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Archives
Looking back |
As the editor of Shoe Straps and Eyelashes, the Buffalo Tom Home Page, I recently had the pleasure of reporting to my readers the news that the band had signed to Polydor Records. Buffalo Tom will soon begin work on their sixth album. For five albums, they have bubbled under as a critics' darling with a loyal, if somewhat limited following. Discussion of the signing drifted towards interest as to whether Polydor would be more successful in promoting the band than other labels have been. It was suggested by some that a hit record might actually be undesirable. I found this disturbing. Who stands to lose precisely what if this or any other band succeeds? The term "sell-out" was used. I don't know what selling out is. Buffalo Tom records for major labels. They make videos and show up on MTV whenever they're given the chance. They have publicists at record companies that push their albums to radio stations. They tour, occasionally opening for horrible bands. They do in-store promotions. They appeared on My So-Called Life, and they let Nike use one of their songs in an ad. They do everything they can to "sell-out" -- as well they should. Presumably, they have chosen their career path for the two most obvious reasons: to share their music with as many people as possible, and to make a good living. They should make a good living. Art is valuable. Artists should be valued, and well-paid. Selling a million copies never made a good record into a bad record. It's cool to have our secret, pet bands, but that does the musicians no good at all. I'm not exactly sure when it became uncool to be successful, when the myth of the pure artist in rock 'n' roll took hold, but it's irritating me, so I'm sounding off. The myth goes like this: In the beginning there is the artist, and the artist is either creative and original, or the artist is a derivative hack conjuring a formula for success out of what has worked for others. The former is a pure artist. The latter is not. The pure artist pursues his own creative vision with no eye toward the bottom line. To do otherwise is to sell out. Artists that hit big immediately are hacks. Appealing to a mass audience betrays an artist as safe and familiar, and therefore incapable of breaking new ground. Art must challenge. When a pure artist becomes enormously popular, it represents a creative change on the part of the artist. All or part of that litany may be true. It certainly fits the Spice Girls, Billy Joel and Celine Dion. It's also a naïve excuse for not examining one's own taste. I'm here to tell you that record sales are never a reliable litmus of an artist's purity. An artist can be so creative and original that only a select few can grasp their music. In fact, taken to the extreme, the audience can be so select that it's limited to the inhabitants of the artist's own head. We generally refer to music with this sort of appeal as "really bad music." The key seems to be to make music that's accessible enough to register on the cognoscenti's radar, but not so plebeian as to get played at your cousin's wedding. The pure artist that needs never stray from his own insular vision is fortunate, and quite rare. The only artists that get to go on endlessly making records for big record companies are artists that make the labels enough dough to justify their continued indulgence. If an artist can make a label a pile of cash, album after album, with no intervention into their creative process, then they can be left alone. Those who can't pull this off will get pushed and pulled from all directions and will be at the mercy of producers and executives. If that doesn't work, they'll be asked to consider other career opportunities. The music business is not an endowment for the humanities. The industry has no interest in preventing the development of culturally enriching music, but it's all product, first and last. There is no nobility in obscurity, and except for Joe Jackson, Fugazi and Phish, every band or artist around has, from their first club date, done everything in their power to become as marketable as possible. You see, being in a rock band isn't community service either. It's a job. O.K., so it's a cool job, sometimes, but it's still a job. Musicians, like the rest of us, are trying to make the best living they can. Like the rest of us, they're trying to leverage their talents for personal security. That's not what you want to hear. Part of the appeal of rock stars, part of the rock fantasy is that rock musicians are outlaw artists, immune to such banalities. To say otherwise undercuts the vicarious thrill of rock 'n' roll. I probably wouldn't have believed it when I was 20, but like the rest of us, they have to decide how much of their soul, their happiness and their sanity to mortgage for their careers. Like the rest of us, they're trying their damnedest to sell-out. Pity those with no talent to sell and no job they could love. The artist that hasn't made it big is not an artist that has resisted the impulse to sell-out, but rather an artist that has failed to sell-out. Every recording artist has managers and publicists that work to get them noticed, talked about, reviewed, written about, played, booked and sold. Buffalo Tom has been recording for nearly ten years. That's a good long run. And while an over-played hit could conceivably wear out its welcome, it would mean that the decision to record for another ten years would be theirs to make. Every artist wants in the Buzz Bin, on The Week In Rock and the rest. What the artist doesn't need is the fan that's ready to cast them aside when they stop being their personal, best-kept-secret. It's a selfish fan that would begrudge an artist his due, and it's an ignorant fan that buys into the myth of the pure artist.
Michael Newman writes music reviews for the Topeka Capital-Journal.
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