I had a very interesting conversation this week with a friend who is a “career Musician” not in the sense that he is in a famous band but plays in a few bands, a cover band, performs solo and does a little bit of session work plus a little producing. Quite an interesting character who is one of the happiest men I know. He simply works at music and whilst his true passion is his own work he understands that he must do a few gig and some stuff that is not his style or first love to make a living he is a full time musician. He put it in quite a good way when I foolishly questioned his recent guitar work on an X-Factor contestants single, he stated you work in an office at a job you would not have necessarily chosen whilst I do what we both long to do – play music for a living.
Anyway this got me round to talking about his “job” and he came out with a statement which really made me think. He stated the way to be a career musician and always ensure you are working (he expanded this to the “famous” musician too) is to copy or be affiliated with trends. At first I was amazed by this rather contrived method of thought and said that I considered this to be “selling out”. He disagreed and backed it up with a few interesting example. First stating pop stars do this all the time and constantly reinvent themselves to ensure they are bundled in with what is popular. Take Madonna – huge star who no matter what you think must command a little respect as she has stayed at the forefront of the industry for nearly 40 years. She has gone from bubble gum pop to dance and hip hop based star. He then reeled of Kylie, Robbie Williams and a few others.
Ok I concede this is fine for these “artists” where (in my somewhat jealous opinion) the fame is more important than the art. He then went on to claim I was naive if I thought this was just the tactic of pop royalty. He continued “The stones simply copied The Beatle to start with” and more recently “Muse were simply a Radiohead copy band when they first arrived on the scene”. I do see his point but stated all of these bands then grew into a form of their own. He agreed but said at some point to achieve the level they had they mist copy the trends or be associated with them to move forward.
The only reason I bring this up is I wanted some of your views as this was a real thinking exercise for me. Maybe this is where I went wrong in my early music career, I was to busy trying to push my sound that I lost sight of what was around me and how I could push my music forward had I been a little bit more affiliated with what was popular.
So I ask you – should you compromise your art a little to get noticed and move forward with the ultimate goal of pushing your true self once you have an audience? Or should you stick to your sound and try to get people that way?
Anyway this got me round to talking about his “job” and he came out with a statement which really made me think. He stated the way to be a career musician and always ensure you are working (he expanded this to the “famous” musician too) is to copy or be affiliated with trends. At first I was amazed by this rather contrived method of thought and said that I considered this to be “selling out”. He disagreed and backed it up with a few interesting example. First stating pop stars do this all the time and constantly reinvent themselves to ensure they are bundled in with what is popular. Take Madonna – huge star who no matter what you think must command a little respect as she has stayed at the forefront of the industry for nearly 40 years. She has gone from bubble gum pop to dance and hip hop based star. He then reeled of Kylie, Robbie Williams and a few others.
Ok I concede this is fine for these “artists” where (in my somewhat jealous opinion) the fame is more important than the art. He then went on to claim I was naive if I thought this was just the tactic of pop royalty. He continued “The stones simply copied The Beatle to start with” and more recently “Muse were simply a Radiohead copy band when they first arrived on the scene”. I do see his point but stated all of these bands then grew into a form of their own. He agreed but said at some point to achieve the level they had they mist copy the trends or be associated with them to move forward.
The only reason I bring this up is I wanted some of your views as this was a real thinking exercise for me. Maybe this is where I went wrong in my early music career, I was to busy trying to push my sound that I lost sight of what was around me and how I could push my music forward had I been a little bit more affiliated with what was popular.
So I ask you – should you compromise your art a little to get noticed and move forward with the ultimate goal of pushing your true self once you have an audience? Or should you stick to your sound and try to get people that way?
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