Art, Trust, and Betrayal
Say a band puts out a debut album which is deemed by critics to have a great deal of artistic merit, and which a small number of hard-core fans love. For their second album, the band puts out some crap that appeals to the lowest common denominator and makes a ton of money, but which retains its artistic pretensions (the latter point is important; the argument below doesn’t work if the band isn’t pretending that the second album is art too). Fans of the first album accuse the band of "going commercial" or "selling out." In effect, they claim (and at least affect to believe) that they are not merely disappointed that they didn’t get their preferred album, but rather that the band has done something that is in some meaningful sense a betrayal. Does this position have any merit, or is it just sour grapes from a bunch of snobs whose preferences lost out in the marketplace fair and square?
I want to offer an argument that the original fans are (or at least can be) right to feel betrayed. Most people regard art to be an important part of their lives. But artistic products are, by their nature, things that you can’t fully appreciate until you consume them. Moreover, they aren’t even "experience goods" in the traditional sense that once you’ve experienced them you know everything there is to know about them. Rather, art exercises its influence over you subtly and gradually, and in ways that you cannot fully predict or control. This means that you are, to some extent, at the mercy of artistic gatekeepers: it is inevitable that the people who feed you art, who tell you what is and what is not "good," have real power over an important part of your life, and that power is partially unaccountable in the sense that you will not necessarily ever know whether your gatekeepers have been acting as a faithful agent in your interest (i.e., acting to help you achieve the richest possible artistic experience), or whether they are taking advantage of you for personal gain. This means that you must trust other people to look after this aspect of your well-being, with the knowledge that they may have interests that diverge from yours. And where there is trust, there can be a betrayal of trust. And as a practical matter, it makes sense to direct your opprobrium at anyone you actually catch violating that trust, in the hopes that this will serve to deter some of those would-be betrayers whom you would not have caught. And by the way, pretty much the same argument goes for teachers.
I am a visual artist. Did I betray audiences (actual and potential ones) by producing some stuff that was not that adequate? I do not think so, I might have let myself down. Some of the work might have been more inspired by economic necessities (meaning, if I would not have done it I might not have fed myself and people depending on me). Artists are only too human, they have bad days, even weeks and months. They have times when they produce 'crap'. Even Picasso painted flowers on clay vases and got away with it. Some of his mass products are pretty appalling.Referring to your example of a band producing a bad second album;. Who says, it is bad? Music critics, music lovers or other audiences (the broad mass)? I think that a lot of bad albums are loved by a wider audience. Album number two (the bad one) might not be preferred by you, the informed listener, but by another group. You feel betrayed, music experts feel duped, but some guys in the pub are happily listening and singing along. Perhaps, the ‘bad album’ has even become a Karaoke hit.
Hi All,
As a recordist, performer and music producer with 35yrs experience in the industry I disagree with much of this.
There is a hard, cold reality to the music biz that musicians, fueled by narcissism, fantasy and drugs, along with their fans (often fueled by at least 2 of the 3), wish to deny but is nonetheless true.
The "fans" an no more "betrayed" by a change in style than an OJ drinker is "betrayed" when Minute Maid alters it's formula, or a housewife when Tide changes the colour of their filler material (the little coloured pieces).
Music is not art. Say it with me brothers and sisters; Music is not art. Recorded music is "craft". Everyone in the industry knows this except, it seems, the musicians and their fans. Recordings are "product". Bands are fodder from which record execs, myself included, profit. That's why the majority of them come and go without much fanfare.
But some guys, the Gatekeepers as you call it, make a truckload of dosh from bands' efforts. Big outfits like Smashing Pumpkins etc are business people FIRST, musicians SECOND. But no fan ever, ever wants to hear that. So we don't tell you.
I guess the real point here is that bands and their product releases are not the right analogy for the betrayal of trust argument. There is no trust to get betrayed. It's all just bands paying off their HUGE loans to record companies, so art, not a chance. Much more like furniture manufacturing. They sell units or they'll be cross-collateralized into an obscurity where their paycheques from their post-contract gigs at the Qwicki Mart will be garnished. Or worse. Maybe mom and dad put their house up against a startup loan and now they're all living in a trailer park.
At any rate there's no betrayal between marketer and consumer. Products, generally speaking are lowest-bidder so as to achieve bottom-line profits. Consumers vote with their wallets. If you chose to hinge your emotions on products you are only "betrayed" by your own unrealistic expectations.
So, really, the betrayal of trust lies in the consumers/fan betraying themselves with their own shallow, materialistic self-interests and sense of entitlement.
Imagine hearing, "I really love 2D animation and the new Simpsons movie is mostly 3D with a toon-shader. I feel soooo betrayed." and you'll see what I mean.