In Blessed are the Limited I said that a key to the Beatles productivity was that they had far less options than even your average independant musician circa 2011. Songwriter/blogger Nicholas Tozier agrees -
Constraints lead to creativity. Restrictions often lead to ideas—they force us to stretch, to grow, to improvise, to tap new resources and to work around the limitations. I think as much about new, interesting constraints as I do about new song ideas. I love throwing a wrench in my own gears, defying my usual creative habits. A new kind of process leads to a new kind of song.
Listen to Nicholas Tozier: How the Haiku can Improve Your Songwriting or read the transcription.
I think in some ways it seems that a lot of modern music is safe. Okay, so there are a few risks being taken, but I don't think that they are in a way that is really pushing anything. They are just risks within safe songs basically, well with established acts. That's the thing isn't it - back in the day established acts took real risks that pushed boundaries, whereas now there may be acts doing so, but they are not the most popular acts of the time.
ReplyDelete@Marv - agreed!
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