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Originally Posted by sarramkrop
Who is more responsable for what is produced in musical terms? The listener influences the market in that the quantity of what he/she buys determines the amount and nature of what is being sold, therefore shaping the music market and the cultural landscape that we experience in the media and everyday life. Do you think that the musician should really have a moral duty in all this, or do you think that you just to have to accept it and suffer the consequences? I mean, your 50/1000 copy releases are fine and dandy, but they hardly really make an impact because the fail to reach a wider audience that could double or treble their real potential impact. Is this a good thing or a bad thing, you think?
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It's a good question; I'm of the impression that the market tends to define the musicians. I, like most people, know plenty of people in bands. And, like everyone in bands, I think I've got it right and am doing something worthwhile that isn't derivative nonsense - this isn't necessarily the case, obviously, because everyone likes the smell of their own shit.
Buzzo is right to say that the musician is also the listener - I would clarify this and say that a musician is a listener
before they are a 'creator'. I find there's two and a half sorts of musicians I like - the sort who listen to as much as they can (Sonic Youth), and the sort who either listen to nothing (the Fall, it seems) or absorb music by osmosis (folk music).
I'm not sure that
moral duty is the right way of phrasing it; unles you're talking about lyrical content, which, if politicised, alludes to a politico-moral responsibility (I don't think you are)... basically, I would suggest that the artist has a certain aesthetic responsibility, generally defined by the individual. Much as I'd like for every musician to accomodate what I see as their aesthetic responsbility, they really aren't going to. The slew of average, ten-a-penny derivative of third-rate nonsense bands are going to continue to grow, and I'll see them supporting bands much like them for as long as I continue to go to gigs. So long as they're personable, I don't see any reason to criticise their apalling music - I've changed my mind on this point: it's an aesthetic responsibility, and while I'm right to myself, I am not right absolutely (not yet, give me 5 years); ultimately, someone's aesthetic choices are not terrifically imporant.
Urr... this is a bit of a drifty statement. Essentially, I think a lot of bands are shit because they don't listen to enough records; they are victim not to market demographics (which are, ultimately, defined by the individual living in society) but not realising/ exploring what market demographics are available to them (and we're all guilty of this to a degree - the hollow epithet 'I listen to a bit of everything' will never, ever be true for anyone).