Espressowerk

This idea that you exercise creativity solely through what you consume is a corporate invention with obvious utility. Though it is a way of keeping the general public in its place, it may be also one of the key reasons a previously vibrant scene eventually falls stagnant.Scenes in music are electric when there's a palpable sense that everyone can do it - and that sense is also a reality: everyone is doing it! You look around - my God, your useless mates who can't even microwave their dinner are suddenly cranking out tracks and releasing them around the world! This other friend of yours has started a label or a clothing store, your partner has got the Singer out and is running up crazy looking dress designs and selling them at the local record shop, and getting orders in from all other the place; someone else is making a film or some videoclips, all on a shoestring, and they look great... A scene eventually dies when money comes into the picture and the free-for-all is formalised by business and legal requirements into a more rigid structure consisting of two camps - the stars, who produce (or who take the role of the producer in the public eye), and the cattle, who consume. This arrangement is dissatisfying to both parties and cannot be maintained for more than a few years. In the end, it kills that particular scene by starving it of exterior inspiration; and the corpses which remain turn into a fertile mulch, providing base nutrition for the next scene.