Osceana
06-23-2006, 04:10 PM
I was recently having a conversation with a friend of mine and he posed an interesting question to me. We were in a bar and he was making an ass out of himself because he had a few too many PBRs, so needless to say it wasn't exactly the right venue to explore all the different avenues of thought on the matter.
A few weeks ago i was talking with him and another friend and telling an anecdote about how Phil Spector sent his wife an entire alimony payment (a million dollars or so) completely denominated in nickels. When i told him that they both kind of looked at me like they were lost. They had never heard of Phil Spector.
I was kind of surprised because aside from practically being a household name for every kid with a rudimentary appreciation of rock, these are both people that live and breath rock music.
So, back to the bar, i was talking with him again about it and he told me that he couldn't give a fuck less about who Phil Spector was, or what he did, and he felt similarly about people like Steve Albini, and everyone else- all artists. He asked me why it mattered that this guy did that. I thought him a bit naïve for that. He's all about creating this underground revolution, and he tells me lately that he thinks all music sounds like money. He's one of those people that thinks being on a major label is the end of the world and making massive amounts of money off your art is wrong.
I feel though, as an artist, that art is self-serving. It influences people, and traces of one person's art inevitably show up in another person's art, especially in music. Creating something entirely original is impossible. I mean, you grow up and hear certain things, or you see certain things (even little things like color and water) and you implement them into your art, those things become your pallet, your frame of reference. I've often tried to create new colors in my head, and i can't. Making a new color would require using pre-existing colors, so my mind can't really comprehend that idea.
What are your thoughts though? Do you think it matters that Ernest Hemingway wrote "A Farewell to Arms", or that Thomas Edison created the light bulb? What difference would it make if they were just annonymous creators? What role does their identity play in it? His contingent was that it's an obsession with fame, but i don't buy that.
A few weeks ago i was talking with him and another friend and telling an anecdote about how Phil Spector sent his wife an entire alimony payment (a million dollars or so) completely denominated in nickels. When i told him that they both kind of looked at me like they were lost. They had never heard of Phil Spector.
I was kind of surprised because aside from practically being a household name for every kid with a rudimentary appreciation of rock, these are both people that live and breath rock music.
So, back to the bar, i was talking with him again about it and he told me that he couldn't give a fuck less about who Phil Spector was, or what he did, and he felt similarly about people like Steve Albini, and everyone else- all artists. He asked me why it mattered that this guy did that. I thought him a bit naïve for that. He's all about creating this underground revolution, and he tells me lately that he thinks all music sounds like money. He's one of those people that thinks being on a major label is the end of the world and making massive amounts of money off your art is wrong.
I feel though, as an artist, that art is self-serving. It influences people, and traces of one person's art inevitably show up in another person's art, especially in music. Creating something entirely original is impossible. I mean, you grow up and hear certain things, or you see certain things (even little things like color and water) and you implement them into your art, those things become your pallet, your frame of reference. I've often tried to create new colors in my head, and i can't. Making a new color would require using pre-existing colors, so my mind can't really comprehend that idea.
What are your thoughts though? Do you think it matters that Ernest Hemingway wrote "A Farewell to Arms", or that Thomas Edison created the light bulb? What difference would it make if they were just annonymous creators? What role does their identity play in it? His contingent was that it's an obsession with fame, but i don't buy that.