Marketable Music vs Authentic Art Owen Gust wishes he were in a Rick Astley music video.
In an increasingly saturated market, artists are finding themselves constrained by a need to nuance and brand their sound as their ‘own’. As a band or an artist trying to break into this scene, it can seem daunting; trying to balance the sound that comes naturally to you against your conceptions of the image that you want to try to establish. Of course, no one wants to be labelled as ‘just another’ Australian indie rock band or ‘just another’ American drill artist. So, it begs the question: Should artists really be sacrificing authenticity for this pressure to be ‘unique’? Your gut response might be: “No! Artists should always be truthful to their own style.” However, on deeper analysis, there is no easy answer to this question. Music lovers want innovation; we want to hear something that makes our mind twist and contort in different ways to everything else that we have heard. If artists had never pushed themselves to create unique sounds – then arguably – the whole of Australia would be getting sloshed in sweaty anticipation as we wait for
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Beethoven’s second symphony to take out the top spot in Triple J’s Hottest 100. We need innovation ¬¬– whether it comes naturally, or by experimentation. I think that sometimes a compromise must be made in an artist’s career – a compromise between the kind of music that artists want to make, and the kind of music that they need to make. A compromise involving an adherence to the ‘popular conventions’, as to avoid alienating their audience with completely abstract sounds whilst also becoming a slight permutation on other bands in the same ‘genre’. As an artist you need to perform a Luke Skywalker and weave your X-wing torpedos into the narrow vent of ‘marketability’, whilst avoiding the tie fighter’s ‘overly cliché’ style/blasters, and the steep trench walls of ‘too abstract’ in order to destroy the Deathstar and save the day. If you’re thinking about becoming Ed Sheeran 2.0, odds are you’re going to fail for a couple of reasons. Ed Sheeran has his sound,
When Sam Reid concussed Nat Fyfe, he also concussed my Great-Aunt
