“Good Enough” Isn’t Good Enough Anymore

Iremember when I first heard Bush, the band of course, not the President, and I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is pretty good. It’s not Nirvana but it’s pretty good”.

A few months after I heard them, they played a big show in Nashville. Sold out, as I recall. I had friends that went, it was a big deal. I stayed home and listened to Nine Inch Nails and practiced 360 flips in my driveway.

Looking back, I don’t think Bush could have made it past MySpace if they came along ten years later. Their music is really good, but it isn’t transcendent, and I’m not basing that on my own opinion, because I actually really like the band. But it’s not as good as Nirvana. And it sounds too much like Nirvana to be able to get away with not quite being as good.

Because of the level of noise and clutter out there, and the disposable nature of a culture of amateurs, willing to sign their rights away to get a track in a movie or iPod commercial and never be heard of again, “good enough” isn’t good enough anymore.

In the past, “good enough” worked because there was a machine that packaged music in a way that let passable artists, with enough hype, get through people’s bullshit filters. Now, an entire generation of artists are coming up with no structure or support system for their own development, and they are expected to do, for themselves, what a label used to do, and pay for, back when there was a thriving music industry. This is creating a lot of problems for talented musicians who suck at business and marketing. It’s also a great opportunity for people who are good at business and marketing but still not great at being musicians/artists to feel like they are getting somewhere, when really all they are doing is splashing around, wasting people’s time and money and attention, and helping to increase ad royalties for social networks that gladly give them a platform for self-promotion because it sells advertising.

It’s easy to get fooled into thinking that the facade is still there though, because there are still manufactured acts that have questionable artistic credibility being tossed out like fresh meat. But that’s an illusion. Manufactured pop stars are fundamentally not musicians, they are a totally different breed of entertainer, they are cultural icons and they serve a very specific purpose- to reflect the subconscious and, at times, conscious self image of their own fans back at them in a way that is slightly more perfect than anything the fans could actually pull off themselves. The music is wallpaper- it’s the background, not the subject. It might as well be Jersey Shore, it’s the same formula.

It’s totally different from the kind of musical epiphany that is impossible to avoid while listening to Sgt. Pepper’s, or Mozart. But even Mozart enjoyed the lowbrow operas of his friends. He just took everything a step further than anyone else thought was possible.

You see, that’s the whole package. When an artist manages to do both things at once- to reflect the subconscious mind of a huge amount of people right back at them, in a way they can absorb and understand and see themselves in, AND is shockingly brilliant musically. Bush was between two worlds, you could look up at them and say “I could do that” and that was part of their appeal. They weren’t fake Disney pop stars, but they weren’t Nirvana either. They were good enough.

The times have changed though, and now “good enough” just isn’t good enough anymore. Now, to really break through and get any kind of meaningful attention, you have to be GREAT!