Amanda Palmer. I’m not sure why this woman needs a backlash. She writes smart songs, and does performance art. She’s articulate in her opinions. You might like her work, or you might not—that’s a matter of taste. A backlash is different.
The System doesn’t work anymore. Musicians can’t just hope to get chosen for “jobs” that are so scarce that they almost don’t exist. And for the few that do get selected, The System extracts far more value than it provides to the artist.
So she helped create a New System, one that works in her favor. Or more accurately, she assembled and reconfigured and rewrote and stole the work of others to put the pieces together in a new way. JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ARTIST.
The Rules are different now, and I say thank goodness. You don’t need a gatekeeper anymore. You can share your ideas. Whether they are worth sharing is another matter entirely. That part’s up to you. But if you are producing good work, good art, good content—then you deserve a chance at getting heard. Waiting around to get picked by a gatekeeper is a relic of the 20th century.
So why the backlash? She’s not the first to call bullshit on The System. Maybe the fear comes from her crystal clear articulation of a known problem, and her acumen and unmannerly persistence in backing up her ideas with her actions.
As an artist, you have an excuse if The System fails you. You have an “out,” a way to make yourself feel better. You make good art, but you didn’t get picked. In the New System, you don’t have an excuse. You only have yourself to blame if you didn’t get an idea out there. A backlash isn’t going to help you with that. Seek connections with your audience instead.
In the interest of making connections, please allow me to introduce you to Amanda Palmer, if you don’t know one another already. She gave the keynote speech the “Muse and the Marketplace” literary conference for aspiring writers here in Boston a few weeks ago. I am introducing you because in my opinion, she has earned the privilege of your time with her eloquence and intellect about WHY WE WRITE.
I’ll quote from her keynote to explain why I write, too: “The heads nodded in the distance at what I wrote, and that’s all I needed.” My head is nodding too.
“Connecting The Dots” – Amanda Palmer talks art & controversy @ Grub Muse conference from Grub Street on Vimeo.