Jeff Tweedy and Jack White on the web, business, creative choices, etc. May 29
5 comments Latest by Darrel
Wilco
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy on the internet:
Internet is radio for a lot of people. It’s a place to get music and hear music, and no amount of clamping down will change that. And anybody who’d expend energy preventing people from hearing music seems not to understand the basic principal of making music in the first place. It’s so antithetical to being a musician.
On not trying to make everybody happy:
My question is: Could anybody imagine the Wilco record that would make everybody happy? I can’t imagine it. So you’re confronted with that reality—anything you do is going to be a disappointment to somebody. We just have to do what we do, and that’s make a record that we fuckin’ like. [Laughs.] We really don’t have any other options.
Lyrics from “What Light” by Wilco:
And if the whole world’s singing your songs And all of your paintings have been hung Just remember what was yours is everyone’s from now on And that’s not wrong or right But you can struggle with it all you like You'll only get uptight
The White Stripes
The White Stripes are now on Warner Brothers and Jack White recently recorded a Coke commercial. White on indie cred:
Maybe we were stupid with this naive thing about if artistic freedom and business collide, something bad happens.
And here’s White on embracing limitations:
The idea of wearing just these colors, having just the two of us on stage—these are just boxes that we’ve cooked up to put ourselves in so that we can create better. If we had five people on the stage, all the opportunity of a 300-track studio, or a brand-new Les Paul, the creativity would be dead. Too much opportunity would make it too easy. We just don’t want to be complicated, it seems unnecessary.
Lyrics from “Little Room” by the White Stripes.
When you're in your little room and you're working on something good but if it is really good You're gonna need a bigger room and when you're in the bigger room You might not know what to do You might have to think of How you got started sittin' in your little room
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5 comments so far
Steve 29 May 07
I love this song http://www.seeqpod.com/music/?plid=c7ccfd96a4
Dylan Bennett 29 May 07
That second quote from White about the boxes is exactly why Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3 were a joke.
Kyle 29 May 07
I loved that verse from Little Room ever since I first heard it years ago when it first came out.
RSL 30 May 07
I gotta say… Those Jack White quotes sound dangerously close to something Billy “Let’s keep aiming for mass acceptability” Corgan would say. As much as they might be true, it really just sounds like backpedaling ‘cause if you don’t believe that when artistic [read: individual] freedom and business collide business is always going to win you might want to read a few history books. Here’s hoping, though, that they’re one of the few exceptions to the rule.
Darrel 30 May 07
“The White Stripes are now on Warner Brothers”
Does that mean no more White Stripes on eMusic?
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