The first kind of artists are the ones who hurt to do what they do. It hurts to write. There is pain involved. There’s experience, and there’s blood.
The second kind of artists is the kind that imitate the ones in pain
The third kind of artist are the kinds that just do what somebody tells them to do. Learn this step. Wear this wig. Shake your ass. Watch yourself.
The first kind of artist are the ones who are more popular than the amount of money they receive. The second kind of artist is generally the rich ones, and the third kind… They get dropped from the label because there are a million of them walking around.
- Erykah Badu
I came across this doc late last night on topdocumentaryfilms.com while I was trying to kill some time, and it made some great points. Yes, it is a little dated, and it may repeat some things that you already know, but if you’re willing to sit through the YouTube playlist format (US readers have a HULU option) you just might come away with a more renewed spark for what you do.
Or, at the very least you might learn about a new artist or two. =)
Whether or not Badu’s video intended to bring up the race card or whether or not she really just wanted to pay a slightly confusing homage to JFK is something I’m not sure of, but the people are discussing. The song Window Seat could have gone into obscurity, perhaps noted by fans and a few inquisitive folks, but otherwise just another one to toss into the pile. I can’t say I would have given it the time of day, but yet here I am giving it more notice than a lot of other things going on.
To be fair, after reading the lyrics and watching the video, I think the song has some merit. My own personal spin on it plays more towards the curse/lure of celebrity and the video seems to push that even further. For years now, maybe even a decade or two, we’ve been pushing the sexuality envelope as far as we can go, and Erykah is just one of a few folks who have come to realize that it has gone far enough that getting naked is the next step.
However, and here is where I give her and the director a lot more credit than most of the pop tarts out there today, by paralleling it with the death of one of the most loved presidents of America, the question is posed of what the next step is? Even if an artist bares it all physically, as they already do emotionally, will the world be satisfied? How many artists/celebrities have not been appreciated until they were dead? How much longer do we have on the path that we’re on until a musician decides to burn out in front of a live audience instead of to fade away in the discount bin of a box store record section? Plenty of celebrities have chosen overdoses and other outs instead of their own episode of Where Are They Now? Sure, Lady Gaga brought it to the stage at the MTV VMAs in 2009, but we all knew it was not real.
I hope we never see the answer to this question, but I hope the art you make continues to ask questions just like it. The world needs artists to put people in check when they’re on the edge of something dangerous, and it also needs them to celebrate when they’re doing something great.
If you do it right, and put your heart into it, you can be the marker someone has to more than just a great Saturday night. The art you put out there could become the turning point for someone you may never meet, if you’re willing to bare your soul. And of course, if you have the talent, and plenty of luck, you might also get more in the history books than an obituary.
keep on rocking in the world, whether it’s free or not,
“The performance ended with a nude Badu acting out receiving a fatal gunshot to the head at the spot where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.”
I have yet to see the video, but the fact that I already know about it is a good thing. Chances are I will watch it despite not having paid attention to Badu in years. Granted, getting naked in a public place will grab you attention whether through the press or online views, but I’m curious to know why they imitated the assassination of JFK. I’m hoping the whole video will give more substance to something that could just simply be a publicity stunt.
It is the art of making sure something has substance that has me writing right now. In the past I have promoted the idea of going above and beyond simply writing good songs, but I think something else that gets overlooked by a lot of artists is expanding the medium in which you express your thoughts. Music videos can be a great way to add something visual and dramatic to a song, and in some ways they can become the identity of the song (see Radiohead – Just for instance). Granted, some videos can be funny or simply stunning and depend more on the song to sell itself, but others can push a song from soft and quiet into just plain chilling (see Hey Rosetta! – Red Song). In fact, some bands have come to be known just as much for the content of their videos as the lyrics in their songs (see Rage Against the Machine – Sleep Now in the Fire and Bucket Truck – The New York Times).
I guess I’m basically just suggesting that when the time does come to make a video, whether it be your first or your tenth, think about what you could do to add to the art you have already made. If you were lucky enough to get a grant, perhaps from MuchFact, use it to the fullest extent. If not, then as I’ve stated before, creating something visual is not as expensive as it used to be. Just remember that somewhere down the road there will be people who tie moments of their lives to your music, and maybe that is already the case, so the more you can do to draw them in further the more they will (hopefully) do to show their love for that.
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