On William Deresiewicz’s “The Death of the Artist”(lareviewofbooks.org)
lareviewofbooks.org
On William Deresiewicz’s “The Death of the Artist”
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-great-unread-on-william-deresiewiczs-the-death-of-the-artist/
25 comments
I think it’s not just that there’s more art now, it’s also that the systems we use to consume it (spotify, Netflix, etc) shape that art, sometimes for the better but often for the worse.
It’s like when the CEO of spotify said recently that “you can’t make an album every 3 years and be successful anymore.” He’s mostly right, but he skips over the part that he is probably the person most responsible for that fact. He also skips over the fact that cranking out 3x as much music is unlikely to result in higher quality art.
So I guess all I’m saying is that I agree with you, but it’s not inevitable and it doesn’t have to be this way if we don’t like it.
It’s like when the CEO of spotify said recently that “you can’t make an album every 3 years and be successful anymore.” He’s mostly right, but he skips over the part that he is probably the person most responsible for that fact. He also skips over the fact that cranking out 3x as much music is unlikely to result in higher quality art.
So I guess all I’m saying is that I agree with you, but it’s not inevitable and it doesn’t have to be this way if we don’t like it.
> cranking out 3x as much music is unlikely to result in higher quality art
On the contrary, the more you produce, the more outstanding your hits.
Yes there's more crap too, but nobody sees the crap. They only see the good stuff (thanks to recommendation algorithms, charts, and marketing).
Here's the usual pottery class story that people use to talk about this phenomena:
> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".
> Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
You can also look at statistics. Across all fields, the people who produce the largest volume of work also have the most outstanding successes. Beatles, for example, credit their success to being forced to play strip clubs for 8+ hours every day for months. Created lots of practice.
On the contrary, the more you produce, the more outstanding your hits.
Yes there's more crap too, but nobody sees the crap. They only see the good stuff (thanks to recommendation algorithms, charts, and marketing).
Here's the usual pottery class story that people use to talk about this phenomena:
> The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot - albeit a perfect one - to get an "A".
> Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes - the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
You can also look at statistics. Across all fields, the people who produce the largest volume of work also have the most outstanding successes. Beatles, for example, credit their success to being forced to play strip clubs for 8+ hours every day for months. Created lots of practice.
Love the story and really agree with that philosophy
Run a second-rate band through strip clubs for 8hrs a day for months and you won't get the Beatles. You washed quality out of the conversation by only looking at the stats.
Roald Dahl stepped out of a fighter plane in ww2 and into a writing role. His first stories were wartime stories, which has a quality you can't grind out. He has since proved himself to be a good writer.
Someone in your pottery class mistook perfectionism for quality.
There are a few french chefs that run perfectionism as a culture, with the corollary that if you think you achieved it, you haven't and you should start again. It works in a time-limited task like making food for hungry customers.
It doesn't work when you allow people to ponder what it means to be perfect forever. The important qualities in life have a meaning and aren't just points on a scale to perfection which you have to grind out.
Roald Dahl stepped out of a fighter plane in ww2 and into a writing role. His first stories were wartime stories, which has a quality you can't grind out. He has since proved himself to be a good writer.
Someone in your pottery class mistook perfectionism for quality.
There are a few french chefs that run perfectionism as a culture, with the corollary that if you think you achieved it, you haven't and you should start again. It works in a time-limited task like making food for hungry customers.
It doesn't work when you allow people to ponder what it means to be perfect forever. The important qualities in life have a meaning and aren't just points on a scale to perfection which you have to grind out.
Surely the point the Spotify CEO was making is that music has become unbundled and shouldn’t be released as a collection in an album because consumption is at the track level now, and not that you should make more music as a rule.
>This is awful for the artists, but awesome for everyone who enjoys art.
I'm not so sure about the last part. Because in the meantime, theater has become "televised performance", concern has become "album or stream", etc.
So they get a better performance but not exactly the same thing as before...
And lots of the magic is in the moment and the interaction with the live audience and in the volatility of the experience...
I think that the end result is not that it's "awesome for everyone who enjoys art" but that people consume art more conveniently and disposably, and (most of it) enjoy it less.
I'm not so sure about the last part. Because in the meantime, theater has become "televised performance", concern has become "album or stream", etc.
So they get a better performance but not exactly the same thing as before...
And lots of the magic is in the moment and the interaction with the live audience and in the volatility of the experience...
I think that the end result is not that it's "awesome for everyone who enjoys art" but that people consume art more conveniently and disposably, and (most of it) enjoy it less.
Actually, it's the opposite. At least for music. Because streaming revenue is so much lower than producing a CD or record, artists are increasingly focusing on live performances (1). While music sales free fall, live music revenues continue to grow at a fast rate. There are also semi-live music experiences where small streamers interact with their audience in real time over twitch.
No matter what type of music you enjoy, it has never been easier to consume it in an exploding variety of formats and levels of interaction. The level of access and variety is unparalleled.
(1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096409/live-music-indus....
No matter what type of music you enjoy, it has never been easier to consume it in an exploding variety of formats and levels of interaction. The level of access and variety is unparalleled.
(1) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096409/live-music-indus....
> This is truly the peak of art.
[1,2]? Hamilton?
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/09/18/provoc...
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-...
[1,2]? Hamilton?
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/09/18/provoc...
[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-...
It's easy enough to find silly examples from literally any period.
[1] https://www.pinterest.co.uk/senoritamadmax/ancient-art-fails...
[1] https://www.pinterest.co.uk/senoritamadmax/ancient-art-fails...
Since the invention of videotape it has been possible to watch plays with great casts. But I think that live drama is the form least affected by this, for two reasons: it is about live actors in front of an audience; the context changes with the times. Think of Henry V performed in WW II England (yes, yes, I am thinking of Olivier's movie) or of Lysistrata put on by the literal minded during the second Gulf War.
For artists making very niche work this is a blessing though, its easier to find your audience and cheaper to broadcast your work
Didn't mention what I consider the biggest blow to the arts: our educational system's teach-to-the-test ethos quashing children's innate tendency to create. Adults' tendencies are quashed too, probably more by lack of leisure time, spreading thin of in-person community, distracting environment, financial insecurity, and unhealthy diet.
Deresiewicz's story is inconsistent.
First, he writes that early artists (Da Vinci, Bach etc.) basically saw themselves as artisans who worked jobs for their patrons, who essentially sheltered them from the cold realities of the market.
Later, he laments that now artists are crushed by the market and can't have any stability that Bach et. al. enjoyed. He's missing a ton of contemporary working artists, who still have their patrons - visual artists working in game dev, musicians composing music for movies, commercials, video games etc. These people have steady income, just like Bach did. Of course, they're not really working on what they'd like to be working on, but neither really did Da Vinci (he was known to procrastinate a ton when asked to produce another boring portrait of somebody's daugther - a portrait which comically now could fetch tens of millions of dollars).
First, he writes that early artists (Da Vinci, Bach etc.) basically saw themselves as artisans who worked jobs for their patrons, who essentially sheltered them from the cold realities of the market.
Later, he laments that now artists are crushed by the market and can't have any stability that Bach et. al. enjoyed. He's missing a ton of contemporary working artists, who still have their patrons - visual artists working in game dev, musicians composing music for movies, commercials, video games etc. These people have steady income, just like Bach did. Of course, they're not really working on what they'd like to be working on, but neither really did Da Vinci (he was known to procrastinate a ton when asked to produce another boring portrait of somebody's daugther - a portrait which comically now could fetch tens of millions of dollars).
I remember seeing sketches of catapults and military inventions, which Leonardo da Vinci put together as marketing material and a sales pitch (I believe to the lord of Milan). Like, "I can create all sorts of machines both for the protection of a city and for siege." It struck me how being an entrepreneur - learning to swim in the realities of the market - was (and is) an essential part of being an artist.
Wow that was rather grim... I can't tell if the problem is more with algorithmic curation (and the big tech middleman squeezing margins) or with consumer behavior (expecting everything to be effectively free)? I will keep this in mind because this space, monetizing content creators online, is very interesting to me.
Great read, thanks for sharing.
Great read, thanks for sharing.
The worst part of this is that the artists which tend to get promoted have zero talent. You cannot compare popular musicians today from those in the 70s and 80s.
Actually there are very talented artists around today but it's impossible to find them... Takes a lot of searching on YouTube. I found some music on YouTube recently that blew me away but it didn't even hit 100k views... This extremely talented artist can't even feed themselves with that.
Actually there are very talented artists around today but it's impossible to find them... Takes a lot of searching on YouTube. I found some music on YouTube recently that blew me away but it didn't even hit 100k views... This extremely talented artist can't even feed themselves with that.
What was the artist's channel?
The article touches on this, albeit briefly. Talent is no longer a requirement to be popular. Loud, novel - but also familiar -, and repetitive are all qualities that are favored over talent or skill.
I would remark that Johnny Cash's vocal range was something less than a whole octave. Yes, he wrote songs--some good--but I once walked into a bookstore playing an album on which he covered other people's songs. That was odd.
He grew up 'covering' old songs. His family sang together every night - he was very accustomed to singing everything he could. Wasn't a songwriter until later in life. Isn't the purpose of old songs, to be sung?
I guess today we regard some canonical rendition of a song to be the 'correct' one. Does that stem from the dying art of singing - folks don't hear songs except in their most viral form?
I guess today we regard some canonical rendition of a song to be the 'correct' one. Does that stem from the dying art of singing - folks don't hear songs except in their most viral form?
I don't think I consider songs to have a canonical rendition. However, I might consider a rendition of "Canzonetta Sull'Aria" by Britney Spears and Madonna to be 'incorrect', and this has less to do with their image than with their voices.
By all means, one should sing old songs, and for many purposes remember Chesterton's dictum that 'anything worth doing is worth doing badly'. But if one is going to market an album of X sings Y, it is well if X actually can sing Y close to tune.
By all means, one should sing old songs, and for many purposes remember Chesterton's dictum that 'anything worth doing is worth doing badly'. But if one is going to market an album of X sings Y, it is well if X actually can sing Y close to tune.
To me, both Personal Jesus and Hurt are Johnny Cash songs now.
I agree. "Hurt" was written by a young addict (Reznor) but Cash's cover coming from a much older ex-addict was really quite moving.
Reminds me of streaming platforms. Streaming platform originals have a certain lack of polish that I miss. And there's so much of it, it feels like it's a mile wide and an inch deep.
This is awful for the artists, but awesome for everyone who enjoys art. This is truly the peak of art. Think about what you could experience before and what you can experience now. And not only think of yourself, but all of the people in the world who now have access. It's mind-blowing.
Like all industries, competition sucks for the entrenched. Artists can't just write a book anymore or can't just paint something beautiful. The landscape has completely changed. The choice has never been greater and artists must adapt by finding their niches.