For which of you having a mind to build a tower, doth not first sit down, and reckon the charges that are necessary, whether he have wherewithal to finish it: Lest, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that see it begin to mock him, Saying: This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
LUKE 14:28-30 DOUAY-RHEIMS
I believe the worst rock album of all time was the Sgt. Pepper album from the Beatles. The Beatles recorded the album as a response to Pet Sounds from the Beach Boys. The music isn't bad, but the long form had a deleterious effect on what would come after it. The Stones responded with their own ripoff epic album. Then, you had Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and the Who's rock opera, Tommy. Rock and roll went from making pop singles on the radio to something approaching a symphony. Rock started taking itself seriously. This would lead to progressive rock and other indulgences like Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" which makes me change the station when it comes on because the song is too long and indulgent for me.
These epic rock creations are potent examples of grand ambitions. Nothing is equal to it in country music which has remained true to the 3 minute radio friendly song. I tell everyone that the best country album of all time has a single name, Greatest Hits. It doesn't matter if it is Waylon, Willie, or Merle. You can't go wrong with a greatest hits album from a country star especially if it comes on a cassette from a convenience store. I will also point out that one of the biggest selling albums of all time was the greatest hits album from the Eagles which is essentially a country music album. Ultimately, these albums are just collections of the short but wonderful songs that got played on the radio and still get played to the present day.
Now, I am not against ambitious creative endeavors. I love a symphony, and I purchase classical music on CDs because that serious music lends itself to extended and deliberate listening. I don't buy rock or country CDs because I listen to the individual songs. The streaming era has returned music to the way it was before Sgt. Pepper. This is a cause for rejoicing.
The problem with grand ambitions is that people don't know their place in the scheme of things. I appreciate that the Ramones didn't consider themselves to be equal to Mozart or Beethoven. Their music was a rejection of the prog rock pretension, and it was glorious. The Ramones knew their place in the musical universe, and I appreciate that. Conversely, I am glad that Beethoven wasn't trying to make pop songs for the radio. He made serious music, and he was equal to the task.
I think about this when it comes to my own ambitions as a writer. I am not a fiction writer. I am not a novelist. I am certainly not a poet. I have done some stuff along these lines, and they were epic in their failure. Writing the great American novel is not my place. I will leave that to Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
For me, the greatest example I can give of tempered ambitions is Norman Rockwell. Rockwell was a talented and gifted artist in the photo realistic vein of art. But he was never held up as a serious artist because his work amounted to illustrations for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. This is in contrast to "serious" artists like Jackson Pollock with his drip paintings or Andy Warhol with his soup cans. Even Rockwell poked fun at the art world and himself with his famous art connossieur painting where he reproduced a Pollock work for his illustration.
The difference between an artist and an illustrator is that an illustrator paints what people actually want to look at. People like illustrations. The same can't be said for "art." Art takes itself seriously which is fine if the art is good. It is laughable when it isn't.
The difference between an artist and an illustrator is the same as the difference between an actor and a movie star. It is the difference between a composer and a songwriter. It is the difference between a musician and a rock star. People need to know this difference.
The key thing is that some people don't know their place in the scheme of things. They aspire to be more than what they are. A great example of this is Sir Paul McCartney. McCartney is arguably the greatest songwriter of our time. He is also a composer of classical music, but I find this laughable because the man can't read music. Whatever he composed, he had some assistance on it. He ain't Beethoven. I know of no one who finds his orchestral works to be of great value. If it didn't have Paul's name on it, no one would listen to it.
I am a huge fan of tempered ambitions. This is because I have had to temper my own ambitions. For some reason, there is shame attached to this show of humility. We can't all be the greatest at everything because God does not distribute His gifts equally. What we need to be is great relative to what He has given each of us. For me, this is being a humble blogger. For others, it would be playing bass guitar in a weekend cover band. There is no shame in that.
What I would caution people about is the irrational fear that your "great" thing will go to waste because you did not pursue your grand ambitions. The blunt truth is that you probably aren't that great. The real waste is when someone wastes what God has given them because they are merely good at what they do. This would be a Beatrix Potter deciding to not draw because she wasn't a Monet. This would be an Alfred Hitchcock deciding not to direct because he never won a competitive Oscar in his awesome career as a filmmaker.
The bottom line is that the critics like to sneer at the hoi polloi and their tastes. These are the same people who praise a banana duct taped to the wall. The real measure of creative success is that many people found something awesome in what you created. The sensus populum is a reliable guide for what is good. Granted, crap can be the flavor of a season, but crap does not endure for the long haul. Beatrix Potter was beloved yesterday and today. All that other snooty crap seems designed to nauseate the public and appeal to a small cadre of misanthropes that have convinced a few idiots that the naked emperor is dressed in fine apparel that the rest of us are too stupid to see.
With that said, I now finish what I have begun to build. The people like what they like, and there should be no apology for that. Likewise, the creative person needs to find their own inner sense and place on these things. What I find is that there are two main errors on these matters. The first is the creator that takes himself too seriously and is not equal to the task. The other is the creator who doesn't take himself seriously enough because he got talked out of it by these pompous jerks. Just do what you're good at doing and make the things that appeal to you. You will find that these things appeal to others as well. Don't create for the critics. Create for your audience. They are the only people that matter. Thank you for being my audience.
