If you’ve been subscribed for a while, you probably know I’m a big Nine Inch Nails fan and have been since 1990 when I saw them open up for Peter Murphy. The other day, I was watching a terrific video with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross breaking down some of their most iconic tracks. One of the more fascinating aspects of the video was how much Trent talks about process and how important the “feel” of the music was and still is.
“When we write music,” Trent says, “it’s coming from a place where its main intent is to have you feel a certain way. It’s not coming from a love of melody and a joy of intricate chord progressions or technical wizardry.”
I love this because he’s not just chasing easy likes or trying to impress the audience. Instead he’s focusing on how the work serves the overall project and on the relationship between the work and the audience. It’s not a “look at me” type of thing, like a gratuitous guitar solo or a vocalist who takes every opportunity to sing an unnecessary run. That’s not the point, which I think speaks to a level of creative maturity that’s important to cultivate as any kind of artist. It’s something that I find myself wrestling with more and more about my own visual work. Is what I’m doing in a given piece serving the narrative or the composition, or am I simply relying on the same tricks or crutches that I tend to come back to again and again? Making art is a process — for me, it’s about asking questions and solving problems. And to be clear, the problems are a necessary part of the process. Creativity loves obstacles — maybe even needs them. I firmly believe that if you’re not a least a bit off-balance in your art-making, you’re likely going in the wrong direction.
At one point, they were discussing The Downward Spiral and Trent was talking about the song Hurt and his initial reaction hearing the version Rick Rubin recorded with Johnny Cash. He said it felt “weird” hearing Cash’s voice on the track because it was his song and it came from a very intimate and personal place. It wasn’t until he saw Mark Romanek’s video for the song that he got it and it took on a completely different, yet at the same time very familiar meaning for him. Atticus remarked,
“Albums that become my favorite albums I don’t get the first time I’m listening to it. But I can’t stop listening to it because I know that there’s something that I’m not getting. Hurt was my way into a record that I’ve listened to hundreds of thousands of times…”
I’ve experienced this same thing with both music and art. I’ve said many times that one of the reasons I love living in DC is that I can pop into any of the Smithsonian Museums or the National Gallery and sit with a body of work or even a single piece as often as I wish. And to be clear, there have been a number of shows and individual pieces of work that I didn’t “get” straight away. I had to go back and see them again and again to try and understand them. Over time, individual pieces or specific artists that I didn’t click with at first are now among some of my favorites.
Trying to understand art and creativity, both my interpretation of it as a maker and a viewer and as others experience it has become a big part of my life. Often that means getting out to museums and galleries or reading books and watching documentaries — whatever I can do to explore ideas and influences that provide context around individual pieces and entire bodies of work. For the past couple of years, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of “Scenius,” a term Brian Eno coined to describe the idea that genius is not solitary, but more often a byproduct of groups of engaged people (“scenes”) who are producing and sharing work and exchanging ideas and techniques. We see examples of it in the Abstract Expressionists of the 1950s in New York. Artists like Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg and a bunch of others all knew each other and regularly shared ideas. The Beatles’ Rubber Soul famously inspired Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys to write Pet Sounds, which in turn inspired Paul McCartney and John Lennon to write Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the late 1960s, the Laurel Canyon area of Southern California was home to artists like Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, and Brian Wilson who inspired a music scene that came to be known as “the Laurel Canyon Sound.” They lived, worked, and collaborated together, collectively producing some of the most iconic pop music ever written, and their influences still reverberate throughout the music industry and popular culture. In fact, there’s a terrific documentary that traces some of these mutual influences called Echo in the Canyon. As someone who grew up in Southern California, I know that area very well and the name definitely fits how the music feels.
I am drawn to and seem to come back again and again to issues around connection and community and how creative work feels — regardless of genre — as a maker and as a consumer. For me, connections are part of the larger story around creativity — and that’s true whether I’m connecting with other makers or with strangers at a museum or gallery over a shared viewing experience. I think that’s why the idea of “Scenius” resonates so deeply with me. That kind of dynamic and vibrant engagement is interesting and useful to me as a maker of art even when understanding it feels just out of reach. It’s sometimes hard to see or be things that aren’t yet imaginable to us. Part of the value in connection or collaboration is that it helps to create the possibility for transformation, additional perspectives, and the potential for unexpected insights that for whatever reason we might not have been able to see before.
QUESTIONS
How important is community or collaboration in your creative life?
Hit reply, leave a comment, or email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.
LINKS
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross (NIN) Break Down Their Most Iconic Tracks
Mark Romanek’s video for Hurt
The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson listens to Rubber Soul
Abstract Expressionism — The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Echo in the Canyon
An Oral History of Laurel Canyon, the Sixties and Seventies Music Mecca
Brian Eno On Genius and “Scenius”
Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel - Official Trailer
Great! Always look forward to your posts.
Great post, I enjoyed it. I didn't know that 'scenius' came from Eno but now I love it even more. I'm certainly a fan of community – that has become apparent over the last year or so as I've gotten to know certain people and started to seek it out a bit more after years of not. I'm aware now of how much I need it. I think a scenius can be online too – not just physical. When artists have a community online somewhere to share their work they can influence and support each other, and over time that work can evolve into its own unique scenius. I love that.