Dan Ozzi’s Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994-2007 is an incisive look at what, when I think about it, was a wild time in underground music. In the book, Ozzi is a rock journalist that examines the career trajectory of 11 bands that made the leap from the independent music scene to major labels. While the chapters are organized chronologically by release date of mainstream albums, the book has a neat layering effect where you see the overlap and crossover in the stories he recounts.
Patterns seem to emerge after reading some of these tales from the road and the label offices. Bands get approached by record label A&Rs, sometimes with aggressive wining and dining. In some cases, there’s an initial reluctance from the band before things get real and then bands dive in. In some cases, particularly as we drift out of the 90s and into the early 2000s, the discussion of selling out seems to die down. It’s no longer the crucial question in the punk scene, and so there seems to be a broader acceptance of major labels and in the case of bands like Rise Against or Against Me! there’s a recognition of the potential benefit to a major label and much less reluctance in jumping ship. That said, in many cases the jump to a major does seem to destroy a band for various reasons. Some make it out, others get eaten.
Ozzi’s journalism is highly effective in telling compelling stories. The actual narrativization of these bands’ experiences makes them seem like characters in a novel. I think that stands out in particular for the chapter on Jawbreaker’s Dear You. Maybe it’s just how reality is, but the story is structured like a tragedy: a band claiming they’ll never sell out before being compelled to the majors only to be rife with internal dissent afterward. The characterization of Jawbreaker frontman Blake Schwarzenbach is particularly touching, giving the chapter these sense of poetry and despair.
At the book’s best, Ozzi is able to give me a new appreciation for bands I care nothing or less than nothing about. For instance, I’m not a huge Green Day fan but the framing of them as the first punk band to really ‘make it’ is a compelling rags to riches story enhanced by the backlash that happened along the way. The most memorable moment to me is that there was a club where punk bands played that refused to let any ‘sellouts’ play there, including Green Day, despite the fact that that’s where they started. It’s kind of amazing to hear about the op-eds from Maximum RocknRoll that ripped into them for the change, as well.
One of the most impressive feats Ozzi pulls off is getting me to actually respect Thursday a little bit. When they got huge in high school I found them unlistenable—the punk in me rejected their emocore super stardom. It was compelling to hear about their punk rock roots and some of their politics. I had some recollection of when the drama happened with Victory records, but it wasn’t until this book that I really felt like I got the full context (even if I still have a hard time believing in Thursday’s sincerity as a band). At the very least, Ozzi gave me new appreciation for Thursday, even if sonically I still haven’t made it through a song.
By the same token, My Chemical Romance is given a pretty glowing retrospective. I remember I saw MCR in 2004 opening for Face to Face’s farewell tour. After My Chem played, a younger group in the crowd left while my sister and I shook our heads: “how can they miss out on Face to Face’s farewell?” Ozzi actually cites a similar phenomenon happening in the early days of MCR, but gives it an interesting spin. He talks about how My Chemical Romance was appealing to weirdos that didn’t really fit in in the punk scene, and how their more effeminate performances made space for young women and queer youth. It really puts things in a different light hearing about how vocally anti-misogynist, anti-racist, etc. Gerard Way was in the early days of MCR. People would call Way the f-slur for being more feminine and that has really forced me to reconsider some of my history with the Warped Tour. Please allow me this not-so-brief tangent to add to the history of MCR.
In 2004, punk band Guttermouth was kicked off of the Warped Tour. They released a statement that in 2023 reads as an abysmally bad take, but at the time it at least kind of felt like the ‘punk’ thing to do. They got into some trouble over politics. It was the years of the Not My President T-shirts and the Rock Against Bush compilations. Well, Guttermouth opposed groupthink in punk rock, which was definitely a hit. They also made fun of some other bands on the tour and in their statement Guttermouth writes, “They ran to daddy and told some of the brass that Guttermouth is making fun of us while they play. Well, they were right, I was, but only the fashion bands and groups who focused more on their make up and choo choo train hats than the music they play. [...] Punk and censorship do not exactly go hand in hand. So dry your eyes or your eye shadow will run.” At the time, it was pretty widely speculated that these comments were directed towards Avenged Sevenfold and My Chemical Romance. If true, I feel like MCR came out on top here—it’s easy to imagine them calling out the homophobia and gay panic that Guttermouth probably leaned on for their humour and it stands to reason that Gerard Way was on the right side of history, music aside.
Speaking of old school punk jerks, Rancid gets a justly unkind treatment in the chapter on The Distillers. Again, at the time, it was easy to see The Distillers’ sound as being a ripoff of Rancid. Brody Dalle’s vocals on City of Angels, for instance, could be transplanted with Tim Armstrong’s pretty seamlessly. At the time it was easy to write off The Distillers as a bit of a knockoff. But, it’s pretty heartbreaking to hear about Dalle’s struggles, first with drugs and later with Rancid. Rancid, with all their punk cred, went about burning Brody Dalle to the ground after her split from Armstrong. Some of the quotes in the book really paint Rancid in a bad light, operating like the mafia, as it’s described at one point. They criticized The Distillers publically after Dalle signed to a major—only to then turn around themselves and sign to a major, which is its own weird B-plot for the Distillers chapter. People were trying to coax Rancid into signing with a major for quite some time; Madonna tried to convince them to sign with a major by sending them a nude photo (like what?!). When they did sign, even gloriously spectacular music journalist and Canadian national treasure Nardwuar failed to get information out of Rancid after their switch to a major label.
When you hear all of these stories, Ozzi really does make the timeline seem explosive. The fact that At the Drive-In exploded so early (2000) but that Thursday exploded so late (2003), that there was only three years in between, and that everything in this sentence shocks me, is wild. Ozzi has a way of reflecting my history back to me that is both refreshing and unsettling. Bands that I had considered subversive had already been swallowed up by majors as I was growing up and I had no idea that they had ‘sold out’ (I guess the discourse had partly faded from memory).
I think punks also like to pretend that they’re in their own world, an elite of rebels against the capitalist machine, so it’s strange to hear, for instance, how many people are connected to Jimmy Eat World’s producers, or how Bono gave At the Drive-in advice to hang in there when their transition to a major was sending them into a downward spiral. Even hearing that it was Pennywise that really went to bat for Blink-182 is a pretty strange combination when you consider the poppy vibes of Blink-182 against the straightforward punk rock Fuck Authority. Similarly, hearing the way that Blink-182 basically revitalized the Warped Tour is wild (if not as surprising). It was kind of neat to hear, too, about the Warped Tour tradition (however frustrating), of rotating daily schedules in the spirit of a more democratic, egalitarian approach to large festivals. Sidenote: lots of bad things happened because of Warped Tour that aren’t addressed in this book, but I’ll give it at least a little bit of credit for maintaining a punk rock ethos in its schedule.
Sellout is a great trip down memory lane that offers a new angle for appreciating bands. Ozzi addresses the racism towards At the Drive-in and the sexism toward The Donnas tactfully and with a clear angle that those are dark stains on the punk rock community and beyond. At the Drive-in in particular is given such a compelling account that it really makes me want to listen to their records over again. Even little details like how Rise Against ended up with Swing Life Away and State of the Union on the same album—and how they thought soccer moms would be in for a surprise if they bought Siren Song of the Counterculture for Swing Life Away—are nice touches.
I’m certain the book could be expanded into something much broader, as well. I remember a few years back The Swellers broke up and released a long essay about how hard it is to be a mid-tier band, bigger than a local but always tour support for someone else, and how financially unviable it is. I’d love to hear some more stories of those that tried to make the jump or couldn’t quite make the jump and how things are for them. The Ataris would be well-served having their story told in this kind of format, though their story really bums me out.
Sellout was a really pleasurable read. It was like all those Behind the Music things, but because of the context I felt so much more connected to it. Ultimately and primarily, it’s a work of journalism and history, so I recognize that this was not the purpose of the book, but I would have liked to hear a bit more regarding the tension between selling out or staying independent. I’m fascinated by the question of what the possibility for genuine dissent is when it comes to the market. So often subversion is annexed by the mainstream and furthers the interests of capital, so I would have liked to have seen a bit more of an actual case being made one way or the other. I suspect that Ozzi doesn’t find the question of whether it’s right to sell out as a very fruitful conversation—he’s more interested in the realities of what does happen. That said, I would have liked to hear a more philosophical slant emerge. While you get some strange defenders of selling out, like Ben Weasel from Screeching Weasel, the arguments against selling out all seem to get subsumed when a band recognizes they also have to make a living.
Propagandhi is the best punk band (or any band) in the world. Their worst record opens with a lyric that I find endlessly resonant in trying to find the balance of communicating to the masses while staying true to the vision of an alternative to the capitalist nightmare we’ve created:
We entertain, we’re still knee-deep in shit.
There’s something wrong inside,
We played it safe, enjoyed the ride.
You won’t like this but I’ve something to confide.
We stand for something more
Than a faded sticker on a skateboard,
We’ve rained on your parade,
We’re out the door.
As I wrap up this review about the history of punk, I can’t help but wonder about its future. I want to hold onto a vision of punk that gives outsiders a place, emboldens the spirit of solidarity (not unity, but I’ll leave that for now), and drives change in the world. I grapple with questions of TINA* capitalism (*There Is No Alternative) and the sincerity of praxis in a mass market—but also recognize that people should be able to live by their art.
These are some tough questions that Sellout doesn’t really delve into, but I’m still very satisfied with my history book for the month. Hopefully I’ll live through some more really exciting moments for punk music. Hopefully you will too.
See you in the pit.
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