There are a lot of good bands and solo artists around in this world. You know who I mean. Talented and hard-working musicians who write songs that people quite like, and who forge careers being- alright. Not bad. And it’s not their fault.
They don’t set the world on fire, their tracks are enjoyed, but are no-one’s favourite. I’m not talking about Pop Idol and its ilk here, they’re an altogether different kind of beast, a sort of devilish imitation of music which amounts to nothing more than a vulgar advert for itself. No, I mean the middling bands. The triers, who stick around but never seem to get better or worse. They all care. They all devote their lives to their music. What it is it that dooms these people (and us, by proxy) to lives of musical mediocrity, plodding along whilst others soar. I’m talking about the way Bjork manages to be a marvelous, unpredictable firework, and Dido, who seems like a nice girl into the musical equivalent of flock wallpaper. The way Coldplay calmly and carefully fashion a music which will fill the stadiums of the world but will never truly touch someone’s heart in the way that Elbow’s ‘Asleep in the Back’ does from the opening bar.
There are others. I’m sure you can think of them. It’s a good parlour game, actually. Find a genius, and a corresponding mediocrity. You could call it ‘Mozart and Salieri,’ if you wanted to get all classical.
So what makes a genius?
Sheer dumb luck. unique influences. A spark. Genetic luck. Ah, damned if I know.
All I know for sure is that when that spark, that greatness, that genius exists in someone, it is their duty to keep it alive at all costs, to let it grow, to let what is inside them come out, whether the world ever notices or not.
Mediocrity will always spring up. It is plentiful. For every Bobby Gillespie, every Karen O, there’s a dozen Paulo Nutinis or Joss Stones. For every potential Nick Drake, there are a thousand people who could be the next Chris DeBurgh. Now there’s an image to terrify you.
If you have that spark in you, don’t you dare let it go out. You’ll know if it’s in you. It’ll eat at you, itching and twisting, trying to get out. And you can’t ignore it. You have to let it grow. You have to save music.
There’s too much mediocrity out there. Go out there, out into the big bad world and fight, fight for all your worth, to make that spark spring it into a fire. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to us.
Without musical genius, all we’ll have is a sea of mediocrity, competence and beige conformity to a sea of pointless musical sludge. Without genius, the future is Chris Martin’s Vegan-friendly environmentally-sourced hemp-laced boot, stepping on the human face forever.
