selling your soul in music

[Julie]

What's wrong with making music to get money out of it? People all get jobs to make some money. Are we all selling our souls then?

 

[Chevelle]

I've always liked the movie Crossroads, just the soundtrack makes it worth a watch. I use to call this movie The Karate Kid Sings The Blues.
The movie is about Robert Johnson even though it's Smokehouse Brown that needs to get back to the crossroads to get his soul back from the devil.
I first heard about the whole 'selling your soul' thing in reference to Robert Johnson. People said that he played so well that it wasn't humanly possible so, obviously, he must have made a deal with the devil to play like he did.
Legend tells us that the devil is only interested in one thing, a person's soul.

 

[Magic]

People have been saying that 'Music is Evil' for years. That's nothing new. I am just having trouble wrapping my head around the concept of being able to sell something so intangible and then "who" are you selling it to? The Devil.......also intangible. (the whole concept sounds like a mental disorder)


IMO, signing a contract to play & record music is not selling your soul.

 

[ElPatanico]

Ithink "selling your soul" basically means "doing whatever management, booking, record labels, etc. wants you to do to make it." Abandoning your own morals and principals for the big payoff of money and fame. I'm not a religious person. I believe the "devil" represents "the evils of shedding one's personal belief system for success and excess," as opposed to the "ghouls and ghosts of religion" type theory.

Symbolism. It's always been a way of appealing to the masses.

 

[Vehicle]

I'd sell my soul to kiss Avril Lavigne's belly button.

 

[Khor1255]

What's wrong with making music to get money out of it? People all get jobs to make some money. Are we all selling our souls then?

To me there is a difference between playing what the audience wants to hear in order to 'sell' seats and retain popularity and completely changing your style or staying stuck in one style because that is what is making you the most money.

Music is an art form and art thrives when the expression is pure and freely flowing from the artist. Some folks seem pretty good at faking it but it rarely if ever sounds as good as people who are literally playing from the heart.

To me 'selling your soul' is a metaphor for abandoning your principles or whole sound to appease a market. To me it is a crying shame how often this strategy pays off for those who do it but I don't think I've ever heard any improvement in a band that listened to what the marketing stooges told them to do.

There must be one r two out there but I can't think of any.

As for actually selling your soul to The Devil? I don't think that is possible and I believe. But then there is that story about Robert Johnson...


Funny thing about that. I knew a guy in school that wanted to play very badly before one summer break. When we all got back to school he was really good at hot dog licks in just the two plus months since he was a raw amateur. I always thought that was the most remarkable improvement I had ever seen in a musician.

 

[Big Ears]

In the story of Faust, he sells his soul to the devil in exchange for pleasure and knowledge. However, he learns there is a price to pay when he falls in love with one of the 'pleasures', an innocent girl called Gretchen. She is destroyed, but goes to heaven, while Faust is carried off to hell and eternally damned for choosing human over divine knowledge.

 

[Magic]

I'd sell my soul to kiss Avril Lavigne's belly button.

 

[Powerage]

Take all the religious and philosophical shit out of it. Selling your soul in Music, when you stop writing music for yourself and you start writing music that you think others will want to hear.

Or at worst, band wagon jumping. See Green Day's output post 2002 for the ultimate example of this.

 

[Aero]

I've always liked the movie Crossroads, just the soundtrack makes it worth a watch. I use to call this movie The Karate Kid Sings The Blues.
The movie is about Robert Johnson even though it's Smokehouse Brown that needs to get back to the crossroads to get his soul back from the devil.
I first heard about the whole 'selling your soul' thing in reference to Robert Johnson. People said that he played so well that it wasn't humanly possible so, obviously, he must have made a deal with the devil to play like he did.
Legend tells us that the devil is only interested in one thing, a person's soul.

Maybe Bob Dylan made that same deal...