What We Feed the Culture
if artists were parents, and the culture was our child, and art was our food — would you feed your child anything? even if they asked for it? you’d have to know that your child was asking for food because they’re hungry, not because they’re thinking about what kind of food would be healthiest for them. right?
that’s your job as the parent, to decide what kind of food to feed your child; ie, food to feed their bodies? or, food to feed their bodies, minds, and souls? this is the artists’ responsibility to their culture, and artists have let the culture, and themselves, down… by allowing the culture to decide what food it will be given – in the name of “letting the markets decide”.
I’ve long thought that deciding what is good art and what is bad is a RIGHT of the artist. and you can tell the importance of this right by the impact on the artist and the audience after a performance. do either of them leave the arena with the emotion of the performance to feed on? or, does the artist just go to the next town, depleted of energy and morale – and does the audience go home to raid the fridge for more food because they haven’t been satiated?
say what you want, but we live in the society we build; and Spotify is no more to blame for our current predicament than the listeners who pay for subscriptions to it or the artists who -FOR DECADES- have allowed “the markets” to decide what they want to hear from you. you want a better society? then do your fucking job and make some art worthy of the culture to grow into – something that feeds it fully – and don’t settle for less – because the culture, whether they realize it or not, is depending on you to make the right choice.
— Van