Quote IconI mean what’s weird about putting a record out now […] it’s just the fact of volume, literally the shear volume of stuff that gets put out. It’s like this huge frickin’ waterfall and you’re just throwing your pebble in and it carries on down the waterfall and that’s that. Right, okay, next.

Thom Yorke, on today’s plethora of music releases.  

Content is no longer scarce; anyone can make and distribute music cheaply.  But who stands out?

Pencil Icon

Dumbing Down Your Art

If your art is not resonating you may need to dumb it down.

This is how underground rappers become mainstream. Jay-Z even says it himself in his song “Moment of Clarity”: “I dumb down for my audience. And double my dollars.”

Fame sometimes depends on how much you give in to the popular psyche.

But you don’t always have to sell out to make it big. Radiohead is a massive band that clings on to their opaqueness.

We all want to be understood yet maintain what makes us unique, mysterious, and authentic. But not everyone can enjoy that perfect harmony and make tons of money.

Link Icon link Icon Alternate

Thom Yorke: What I've Learned

My favorite Yorkisms, complex and simplified:

All walls are great if the roof doesn’t fall.

I’ll go to the bookshop in town, grab three or four books of poetry, sit in the coffee shop, and read those for a while. It’s like loosening up your muscles before a workout.

Getting everything you want has nothing to do with anything.

I can’t imagine twenty years ahead because I’m sort of here right now.

Pencil Icon

What Vegas Teaches Us About Life

There are so many life lessons learned in coming to Vegas, some trite but too true to ignore.

In no particular order:

  • The best things in life are achieved through raw, hard work and love for what you do
  • What goes up, must come down
  • Losing sucks, always
  • Fun is deceptive
  • The Chinese takeover is imminent, for real this time
  • Surprises are guaranteed
  • Weird is not necessarily creative, especially if it’s commercialized
  • Tattoos are meant to be temporary
  • Gambling releases dopamine but so does a like on Instagram
  • Be RƎVOLUTIONary and LOVE like the Beatles
  • Radiohead are the Beatles of our generation and nobody knows it
  • Have fun! It doesn’t last forever
  • Ignore society’s actors
  • Materialism is bunk
  • The ridiculous isn’t always remarkable when everything is ridiculous
  • Spanish is just as ubiquitous as English
  • Budgets are fragile
  • Overindulgence makes you fat, and bankrupt
  • Enjoy the ride because it’s damn short
  • Life can giveth and takeaway in a hot minute
  • Ersatz places, people, and things will never replicate the original
  • The trashy and classy lifestyle always coexist
  • What happens in Vegas, stays in life

Vegas

Load more posts

Loading