Nero's thoughts
Give to get
Posted on Fri 07 Aug 09
There is a commonly held belief that talent has a right to be noticed. The inbox is always humming the same tune; ‘I can’t believe Colin isn’t better known. He has more talent in his little finger than all of the…’.
Whoever said that talent directly correlates with success? Isn’t there overwhelming evidence that the opposite is true? The music charts are dominated by lowest common denominator dross and, what is more, they always have been. Those memories you have of the past being filled with great music? They’re false. For every ‘Vienna’, there was always a ‘Shaddup Your Face’, for every ‘Wonderful Life’‘ there was a ‘You Win Again’. That’s why so much television is so arse- and mind-numbingly boring and why the airwaves are filled with Nursery Rhymes For Morons. NR-FM. It’s about casual, disposable entertainment. Something to keep the kids quiet. An escape.
We don’t want to be numbed and dumbed. We didn’t build our lives to escape from them. We want to be moved and inspired and more than that, we want to listen to what is being said. That puts us (and probably you, seeing as you have stuck with this) in a minority.
But the internet is the saviour of minorities isn’t it? Wasn’t it supposed to level us all? Anyone can contribute, everyone can be heard. The internet enables us all to be prosumers, to produce and sell our work and have it consumed directly by those who want it. No middle men, no mark-up, no distribution bottlenecks, no gatekeepers. Well, it can work like that, and very occasionally it does enable a talent to rise out of obscurity, but don’t expect it to be a true meritocracy because the problem with ‘everyone can’ is ‘everyone does’. The noise is deafening.
The internet not only allows us to be active participants in what we consume, it demands it. Do you want that free software you use to keep on working and improve? Then give the developers some constructive feedback and convince your friends to use it too, otherwise tomorrow it may be gone, replaced by an inferior product that happened to get more support from its users. Not only do you contribute to the success, you share the responsibility if it fails.
So don’t ask us why Colin isn’t better known, ask yourself what you have done about it.
We like to talk here. We like to chip away at the whys and wherefores and challenge the wise and wary.
While some have developed the enviable skill of going with the flow, there are many among our eclectic bunch of itinerant players, immigrant artisans and accidental poets who have grown accustomed to swimming against the current. All have drifted here, swirling between the highs and lows, tied by a common refusal to renounce their dreams.
We're passionate about music. Life and music. Opinions must be heard. Songs must be sung. Sometimes a little emotion might spill over and sometimes a little drink might be involved - so much the better.
It’s great.
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