It’s so nice to hear people making music they personally enjoy. The concept of a rockstar hasn’t been the greatest contribution for music because it makes some people focus on making music to make money instead of using music to express themselves. Obviously we all want to money but when music becomes a formuliac product that may as well be made in a factory production line there’s not much that’s being contributed to the world..
I made a G today” But you made it in a sleazy way
Sellin’ crack to the kid. “I gotta get paid,”
Well hey, well that’s the way it is” – Tupac (Changes)
One of my favorite books of all time if not my favorite is Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. The book is about many things but for me its mostly about the dynamic between conformism and individualism which is illustrated though character foils Peter Keating and Howard Roark. The day is hectic but I’ll leave you with this great tune and an excerpt from Fountainhead about the value of individuality and the self, enjoy.
Kings Go Forth – High On Your Love
“I’ve looked at him- at what’s left of him- and it’s helped me to understand. He’s paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he’s been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life? Greatness-in other people’s eyes. Fame, admiration, envy-all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn’t want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn’t want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There’s your actual selflessness. It’s his ego he’s betrayed and given up. But everybody calls him selfish.”
“That’s the pattern most people follow.”“Yes! And isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the
absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, the second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to make money. Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for personal purpose–to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury- he’s completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress other. They’re second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him- and the people who listen and don’t give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers…”