Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?
Interpretation
Investing in future creativity is more beneficial than clinging to past achievements.
David Byrne's quote emphasizes the importance of innovation and progress in the arts, particularly music. Instead of focusing on protecting and preserving past traditions, he advocates for investing in new ideas and creativity that can shape the future of music, suggesting that growth and evolution are essential for artistic vitality.
In practice
During a lecture about the evolution of music, this quote can highlight the importance of embracing new genres.
Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.
You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.
Real sadness is such an all-encompassing intense thing that it takes you out of your humdrum existence. If you can still function, you want to show it while it's peaking. So when people tell you to cheer up, it's not always the best thing.
I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.
The call for diversity is about recognizing that in order to be in the conversation come awards season, it goes back to the content that is being produced.
Another word for creativity is courage.
I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.
Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.
Art is what we call...the thing an artist does. It's not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.
The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.
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