>That feeling part of a larger anti-consumerist vibe percolating through culture at the time.
No, now this is not how I remember it at all. It was entirely limited to that era of music. Back then, Michael Jordan got hundreds of millions on just his sneakers. Nobody dared to think he was "selling out". George Foreman grills were hot. Gretzky was into selling you quite a lot of stuff. Shaq has never stopped doing TV commercials since the 90s.
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19950219/2105837/gr...
Those people are not artists though, they're athletes. I think with the word "culture" the author is mainly referring to forms of art such as movies, music, tv, and literature.