History DoingItForTheArt / Music

* Obscure bands, especially in extreme metal circles. A piece by a tech metal band has a groove, riff or time signature change once every 10 seconds or so. They also have songs that last about 8 minutes. And they don't make much money, as they have fans numbering in the thousands. Outside of Music/CannibalCorpse, Music/TheBlackDahliaMurder, Music/MorbidAngel, Music/{{Nile}}, Music/{{Whitechapel}}, and a select few others, extreme bands don't make anywhere near enough to provide anything resembling a decent living to members who rely on them as their sole source of income, and even those rare few musicians who do make a decent living from them are not loaded by any means.

* PunkRock band Music/{{Chumbawamba}} infamously toyed with this during the late 90's -- the members were bona fide [[UsefulNotes/{{Anarchism}} anarchists]] and their music had heavy political slant, being critical of major capitalist establishments and authorities (among other things), so it was only natural that for most of their life, "doing it for the art" (i.e. without financial returns in mind) was their ethos. This made it all the more unexpected when they signed onto {{Creator/EMI}} in 1997 (a record label they previously railed hard against, even titling a 1989 compilation ''Fuck EMI''), and when this naturally proved controversial among fellow anarchists, the band defended their decision by pointing out that no matter what distributor they were signed to, they lived in a capitalist world and were ultimately going to need to play by the rules of financial viability (pointing out that their previous independent record label was ultimately a business to make more money, [[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan making them no less of an institution than EMI for the band's tastes]]), arguing that a major record label would give them more visibility to espouse their messages. After the release of their [[OneHitWonder single]], [[BlackSheepHit black-sheep]] radio hit "Tubthumping", they ended up sticking to their ideological guns, going on TV talk shows and encouraging people to shoplift their albums, unexpectedly performing the song at the 1998 BRIT awards with altered lyrics in support of the Liverpool Dockers' Strike (which included a band member dunking water over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was in attendance), basically doing everything to assure that their time in the label was short-lived, but was what ''they'' as a band wanted to do. They ended up parting ways from EMI in 2001, and the band proudly announced they got what they wanted from the experience -- a bigger audience, great music, and money to donate to politically-relevant causes -- and were fully content to return to producing their usual work independently.

* PunkRock band Music/{{Chumbawamba}} infamously toyed with this during the late 90's -- the members were bona fide [[UsefulNotes/Anarchism anarchists]] and their music had heavy political slant, being critical of major capitalist establishments and authorities (among other things), so it was only natural that for most of their life, "doing it for the art" (i.e. without financial returns in mind) was their ethos. This made it all the more unexpected when they signed onto {{Creator/EMI}} in 1997 (a record label they previously railed hard against, even titling a 1989 compilation ''Fuck EMI''), and when this naturally proved controversial among fellow anarchists, the band defended their decision by pointing out that no matter what distributor they were signed to, they lived in a capitalist world and were ultimately going to need to play by the rules of financial viability (pointing out that their previous independent record label was ultimately a business to make more money, [[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan making them no less of an institution than EMI for the band's tastes]]), arguing that a major record label would give them more visibility to espouse their messages. After the release of their [[OneHitWonder single]], [[BlackSheepHit black-sheep]] radio hit "Tubthumping", they ended up sticking to their ideological guns, going on TV talk shows and encouraging people to shoplift their albums, unexpectedly performing the song at the 1998 BRIT awards with altered lyrics in support of the Liverpool Dockers' Strike (which included a band member dunking water over Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was in attendance), basically doing everything to assure that their time in the label was short-lived, but was what ''they'' as a band wanted to do. They ended up parting ways from EMI in 2001, and the band proudly announced they got what they wanted from the experience -- a bigger audience, great music, and money to donate to politically-relevant causes -- and were fully content to return to producing their usual work independently.

* Music/OKGo also flat out refuses to work with sponsors that attempt to exert creative control, which is why the "This Too Shall Pass" music video is sponsored by ''State Farm''.

* In the mid-1940s, when the cast album of ''Theatre/{{Oklahoma}}'' became a hit, every major record company in America started to bid for the rights to record original cast albums of Broadway musicals. Under producer Goddard Lieberson, Creator/ColumbiaRecors not only recorded the musicals that were big hits or near-hits but also recreated on LP many musicals dating as far back as the 1920s. Ethan Mordden called ''Theatre/StreetScene'' "the first Absolutely Guaranteed Flop to get an album"; though its operatic score had to be heavily abridged to fit on twelve-inch 78's, such technological limitations no longer applied to ''Theatre/TheMostHappyFella'', whose expansive score was recorded with nearly all the dialogue on 3 [=LPs=]. ''Theatre/AnyoneCanWhistle'' had already ended its one-week Broadway run, but Lieberson nevertheless chose to record the original cast album, which helped give Creator/AngelaLansbury the opportunity to play her StarMakingRole in ''Mame''.

* Music/{{OK Go}} also flat out refuses to work with sponsors that attempt to exert creative control, which is why the "This Too Shall Pass" music video is sponsored by ''State Farm''.

* Music/{{Gotye}} considers himself less of a "musician" and more of a "tinkerer", someone who spends his time prioritizing experimenting with his craft over profiting off of it. When "Somebody That I Used To Know" became an international smash hit, he willingly opted against running ads on its music video (or any of his videos, for that matter) despite the song alone amassing over a billion views, as well as giving 50% of that song's royalties to the estate of Luiz Bonfá, the late Brazilian musician that he sampled for the song. He also didn't mind [[OneHitWonder not attempting a follow-up hit]], with his trajectory after taking off being mostly the same as before in coasting through smaller passion projects and other musical endeavors, including putting his "Gotye" moniker on hiatus as he returned to drumming for his local band, The Basics.

* Robert Fripp has dissolved Music/KingCrimson on multiple occasions just as they were about to make it big, only to bring it back with an entirely new sound. Fripp has frequently stated that aiming for success would be bad for the music.

* Music/{{Rush}}'s third album, ''Music/CaressOfSteel'', left their continued existence in doubt with the relatively poor sales of their odd concept album, including a pair of [[EpicRocking multi-part]] epics, was pressured by [[Creator/MercuryRecords their label]] into making a commercial, mainstream album that played it safe and ensured that they would stay afloat. Figuring that they may as well go out with style, they released ''Music/TwentyOneTwelve'', half of which was dominated by the title 20 minute, 7-part epic song; the polar opposite of what their label demanded. When the prog-rock ConceptAlbum managed to propel Rush to mainstream stardom, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. More than one [[EpicRocking huge song]] followed, with "Camera Eye" on ''Music/MovingPictures'' being their final inordinately long song.