- Look back at some of your favorite, talented, and creative artists and see how many of them lived nice, happy lives; "nice, happy lives" doesn't mean they had to be living some fairytale-dream kind of existence but some realities of one's life are harder to deal with than others.

- Beethoven, Mozart, and other classical musicians were no different; Beethoven/Mozart (one of them) was getting beat by their father and many classical musicians were in turmoil in their love lives and frequently had affairs; this is nothing new

- For some they were great artists without having experienced much negative emotions, but for many others they were damaged goods before they came into the music industry/world of music. Some suffered greater after diving into the world of music and produced even greater bodies of works.

- Agree/Disagree? This is already a well-established theory with the exception of a few, correct?

i think it depends on the artist and their temperament.

I think that if you've been battered enough, true happiness is some kind of fantasy or ultimate goal that is very hard to attain, that one can only imagine what it's like and get lost in those thoughts, which can inspire the mood and space they are in when creating music.

- Just want to see other people's thoughts on this subject matter
[Edited 4/27/09 18:25pm]

Not always, lol. But there's few bright spots. The best albums are usually either the depressive ones or bitter ones. Like "There's a Riot Goin' On" for example, lol.

I think that inspiration, hard work, talent and bit of luck are the main ingredients to great music.

Great music to me knows no mood; it's cut from all states of mind. If it's a human emotion, I'll bet someone somewhere has made great art out of it. But how one perceives that sentiment, if at all, is where things get real subjective.

In other words, the more the music creator or music listener narrows their horizons, be it happiness or sadness, or a million shades in between, I think the much less likely they are to connect with grace.

And grace can sprout from the lowest of lows or the highest of highs.

It's the extremes that are scary to me. If someone is almost entirely sad or entirely happy, they probably need help.

And we've all had our moments here to varying degrees.

Well happiness is a moment rather than a state.
Show me a person who's constantly happy.

rushing07 said:

Right, you never ever see it. There's always gonna be problems, lol. Difference is what you do with it once it seeps into your music, lol.

There are some artists though that make better art / music when under stress.

I hate that example but take Alanis Morissette.

Jagged Little Pill was a really nice album.
So many great songs, like
"You Ought To Know"

"And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died? Until you died! But you're still alive."

Followed by so so albums and her horrible happy HAPPY happy stage.

Then her recent album was not awful and she got dumped right before writing that one.
[Edited 4/27/09 23:10pm]

Well, you know, I have noticed that most of my fave artists were/are some seriously fcked up mofos. Maybe that says more about me than any theory, though....

Prince made some of his best music when he was going through some of his happiest periods in his life. at least according to his own words.

In most cases , this is actually true.