The Power of Myth

February 20, 2008

Myth -A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal.

Music author Richie Unterberger has described the New York music scene, and the city itself, as "(i)mmense, richly diverse, flashy, polyethnic, and engaged in a never-ending race for artistic and cosmopolitan supremacy"

Creatively successful cities are similar to less successful cities in that both will inevitably produce schools of art, musical movements, and cultural phenomenon. What makes a city and its art/ music scene successful, and what hinders other would-be scenes from obtaining this elevation, is a complicated and fascinating blend of timing, talent, context, and the power of a myth.

When examining artistic movements of the past, in regards to site and context as I’ll be examining here, some patterns begin to emerge. Social scientists and corporate marketers have forever obsessed themselves with this ever elusive quality that helps virally sell products, bring extraordinary attention to a place or product, and help elevate a mere product to cultural phenomenon. Some of the aspects of a commercially peddled product can be paralleled with artistic movements, as indeed some art is treated as such.

My inquiry is concerned with music, principally, and this rather modern phenomenon of hyper-accelerated buzz that can infuse a musical movement and place. In other words, why did some cities get a reputation for exciting music scenes while others, not wanton of musical acts and options, did not? What makes a buzz city?

Malcolm Caldwell, in his recent book “ The Tipping Point”, dissects a social epidemic in a way that could be easily tailored to this question. He asserts that buzz is created, spread, and maintained by three key components. First are the Connectors, who could be said to be the networking gurus who know everybody, get invited to all the best parties, and essentially are fed the latest cultural cues from their various sources.

Next, the Mavens provide the information and technical requirements, adding historical and genre context to the music. These could be the music producers, studio owners, club owners, and various support staff who liaison between the music and the public. They tend to hear things first.

Thirdly, those willing to spread and “sell” the music are needed. Connectors, as Caldwell calls them, would be bringing the product, in this case the music, to the ears of the people. The credence such connectors would lend the music is what really feeds the buzz aspect of it, and it is where corporately manufactured pap and genuinely expressed art is available for dissemination. These connectors could be said to be music journalists, DJ’s, podcasters, record-store clerks, bloggers, and the musicians themselves singing the praises of their fellow scenesters.

Caldwell’s dissection only goes so far in explaining the cultural phenomenon of a music centric New York or Manchester, and its hold on our imagination and reverence. The very essence of buzz, how it’s created and maintained, how it’s fed, and whether it profits those involved, requires more consideration.

Music scenes start out very humbly. The labels of yore ( Factory, Dischord, Sub-Pop) started out as artist/ fan run DIY exercises in scene building. The music was exciting enough to gather some enthusiastic, if not well-monied, individuals to start enabling, propping, and spreading. Add in some seminal venues (CBGB’s, The Hacienda, The Crocodile Café), some influential publications (NME, Melodymaker, the Rocket) and your have the active ingredients for a buzz. Their motivations as varied as any cultural movement, whether it be money, fame, sex, power, social bragging rights, even artistic satisfaction, all leads them to fill the three main roles Caldwell’s theory requires for a social epidemic. But many cities, cities you are not aware of musically, have these in place as well. What is the spark that ignites the big ones and creates an out-and-out cultural phenomenon?

I would offer that is it a large-scale perceptive shift: a myth is created. Now, the word myth implies non-truth, but when talking art the line between fact and fiction blurs; art stakes its claim somewhere in the middle. It starts with the artifact and its inherent value, sure, but what would art be without the emotional and contextual value we place on it. It is this very basic set of ambiguous values that separates a New York from a Vancouver. A myth creates and maintains buzz.

Now a myth is a very hard thing to create and spread. It takes dedication and belief. It would be nearly impossible to manufacture without the mental and emotional commitment of its proponents. All involved, from the bands to the promoters to the fans to the music writers, need to be complicit in its nurturing. I call this a city’s self-esteem.

A city with high cultural self-esteem thinks its music is as good, if not better, than any other city’s scene. Genuine musical experimentation combines with accepted convention, it finds an audience, the word is spread convincingly, and is then deemed worthy to be swept up in the place-specific buzz.

Sure, scene manufacturing seems to be attempted by every city at one time or another. Journalists love to name things – it gives a handle and makes their jobs easier. But the difference is actual belief. And this is something that can’t be bought, sold, or coerced in any self-sustaining fashion. The corporate sponsored buzzes of note die out, emaciated from lack of substance and belief. People want something that feels like it came from people, not ad executives.

Now, this issue of myth begs a further question: Is location specific buzz as important now with the explosion of the place-independent internet? Yes and no.

Live shows, when experienced in a charged (read: site specific) context can be very desirable (imagine seeing the Talking Heads in CBGB’s in 1982, right before they released Speaking in Tongues). But some would argue that buzz can travel with a band. Hell, isn’t that the essence of a myth? We believe we rock and you all believe it too!

That leads to the second tenant of this myth. Others, outside of the city, must start believing it as well. People love to get in on an exciting trend on the ground floor. Indie credibility motivates this spread. I hate to disempower music fans from seeming to make their own , independently-minded musical choices, but many of us are susceptible to liking what others like. Whether it be a desire to fit in with a scene or our faith in the taste-makers we trust, many of us can be greatly influenced by what comes packaged with a certain music, irregardless of the actual musical content.

Corporate interests have been obsessed with this “buzz” phenomenon forever, as displayed by books such as Caldwell’s, which strives to be a business manual for engineering a social epidemic, ie an orgy of selling and money-making. But the public has a very keen sense of where their culture is coming from. Is it a genuinely expressed artifact made by an artist wishing to communicate the profound and meaningful, or is it a brightly colored, slick marketed product that will only fulfill you as far as it takes to bill you? We can tell the difference.

That’s why this overwhelming move by artists to “sell-out” as quickly as possible is so fascinating and troubling. Granted, many artists are finding is necessary to survive, with the older profit streams drying up. But its effect on us, the discerning public, is complex. The line between the genuinely expressed vehicle (the art) and the marketable pap that’s sold to you (the product) has become indistinguishable. Selling out is not even a dirty expletive anymore, hissed through clenched teeth. Do you blame Feist for allowing her video on that iPod commercial?

But that is a discussion for another day.

The power of a myth, when it concerns itself with the health and vibrancy of a city’s music scene, cannot be understated. It is the power of belief that creates success.

Caleb Stull, producer/ engineer
Figment Productions
www.figmentproductions.ca
info@figmentproductions.ca
tel. 604. 339. 3683