Im not going to say I dont like Taylor Swift. I dont know her. I could say that in reference to her music career, but a couple of her songs are ok. The Begin Again song (whatever its title is) is kinda sweet. I liked it a little, particularly the words. And her playing the field is not a big deal. In fact, dating a wide variety of people before committing is a practice to be emulated, not scorned. But my tiny, budding admiration for her took a blow when I heard what the song Mean was about. In case you dont know, it was not about a verbally abusive ex-boyfriend, as you may have guessed from casually listening to it. Or, obsessively listening to it again and again, because she left no clues in there as to the true inspiration for the song. It was written in response to a blogger who had harshly criticized one of her live performances. A fan, perhaps, or a troll. Someone, I believe, with a far smaller audience than a mainstream media music critic, let alone Swift herself. Someone who was trying to make a go of it as a writer, not too unlike Swift the auteur, Swift the songsmith, before her lucky break on reality TV, her pop culture apotheosis, if you will. He was just a guy. A guy who was talking about one of her less stellar moments. A guy who may have used too colorful language or was too acerbic, likely in an attempt to be funny. I dont know. I didnt read the review. But no matter how rude it was, I can confidently say that the ruder it was, the less significant his voice was. The less significant he was, the pettier (note: not prettier) Swift is for responding to him at all, let alone writing an entire hit song about him never being successful, and her being so much better than he. When you think about it, shes a big bully, and shes being really mean. So what? Why am I writing this now? That was a long time ago - even my hearing about what Mean was about was a long time ago. Well, shes doing it again. Maybe not being mean, per se, but she really is so profoundly ignorant of everyone elses problems but her own. Her new thing is trying to show artists how to make lots of money from their music by avoiding streaming services, and pontificating about the evils of Spotify. Right. Because everyone with artistic ability can just release their masterpiece to wide acclaim and make a cool million or so. And if they cant, that just means theyre not as talented as Taylor Swift. Her millions of dollars prove that shes hundreds of times more talented than the people barely eking out a meager subsistence with their music. Because thats how a free market works when its not polluted with cheap-o streaming services and piracy, right? No, thats not what a market is. While I admire the creativity Swift has shown in preventing any copies of her latest album from being spread about the Internet without people paying for it, there are all kinds of artistic and financial incentives for artists to promote themselves on the Internet without putting up paywalls, or just not caring too much about the gaps in the paywalls. You might not be as famous as Taylor Swift, for example. You might appreciate a few downloads and shares of your music by some cheapskates, because you might be hurting for some notoriety. Or, even if you are famous, maybe easy access to your latest music drives up demand for your live performances, and thus also ticket prices. Im too lazy to look up who, exactly, right now, but a few well-known bands have done this. I think Radiohead. A few others. So why is it any of Taylor Swifts business what other artists want to do with their art? Why is she on a mission? Did she read Fountainhead or something? (I havent read Fountainhead and I dont know if thats a good reference here. Call it an educated guess.) Artist to artists, my friends, my advice to you is to figure out what you want from your career. Maybe you want lots of money, and maybe you dont care as much about that. If you do care about making lots of money, think carefully about the best way to do that. It may not be to charge a lot for your work right out of the gate, before anyone knows anything about you. Maybe it is. I obviously dont know. I answered the first question differently. I would rather labor in obscurity my whole life and be known to a few dozen people as a man of a vastly underrated literary genius than to get rich hawking crap like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Havent read it. Dont need to to know its crap.) Dont let me kid you. When I realized I could easily follow the crass path to fabulous riches, it was close. So close. But Im happier this way. I heard the Eat, Pray, Love (again, havent read it) author on the radio describing genius as something that might call to you, that you might answer or not, and that it may move on to the next person if you dont treat it well. That certainly seems more plausible to me than thinking that one is a genius or isnt, and only has to hone his genius if hes born with it. Some people have a lifetime worth of books come to them, and some people only get one or two. (Some people have one or two, and keep dressing them up differently and make an absurd amount of money.) In any event, I believe your genius (or, if you better identify with it to hear it more modestly, your artistic gift) is not yours to control. Its a gift. Theres a purpose for it. Maybe its to make you lots of money. Maybe its to give voice to the voiceless. Maybe its to fight an injustice. Maybe you ought to spend some time pondering it and figure it out, rather than let someone else try to shape what you do with it. Maybe if you keep trying to bend it to your purposes, it will leave you and find someone else.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 06:51:03 +0000
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