5 ms·

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 bette

by jjj123 6y ago

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.

lukevp 6y ago
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.
Swizec 6y ago
> 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.
- vladmk 6y ago
  Love the story and really agree with that philosophy
- friendlybus 6y ago
  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.

by jjj123 6y ago

lukevp 6y ago

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.

Swizec 6y ago

> 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.

vladmk 6y ago
Love the story and really agree with that philosophy
friendlybus 6y ago
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.