried to sink their teeth into the genre. A&R reps had first come sniffing around punk rock during its birth in the mid-seventies, making unlikely stars of rock n rolls antiheroes. Warner nabbed the Ramones, Virgin picked up the Sex Pistols, and CBS had the Clash. Punk infiltrated the system and planted its flag in pop culture. As it grew more popular, its countercultural ethos became part of the mainstream. But the moment was fleeting. After the punk explosion died out toward the end of the decade, due to dwindling cultural cachet and the deaths of some of its figureheads, major labels largely left the underground alone. Once there was no more money to be wrung out of punk, they turned their focus to emerging genres like new wave, R&B, and glam metal.

Throughout the eighties, few bands from the punk, hardcore, and alternative rock realms were even blips on the radars of major-label A&R reps, and with good reason. Much of the music lacked commercial appeal, often deliberately so. Of the handful of bands that were palatable enough to get called up to the majorsHsker D, the Replacements, Sonic Youthnone of them exactly proved themselves to be winning financial investments. Most were viewed internally at labels as prestige signingsa way for a company to buy themselves some cred and win the respect of critics.

And so, mainstream music and underground rock existed independently of each other for more than a decade without much overlap. On one end was the lucrative establishment, which helped artists dominate Billboard charts, MTV, and national press, and on the other, an autonomous network of small clubs, indie labels, promoters, and distributors struggling to get by. Aside from the anomalies of R.E.M. and U2, who successfully transitioned from college radio to Top 40 stations, there was little crossover between factions. The lines were drawn in crisp black and white.

Then a band from Aberdeen, Washington, came along and wrote an album that flipped the world upside down.

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No one saw Nirvana coming. When Geffen/DGC Records took a chance on the bands sophomore album, Nevermind, in September 1991, expectations were modest, with only 46,000 copies shipping to stores in the United States. But thanks to the trios small but rabid cult following on the indie rock circuit, the album quickly caught on with young listeners. Aided by minimal marketing, it debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number 144 and climbed steadily over that monthto 109, then 65, then 35. Once MTV started airing their video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, its momentum couldnt be contained. After just eight weeks, Nevermind had gone platinum.

Following a decade of bombastic, sex-crazed hair metal bands and shiny, mass-market pop acts, the raw and unpretentious Nirvana was the perfect candidate to usher in the fresh look, sound, and attitude of the 1990s. With his dirty Converse sneakers, the bands greasy frontman, Kurt Cobain, kicked the door open on a new era of rock that prided itself on authenticity and anti-commercialism. As a nation of despondent Gen Xers latched on to Nevermind, Nirvanas major-label debut organically took on a life of its own. When asked by the New York Times how DGC had created a phenomenon that was soon to unseat King of Pop Michael Jackson at the top of the Billboard charts, label president Eddie Rosenblatt shrugged. We didnt do anything, he admitted. It was just one of those get-out-of-the-way-and-duck records.

Neverminds meteoric rise put the last nail in the coffin of the 1980s and torched any lingering hair metal popularity. Leather pants and teased hair gave way to ripped jeans and flannel shirts. Cum On Feel the Noize was out; Come as You Are was in. Radio stations, MTV, and record labels had a newfound interest in guitar bands that were grittier and edgier. Tastemakers ravenously combed local scenes for the next Nirvana, the next Kurt Cobain, the next Seattle. Ten years of DIY culture and its entire movement had finally hit a tipping point and fundamentally changed the world. Grunge was now the hot new industry term, and everything in its orbit was in demand. Suddenly, the underground was financially viable, and the lines that had been black and white turned gray. Or, more accurately, green, as money started flowing into the underground from the corporations trying to buy it all up.

What followed in the wake of Nevermind has been described as a major-label feeding frenzy, an A&R gold rush, and an indie rock signing blitz. A&R reps raced one another to mine previously untapped scenes where rock music was thriving, in hopes of discovering the next breakout stars. After theyd fully pillaged Nirvanas stomping grounds in Seattle, they searched elsewhereD.C., San Diego, Chapel Hilland eventually landed in San Francisco. Thats where this book beginswith a catchy punk trio from the East Bay called Green Day, who inked a deal with Reprise Records in the summer of 93 for the release of their third album, Dookie.

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After Green Day left the indie world for the mainstream, a flood of other punk bands were given the chance to follow. A&Rs tried winning them over with fancy dinners and hefty bar tabs charged to the company card. Blue hair and piercings could be spotted in meeting rooms at label offices in New York and Los Angeles. The support system these bands were being offered was enticingproper studio accommodations, budgets to make music videos, and placement in malls and chain stores like Sam Goody and Tower Records. For bands that considered themselves lucky to earn enough gas money to drive their Econoline vans to the next town each night, these luxuries were often well beyond the ceiling of their modest imaginations.

But with this opportunity came a catch. The insular underground communities that had incubated these musicians were not about to let their scene be ransacked again without a fight. After a decade of carving out their own space, punks grew protective of the DIY network theyd built. As they fought to secure their independence, fists were raised and spikes were drawn. Punk imposed an unofficial set of rules on itself and was unkind to those who broke them. A line was drawn in the sand: any band signing with the Big SixSony Music, EMI, MCA/Universal, BMG, PolyGram, and Warner Music Groupwas doing business with the devil. They risked being banished, ostracized, or forever branded as sellouts.

For more than a decade, punks second brush with mainstream interest bitterly divided the scene. The most ardent defenders of the underground grew militant toward those bold enough to break out of the communities that had birthed them. To toe the line, longtime fans found themselves turning their backs on bands to which theyd once been so devoted. Some sellouts got off light, with backlash that amounted to disgruntled columns in fanzines or snarky comments on the internet. For others, it meant being barred from their favorite clubs and being threatened with physical violence.