Top 10 Music Artists Who are the Biggest Sellouts

Because... well, I just went with the flow. Then I listened to the music before the Black Album and realized it's somewhat true. But it's a good album, just not thrash.

After that, it's been up and down based on personal opinion.

They were one of the top metal bands around back in the 80s, but now they are just remembered for what they did in that decade. If Metallica had stuck to its roots, it would still be on top and might even be considered the greatest metal band of all time. They are either considered the greatest metal band of all time or the second greatest to Iron Maiden.

From the Black Album onwards, they have sold out. If they had stuck to their thrash roots, they probably would have come out with albums just as good, if not better, than their first four albums.

This is a worse sellout than Metallica, and here is why. While Metallica still makes metal music like they did in the '80s, Maroon 5's current music is nowhere near what they did in the 2000s. Adam Levine has made the band barely even "pop rock," which was the band's genre before selling out.

Rock and metal bands that sell out and then start making "all pop" music are considered to be the worst sellouts.

"The Adam Levine Experience" is a much more fitting name. Whatever happened to this band, I find it difficult to understand. Adam Levine is quite the egotist, following fame and money at this point. He's a famous celebrity, known for being in "The Voice" and has a well-documented personal life. Hardly anybody knows about any of the other band members. It's almost sad how I tend to pity them somewhat, as they can't even display much of their talent.

Maroon 5, or rather, The Adam Levine Experience, was a pretty solid band. Now, they've become the poster boy for the term "sell-out", and many notable music fans and critics understandably dislike the band for this. If anything, blame Adam for all this.

Especially after the reunion, they became a pop band.

An unfortunate example of a true sellout. I understand that not everyone is super talented. I understand you only have so many songs in you. But I'd rather fade into rock obscurity with a couple of great tunes under my name than prop myself up with a bunch of cookie-cutter, pop garbage just to stay famous. 1995 Gwen wouldn't even recognize herself today.

Okay, now this person is actually a sellout, and not Tom DeLonge. She gave up her band No Doubt, which is Ska Punk, in order to become a pop artist and become more popular. She doesn't put passion in her pop music, meaning she did sell out. When someone does not even put passion into something, just doing it for fame, that is big-time selling out.

They definitely started to sell out once Save Rock and Roll came out, straying away from the good sound. Once Mania hit, that was the definition of a sellout. Hear for yourself and you'll see why.

The albums following the first breakup feel a lot less genuine than the earlier ones. Mania was an album that didn't need to be made, and the Billy Joel cover? Why does that exist?

They definitely sold out. Compare songs like Sugar, We're Goin Down to pop rock garbage like Centuries or My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark.

I Was Made for Lovin' You is their crappy (but very listenable) attempt at disco - at least, that's what my parents have said.

But after listening to their earlier stuff myself, I agree. A LOT.

How are these guys not in the top 10? Kiss has sold out in pretty much every single way possible.

Why is Nirvana on this list? The over-merchandising of Nirvana started after Kurt's death, and everything about "In Utero" is far from selling out. It's the exact opposite.

Pushing KISS merchandise on talk shows has only served one purpose: telling the world how much Gene Simmons has sold out.

The Black Eyed Peas are a group who have sold out, not once but twice. Originally, they were a supposedly legitimate band with respect in the hip hop community. Then Fergie joined, and they became a pretty good pop band for a while.

However, when I Gotta Feeling came along, they lost any semblance of identity to become generic, soulless pop-dance music that occupies the charts these days. Thankfully, they went on hiatus before they steeped too much further in that part of their career, clearly due to diminishing returns. When they inevitably reunite, they should hopefully return to what they originally were, but the chances of that are sadly slim. They are a sellout in every sense of the word.

They sold out before anyone actually heard of them. Their first album, The Curb, was heavy and their newer stuff is very poppy. I wish they could go back to not always singing about sex, partying, and all that.

Who remembers their album Curb? No one, since their fans love their new poppy music. Like with Metallica, they were heavy and changed by money to make themselves softer.

How could anyone forget them? Apparently, they had a grunge sound at the beginning, and then decided to go all radio-friendly with their later albums.

The early 2010s were an era where pop unleashed its worst, and an album like Night Visions was like a breath of fresh air.

Years later, they make Believer, which is so atrocious not even having Dolph Lundgren in the music video can redeem it.

A movie soundtrack for every film and poppy, meaningless songs are being released instead of the great ones from their first album.

I've always hated this band with a passion, but they somehow find ways to get worse over time.

They sold out by refusing to pass the torch to newer bands. Dickinson brags about being a dinosaur, and that's what led Senjutsu to be defeated by Drake on the charts.

If you let Drake humiliate you, you really mess up big time.

For the older fans, Coldplay is that kid you used to be friends with and go to school with. They were shy and gawky, but at least they were friendly and honest. Unfortunately, they secretly wanted very badly to fit in and be liked.

To this end, at some point during summer vacation, that kid starts hanging out with the wrong crowd, eventually reinventing themselves. By the time you see them again, they're a completely different person. Now, they hang out with the cool kids and want nothing to do with you. That's Coldplay.

You know a musician has sold their soul to the devil when they have collaborated with the likes of Kanye West, Rihanna, Beyonce, and Jay Z.

Okay, so his late 80s to 90s stuff was very much him selling out, but he came back with The Next Day and Blackstar, which are two of his finest works.

It becomes pretty obvious after Vices and Virtues that Brendon Urie abandoned the good sound that Panic! at the Disco had just to be famous and sell out with Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die, and the pop music on it. It was apparent in Vices and Virtues as well, but at least not that much to the point where there's still a lot of their sound in it. Now, it's all pop garbage that is not the Panic sound that made them.

I have to admit that they did kind of sell out, although they're still enjoyable either way.

I just watched them perform on the late show and my god... what the hell is this? Electric drums, no distorted guitars or powerful vocals? They're just another Chainsmokers knock off. Complete loss of identity.

They went from borderline metal to electronic, techno. They're all talented, but they cover up that talent with awful dance beats. Up in the Air is a perfect example.

They went from a very nicely produced space prog rock concept album to absolute trash. In my opinion, this is the most stark sellout on this list.

I'm seriously surprised how no one talks about Snoop Dogg selling out, just like they do with Metallica selling out. Snoop started collaborating with artists like Katy Perry, Ke$ha, Jason Derulo, and PSY, and promoting rappers like Wiz Khalifa and Far East Movement. He even guest-starred on "Big Time Rush!"

Besides all that, he hasn't been himself either. Right now, he's trying to be a wannabe Rastafarian, even calling himself "Snoop Lion."

Snoop really has changed. He's in his 40s now, so he should just retire already. He was a gangster back then, but now he's a joke that's not funny.

With every member that left Guns N' Roses, they took a bit of talent with them. I hated Chinese Democracy, and it is nothing like Appetite For Destruction.

Sadly, I think they had the biggest drop in quality in music. If we take Metallica for example, The Black Album, Load, and Reload are good albums (even great in the case of The Black Album) just not Thrash Metal. St. Anger and Lulu sucked, but those were uncommercial experiments. And they did return to form with Hardwired & Death Magnetic.

However, I do feel that people are being too hard on Phil Collins. A Trick of the Tail & Wind and Wuthering are as great as the Peter Gabriel albums. And Then There Were Three & Duke are also good, though Steve Hackett's exit did hurt them, and Phil's side project Brand X is awesome. I blame the 80s.

They are the Maroon 5 of the '80s. They define sellout. They used to have unique rock music with brass instruments in the '70s, but in the '80s, they became a sappy ballad band. However, in my country, people think of them as just a ballad band.

As far as I'm concerned, Chicago was the first sellout in the history of popular music. They went from making solid progressive rock songs in the 70s to putting out the same whiny ballad in the 80s.

"If You Leave Me Now" made them the second-biggest sellouts of the 1970s.

U2 are the very definition of 'sellout'. They don't care what they do as long as there's a nice cheque.

Like the Bugatti Veyron. Great, just not likeable.

U2 was the biggest rock'n'roll ticket in the '80s, with many good albums and the classic The Joshua Tree. They made no compromise with Achtung Baby and the ZOO T.V. tour, and then they took a hit with Pop, which was still good but too provocative for the USA. Subsequently, they chickened out and changed into a caricature of themselves, morphing into the U2 corporation: singing for presidents (whom they made fun of in the '90s), CEOs, and other so-called elites. They produced pop tunes with censored lyrics (like how Native Son becomes the idiotic Vertigo), with a few good songs here and there. However, these were washed away, and so far from the ideals and righteousness they once stood for. The real, good songs they now just jukebox for money. This was the ultimate betrayal of the fans who made them what they were up to the end of the '90s.

Ever since Santana made an unlikely comeback in 1999 with "Smooth" and the Supernatural album (which probably should've been named "Superficial"), he definitely sold out on the albums that followed. He sounded like the guest of his own show, and his guitar wailing alongside vocal guests even became as unbearable as a baby crying or shrieking in a public place. Santana's sellout story is one for the ages that very few people mention these days.

Heart's self-titled album was a huge sellout. I'm a fan of that album. I just don't care if the sisters hated the uncomfortable corsets they were wearing, especially Ann.

She "sold out" in the sense that her new music was a lot more pop-oriented and flamboyant, but she clearly thought she was still "pop punk" until her latest album. I see that in her second album, she was really upset about her grandfather passing away. Her following album is her somewhat trying to put that part of her life behind her. "Let Go" is my favorite album by her. If I had to say the album where she was probably closest to her actual self, without emotions that greatly impacted her music to be super downbeat or upbeat, it'd have to be "Goodbye Lullaby".

Her newest album, where her fight with Lyme disease was clearly a huge influence, shows she even seems to wear more formal and, more importantly, clothes that cover more of her. This is probably because Lyme disease is from ticks, and wearing longer clothing seems like an easy solution to try to stop ticks from getting on you.