|
My point was only that compromise does not immediately indicate insincerity.
Say your girlfriend/wife isn't into role-playing and you really want her to do it: You either suck it up and make a compromise that you aren't completely happy with, or accpet the fact that the relationship is probably going to have problems later on and make a choice. It's the same thing with a music/audience relationship. If you really want to use a hurdy-gurdy, and the audience can't stand it, you either compromise or you let the audience go. It can occassionally work out, like with Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral or Radiohead's Kid A, but even they still had to factor in the audience to a huge degree.
One of the best lessons in the creative arts is: kill your darlings. Just because you think something looks/sounds/seems great to you, doesn't mean it's good for your audience. In my writing classes, there are people that insist on some ridiculous pieces that no one would ever read. Poets, in particular, are notorious for that. It's fine if they want to continue like that, but they all eventually learn that it won't get them an audience.
If you don't want to give up any element of your style, then you're honest and sincere in keeping it; if you do decide that you want to comprise a couple of things to make it more digestable, then it just means your heart is in a different place, that your focus is on the audience, and not your personal life. Both are totally fine, in my opinion, but it makes for very different music.
That's not to say there aren't some megafamous shitty artists in it for the money, though.
|