The Perfect Career
Yesterday I watched a couple things: Noel Gallagher on Gibson’s Icons, Rick Beato reviewing the Spotify Global Top 10 and I also saw this Facebook post by Oliver Anthony that he put out about why he makes music. Call it confirmation bias if you want, but all three struck a chord with me.
Working backwards:
Oliver Anthony talks about he doesn’t want to be in the spotlight. He wrote music to help himself cope with his life. He doesn’t want buses and jets and things.
I can relate to that.
Rick Beato talked about how a lot of what’s popular today, they’re not songs. I call this stuff background music. The stuff that is popular and good, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, etc., is written mostly by professional songwriters who don’t like to repeat themselves.
I respect professional songwriters, but I don’t want to cater to people’s tastes. If someone likes what I do, wants to write with me and make it their own, I’m okay with that. However, I’m not going to sit down and write for someone else’s voice. I’m not interested in that, and, to be frank, I don’t know that I’m capable of it.
Noel Gallagher, my spirit animal as the kids today say, he talked about being grateful for Definitely Maybe and What’s the Story? but he writes differently now. He’s not trying to please anyone but himself. Songwriting is his sole motivation in life. He likes to eat, drink, spend time with his kids and watch “football”. Well, I don’t drink and I only watch hockey, but otherwise, I’m exactly the same.
It’s kind of hard to aim for what you think is the perfect career. You can’t control how many people respond to your music. You could be a nobody or you could be the Rolling Stones. You don’t get to decide. You can make the kind of decisions Oliver Anthony is making and have some kind of control over your future, but it all depends on your motivations. If you’re not tempted by the material things of the world, it’s easy to turn away from them when people dangle them in front of you, but, the reality is that most people are tempted by those things. As much as I love Noel, it’s easy for a guy that wealthy to just make art for himself, sell a few hundred thousand records and tour the world (to his credit, I think he would say the same). It’s a lot harder for Oliver to do that, but seemingly, I think, he gets it.
For me, the guy who has always had the career I wanted to emulate was Chris Isaak. He made the music he wanted to make, he earned enough money to never need to work a real job and, I don’t know who he dated, but he at least got to meet beautiful women. What more could a guy ask for?
But you can’t aim for selling out the House of Blues, you have to aim for selling out stadiums. Now, I don’t think Chris thought he’d ever sell out stadiums, but he worked like he planned to. The work was the same, the dedication to the art was the same what was different was simply the number of people who responded to it.
In reality, there probably isn’t a perfect career. But, what does exist is an uncompromising one. Don’t follow your heart, your heart is a liar, but decide what your priorities and values are and don’t compromise those. Not an easy task for sure. If I was offered $8m to make music, I would be tempted. I’d have to rely on the counsel of those close to me to help me stay focused. There’s nothing inherently wrong with chasing the brass ring so long as you do it the right way, but know, in the words of Jay Z, “mo money, mo problems”. There is always a trade-off. There are no free lunches.
Whatever you do, do it for the right reasons. There will be always be bumps in the road and disappointments, but you’ll be able to sleep at night.