Not everyone makes music for the consumption and enjoyment of other people. Sometimes it's just a side-effect.
And this is said as someone who loves much of Reed's catalog.
Getting on label is just a deal to package your output and sell it. Doesn't have to come with compromises, especially if you don't do avant guard music but something that does have a livable audience anyway. You dont owe them to "sell even more".
In other words, the middleman pressing your records and distributing it, doesn't have to be your artistic advisor, on how you write or what songs you perform. Sure, if you want to put some water in your artistic wine, you can always do it. And if they don't like you, they can always drop you.
>I mean, don't sign with RCA and Warner and act like popular appeal isn't putting food in your mouth, by your own choice.
Sales of your music is what is "putting food in your mouth". You don't owe them money, you MAKE them money. Not to mention most artists in the 60s and up to the 80s with those big companies got horrible record deals and revenue sharing percentages anyway. They made the company $50 million (after expenses) and maybe they saw 5 of those, if they were lucky.
So your choice is merely going to a company with more reach, to sell what you write to more people, not to tell you to change what you write so that it sells more. They didn't sign a songwriter-for-hire, but a specific songwriter with specific tastes.
Yes. How is that related to having to compromise your art to do it? You can do it, and they can take it or leave it. They signed you, after all, no? At worst, the label doesn't think you're viable, and they drop you. The way Billy Joel puts it in that quote is like you have some obligation to be more commercial, just because you signed to a big label or because you sold records.
>Those people buying your music are what puts food in your mouth.
When they paid for a record, they got the songs in it, didn't they? Did anybody tell them they have some right on your future artistic direction too? Or what songs you play at your concerts and how? They bought a specific record or concert ticket, not stocks on the artist. They can always not buy more records if they don't like their new music.
>but continuing to accept their money while sniffing haughtily that you're not about that is disingenuous and fake naivety.
I'm not sure I understand the argument. You, as an artist put out some albums. People buy them. Perhaps they like them so much they buy a million of them. What exactly obligation does that give you? Didn't they get an album in exchange for their money, as promised?
Do you implied anywhere that you're "all about selling records"? If anything, by refusing to put out what they want you or what would sell more (e.g. more of the same), you imply that you're NOT about selling records. And not just imply it, but you also support this fact with your bottom line, risking not selling or alienating the record buying public.
So, it's neither "naive", nor "disingenuous", or "haughty" from the side of the artist. Sounds quite sincere. And it's not for the faint of heart, either, which is why there's no shortage of the opposite: "whatever the company wants", or "whatever will sell" audience pleasing artists.
Also, if the artist is "continuing to accept their money", this means they continue to give them their money. This means they still appreciate what he gives them, so he's not wrong by them, is he? The rest can always not give the artist their money.
I don't think that's the implication - I think it's more "don't sign with a large label for the extra exposure and income, while also complaining about how you never wanted to make it big because all you care about is the music. You're lucky, just enjoy it and keep doing what you want to do."
Dave Brubeck, who performed almost to the end of his life, never seemed tired of playing 'Take Five' as the finale to his set, and it was not even his composition.
If the audience didn't knew who Lou Reed was, and what songs he likes to play in concerns and how, then they were not paying attention. Perhaps they went in thinking it's some crowd pleaser performing a meddley of their hits? That's not "bait and switch" that's more like "they bought pigs in a blanket".
>I suppose you could argue that churlishly and begrudgingly performing that which had induced the audience to pay him for recorded and live performances in the first place was part of Reed's public persona!
I'd go further and say that it was also part of his sincere preferences and character.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/tribe-call...
And he did, after all, play them in concert, though condescendingly (and perhaps realizing that if he did not, future earnings from performances would come to reflect how well-regarded his preferred works are.) In aggregate, his behavior looks to me to be petty and entitled, rather than high-minded.
And your point is? Just because he didn't like some of his previous work anymore, or didn't appreciate the shallow focus on "past hits", he should have forfeited his publishing rights for those songs going forward?
This is some next level entitlement.
>And he did, after all, play them in concert, though condescendingly
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
He haven't signed any contract that he'd play those songs. He haven't made any promise to play those songs. He didn't feel like playing those songs. He wanted to focus on more recent and less obvious stuff than past hits parade, as if he's in some tribute band. Some in the audience still insisted on the hits.
Is it not enough that he accepted that demand and played them. Did he also have to like it or put on a fake smile?
This is some next level entitlement.
Of course not - it's a fact emphasizing his willingness to hawk those works in the marketplace.
Was. He died years ago. Show some respect and at least learn that before going on finding evidence to support your claim that "his behavior is petty and entitled". You clearly don't know who you're talking about
And perhaps he cared to not hurt them by not playing it at all, but was hurt himself and pissed that they cared for the "hits" and didn't appreciate his performance. How about that?
The thing is, it's his concert. The artist choses the songlist. Would they pull the same shit on Miles Davis, or do they think because it's rock, the singer is their performing monkey?
If you choose to enter the marketplace, you have no basis for complaining when you are judged by it.
It's also more of what a label producer would say to made-by-the-company boy bands, or can be said about market friendly "entertainer" types, and tribute bands, not something that should in any culture should apply to artists.
As it happens, I am merely a consumer, while several of my close relatives are musicians, two make a living from it, one of whom also composes and has had their work performed in professional concerts by other musicians.
Now, how about you? And let's hear from coldtea as well, especially given his remarkably condescending reply to the above post (I associate that sort of attitude largely with teenagers - which, of course, he may be.)
>Now, how about you?
Sure! I was raised in a very music-first household, picked up the violin at the age of 9, and ended up teaching myself to play the bass, the alto sax, the guitar, piano and how to DJ by the time I left high school. I've played extensively in a few jazz bands and have had mild success as a local dance music DJ. I also worked with a variety of underground concert promoters throughout my 20's, and still volunteer to set up sound or work the door at shows from time to time. My vinyl collection is also getting to be a bit too large, but c'est la vie.
What shapes my thoughts here has almost nothing to do with music per se, and is instead grounded in a concept of fairness in the implicit and customary contract between performers and their audience. Caveat emptor is not a satisfactory response here, IMHO, and the logical conclusion of that route is that the audience should demand a setlist before buying tickets, which would not be to anyone's benefit.
to be clear, I don't think Reed's behavior here was egregious; it was merely a peccadillo.
Also more on topic: it is also not implausible that he enjoys playing his current songs for an audience, but doesn't really enjoy playing older songs.
Of course artists are free to become disdainful of the very works that made them popular in the first place, but by accepting a paid gig you are taking on some tacit but well-understood obligations that cannot reasonably be waived away on the grounds of this new-found disdain.
And two can play this game: it is not-so-tacit, but very "well-understood" that some artists don't enjoy playing old hits. Insisting on it on the grounds of ignorance (by reducing an artists to one or two of their biggest hits, as another poster said) or in the grounds of "but I wanted to hear it" is more disrespectful than what you're complaining of.
Totally true, listeners are under no obligation to enjoy a certain body of the artist's work over the hit(s) they love. But art being art, listeners aren't in a position to dictate what the artist is doing. If the artist starts doing something else, that's their prerogative - they're exercising their artistic freedom and staying true to themselves. If the listener isn't onboard, that's totally fine, but it's time for the listener to walk away at that point, rather than attempt to continue to impose their will upon the artist.
I've obsessed over numerous musicians only to end up moving on after their style changed. I might be bummed, but they're the artist, it's their work and their right to move wherever they see fit. I'm just along for the ride, if I so choose to be - so is the rest of the audience.