More brutal truth.

I'm not interested.

And neither is the public.

Good enough just doesn't cut it.

Has anybody competed and won against the iPod? Can you name an act today as good as the Beatles?

Somehow, in the last few decades, artistic quality has become irrelevant. In the dash for cash, it's all about shooting low, to the sweet spot, where most people live, so the purveyors can make money.

It's worst in the movies. Where pictures are made for worldwide audiences. You can't do comedies because they don't understand the jokes everywhere else. Instead of originality, we get endless recycled dreck, like "Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides". Don't point to the grosses. No one says it's good. And it ain't that much different in music.

Which is why we find the same people making the same records over and over again. There are go-to guys and gals who write and produce and that's just the way the purveyors want it. The fact that some people buy it does not undercut the point that most people do not. Sales are anemic. We've got endless hype, and yet almost nothing sells in excess of a million copies, in a country of three hundred million.

If you want someone to encourage you to pick up your instrument and play, to try to make it in music, you've got the wrong guy. I've got no problem with you going down to Guitar Center, buying an axe and working up some tunes in GarageBand. But just don't expect me to get excited, just don't expect me to want to hear it!

I know, I know, you don't like this. Not in a country where you get a trophy for participating and your mother says you're the best musician she's ever heard.

Bollocks.

A great musician has practiced, is familiar with his instrument and has something to say. And if the music is truly great, we'll all pay attention.

Isn't this how Apple made it?

Because Steve Jobs is all about excellence. From top to bottom. If you were to buy an Apple product and be dissatisfied you'd be stunned. You marvel at the design, you're wowed by the usability. You're happy. When were you this happy about music?

Now this is a specialized audience. So many of my readers live for music. But most of the public does not. Music is just background noise. Something you listen to as you play video games, or do your homework. The concept that someone will create something so great that you've got to stop doing everything else and pay attention is unknown.

Don't blame the audience. The audience will embrace anything great. Blame the artists and the companies themselves.

Instead of risking an organic experience, something fully alive, with peaks and mistakes, big acts play to tape.

They don't want to risk failing. But we're truly enamored of those who play without a net.

Acts give the public what they think it wants. Used to be acts led.

Now I'm not saying there are no great acts.

But I am saying that usually the great ones take years to make it. They're new, and innovative, and it takes a while for the public to come around to the sound. And it takes a while for the creators to perfect that sound.

What we've got on television is commerce. People with good voices singing someone else's songs, in most cases, blue chips. As for the songs they do themselves... Kelly Clarkson had a great one by Dr. Luke, but no one wants to see her now, because it was all about the performance, they knew it wasn't HER!

Whereas we knew it was Bob Dylan. Even though people criticized his voice.

Those testing limits, doing something different, are always lambasted at first, assuming anybody even cares. But eventually, the public comes around. Used to be, record labels and radio assisted in this process. Labels found the best and radio exhibited it. Now, what's the record company cliche? "I don't hear a single?" Hell, that was positively last century! Now the record label says "I can't get it on the radio." You don't make Top Forty music, they wouldn't know what to do with you. Does that make you bad?

No.

But it does make nitwits try to fill the formula. Try to give the labels what they want, and then inane disc jockeys play this crap and if it sells at all, it's illegal for someone to cry foul, to say it's no good.

But it's not.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule.

But generally speaking, we're in a low point for art. Because it's all about the money. About playing it safe.

As for those who tell those who suck that they're doing it right, to keep at it... They don't want to rain on your parade, be the first person to tell you you suck. That's why we loved Simon Cowell, he spoke the truth we all knew. As for those encouraging the wannabes, they're just parasites, trying to make a buck off your dream.

There's very little great stuff out there. But if you can deliver greatness, people will find you, they'll notice, you'll make it. Next time you're wondering whether you should tweet, or mail more CDs, or work your Facebook page, frustrated that you're nowhere, look in the mirror and ask yourself HOW GOOD AM I?

In most cases, not that good.


http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

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Music for adventurous listeners



tA