Why selling out has become normalised

The indie scene was once built on a siege mentality. But when film music has overtaken everything, does holding out for principles hold any meaning?

- Akhil Sood

Independent rock music, back in the mid-2000s, had a lot of enemies. And precious few friends.

You had to follow a list of arbitrary rules to be let into this super exclusive club led by embittered kids in their late teens or early-to-mid 20s (with some 1990s uncles still hovering). Embracing modern technology, for instance, and bringing a laptop on stage to play cool dhik-chik beats? Jailable offence. “Hey!” some scruffy fellow from the crowd would shout at the early mover bands, an Orange Street or a Pentagram (where Vishal Dadlani cut his teeth before making half a name for himself as a fine Bollywood composer). The band would look up expectantly. And then he'd pelt them with a water bottle. “You're a sellout.”

Selling out was a huge deal at the time, leading to major scandals on the niche messaging boards online where all these conversations played out. But what exactly it meant was never made clear. I played in a band in Delhi in those days, and spent plenty of energy accusing other, more popular (but less handsome) musicians of this unforgivable sin. But even today, I can’t pinpoint exactly what that meant.

It had something to do with integrity, artistic morals, authenticity, success, intention, money—an impressive-sounding word soup that was entirely conceptual. To throw around such grave accusations without an explicit definition of the crime seems, now, a bit unfair. It was more of a mood, really. We were making it up as we went along, with feelings of envy and betrayal in lockstep with more righteous emotions of honour.