Interesting thoughts, Justin. I read everything with great interest. My take:

I agree that ethnic, folk music and other art forms are characterized by stasis. Innovation is not the name of the game there. But as a…

Interesting thoughts, Justin. I read everything with great interest. My take:

I agree that ethnic, folk music and other art forms are characterized by stasis. Innovation is not the name of the game there. But as a result, the authorship is of no concern, so the authors are largely anonymous.

In today’s world, filled with vanity and shameless self-promotion, authorship is all that matters. We as society are running on the most insane bullshit concept of ‘intellectual property’. Explains why many art forms are dead, deceased — if you can’t collect royalties, why bother? And the state of today’s technology is such that almost all art products can be easily multiplied and distributed with a simple click of a button. We live in the age of frictionless sharing.

As an artist, I want to innovate. It’s a tough challenge (always has been). I feel little satisfaction, little fulfillment whenever I’m reaching back and trying to repurpose something that others have already done so brilliantly. I understand Miles Davis and why he turned his back in disgust to jazz — why keep doing something that has already been done to perfection? Same is with Picasso — he was not into regurgitating anything.

What amazes me is the fact that today we live in the most dramatic times, when our society is being gutted and reinvented at a break neck speed. We are reaching deep into the most basic, most fundamental premises of our species and are placing everything under a big juicy question mark. We are revamping this entire business of human branding and of the oppressive ways of thinking and speaking. We are reaching the point in our civilization where we now see a lot of sense in instigating universal basic income (super revolutionary concept). We are also recognizing the oppressive nature of this entire gender business, and are now open to re-examine it in order to liberate everyone from those antiquated role playing patterns.

And all that being said, it is infuriating to see how our arts are totally not responding to any of such exciting times! How’s that possible? Why don’t we see any mainstream artists spearheading these fateful, insanely exciting changes that are brewing on the horizon? Has everything been reduced to a royalty check?

That’s why I am forced to sadly conclude that Western art is dead. Deceased. Is no more.