Aesthetic Experiences for Artists

Sean,

I think you put your finger on something interesting where you suggest that it's easier to admire a work of art when one's own fingerprints are not the only ones on it. I think you're right that Vinnie might have an easier time admiring Less Than Jake's output as a result of its collaborative nature. But more on that in a second.

Likewise, I accept your correction regarding the chronological perspectives (short versus long term) from which Vinnie and Joey, respectively, were speaking. As I was wrapping up my last post in this thread, I think I had come to the conclusion that, really, that distinction was less important than the one between Joey speaking as an artist and Vinnie speaking as a promoter, but I never got around to saying so.

But let me go back to what you said about it being easier to appreciate other people's work than one's own. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's even possible to have an aesthetic experience of one's own work. I mean, I can talk about liking or not liking "Beer Goggles" using the same language that Joey Cape can. But if I say that I don't like it, do I mean the same thing that he means when he says that he doesn't like it? I don't think so.

It seems to me that as a listener, when determining whether I like a song, I determine how much awe it puts me in. (Of course, I'm using that word to cover more ground than it ordinarily would). But as a writer of music, if I ask myself whether I like a song I've written, I determine how much pride it induces in me. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems to me that there is a qualitative difference between pride and awe; that is, a difference other than whether the emotion is self- or other-directed.

To put it in particulars, to the extent that I admire a poem that I've written, I don't think that my emotions are so much different from those of a contractor who admires the building he's just erected, or of a mechanic who admires his handiwork in repairing a broken engine. With respect to my own work, I can't get past the pre-aesthetic level: the level of craftsmanship. My emotions when reading my own work bear no resemblance to my emotions when I read Tennyson's "Ulysses" or Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium"; those works elicit a tingle in me that my own do not, and I don't think it's only because they are much, much better than mine.

Concerning the differences between Joey Cape and Vinnie

Ryan, you made an excellent point about comparing Joey and Vinnie, but I don't know that it's quite apples to oranges in the way you suggested. Going back to Joey's interview, after mentioning the time and work spent writing songs, then the recording phase, and then on to producing, Joey finishes by saying, "By the time a record comes out, I usually, really honestly never want to hear it again." Considering Vinnie already had a cut of the album, I don't think they're quite so far apart in terms of perspective.

I think the reason it might be wrong to compare them has more to do with their respective roles. Vinnie writes lyrics and plays percussion, but most of the composition duties fall to Chris and Roger, and I'm not really certain how involved Vinnie is with the recording and production. On the other hand, Joey Cape does all the writing, most of the composing, and is very involved in all phases. I didn't take into account that Joey was responsible for a much higher percentage of his music. While I still don't care for how much Vinnie loved the new album, I don't think it's nearly as tasteless when we consider that he could legitimately be enjoying the work of his bandmates rather than his own contributions.

I also agree that there must have been some stage in the process where Joey Cape appreciated his work, and I think I would have pressed him a bit further on that issue if I were conducting the interview. Just as not being satisfied helps you grow, there still must be some degree to which you appreciate your work, because how else can you distinguish between bad, good and better? I think I would have asked him to look back at all his experiences through all stages of writing songs, and if he could, pick the one song that gave him the most momentary satisfaction with his efforts as an artist. Or more simply, which song was he most proud of at any given moment?

The Vinnie Paradox

Sean,

Speaking from my own experience writing music, poetry, and prose, I can say that if I work at it for a sufficient amount of time, I can come up with something that I love. On the other hand, virtually without fail, if I come back to that same work a year or two later, its flaws are obvious to me, and I'm embarrassed to have ever loved it, and I hate it a little for not being as good as I remember.

I think something like that could account in part for the difference between Joey Cape's opinion of his work, and Vinnie's of his own. Joey Cape was clearly taking a long-haul perspective, whereas Vinnie was talking about an album that was still fresh and new to him. The two are apples and oranges.

At the same time though, I won't fault you for feeling that Vinnie's extollation of the new album was a turnoff. Vinnie is in a tough spot, because he has always taken such an enthusiastic approach to promoting LTJ and all the bands on Fueled by Ramen. Back when the albums were unmitigated triumphs (like Losing Streak and Hello Rockview), his enthusiasm felt warranted. But as the quality of the music has steadily declined, Vinnie's rhetoric hasn't changed a bit, and as a result, he's started to sound shrill and hucksterish. When he says the new album is great, I have a hard time thinking anything except, "That's what you said last time."

The problem for Vinnie has got to be that he's taken it upon himself to be the band's biggest promoter, and that fact clouds his view of what he's accomplished (or failed to accomplish) as an artist. I don't think we'll ever hear him say that in retrospect Anthem and In With the Out Crowd disappoint him artistically, because he spilled so much ink telling us how great they were during their promotional phases. He may be so far gone at this point that he could never even imagine the albums being anything less than superlative, the dual roles of artist and promoter having become so intertwined. And even if he can bring himself to think it, he certainly can't say it, because it would look like he had been lying to the fans in the first instance. Still, I think that if we could retroactively split those two roles, and somehow talk to just Vinnie the artist (not Vinnie the promoter), he'd sound a lot more like Joey Cape does in the interview you quoted.

I'll add that I think there's something really embarrassing and gauche and tasteless about writing to one's fans that you've been driving around Gainesville listening to your new album and LOVING IT. It's always been sort of an awkward question—do bands listen to their own albums recreationally?—and the affirmative response is just so ridiculously and needlessly narcissistic that I really feel like a person ought to be too embarrassed to admit it even if it's true. To me, it would be like saying, "I love how I sound on voicemail."

But really that's all about comportment; it's not about how the artist feels, but rather what he says about how he feels. So I'll respond directly to the question you posed: should an artist love what he makes?

I do think that, at least in the short run, an artist ought to love the things he creates. In the long run, it's important to see where you could have done better, and inevitably that probably means falling out of love with your old work. But it's the pleasure of putting the pieces together and making them work, even when they don't perfectly instantiate your vision, that keeps you coming back to the drawing board. Of course you have to work and improve, but nobody works to improve skills whose exercise doesn't bring pleasure in the interim. Again, I don't think this view puts me at odds with what Joey Cape was saying; I just think that in responding to the question he was asked, he had the long view firmly in mind.

Joey Cape vs. Vinnie Fiorello: The Potential Flaw of Appreciating One’s Own Creative Endeavors

A few years ago, I was reading about Less Than Jake’s upcoming album on their website. Songwriter/percussionist Vinnie Fiorello had posted an update detailing how excited he was about the album. He said he had a copy of it and constantly listened to it in his car, driving around Gainesville, drumming on his steering wheel. In short, he thought the album rocked. He LOVED it (he might have actually used ‘love’ in all caps to describe it). While I didn’t really delve into it at the time, it definitely struck me as odd, and more than anything, I counterintuitively became more worried about the quality of the album. If I like a band’s music, and they say their new stuff is great, why should I be worried?

I got the album when it came out, and I didn’t really like it at all. It generally lacked all of the elements that I liked about their music. Rather than the quirky songs with fanatical bass lines and creative vocal harmony, I found the new album to be little more than fairly unoriginal rock music. That was the last album I bought from them, and that fact has much less to do with how much I liked that album than what Vinnie said about it. I think most everyone with a critical ear would admit that even their favorite artist/band has songs they don’t care for, and enough of those songs can make an album, but a bad album isn’t enough by itself to shake my faith that a band can still put out good songs. Vinnie’s glowing endorsement was a sign to me that the band was clearly going in a direction that I opposed.

All talk of directions aside, my question is this: Is it a flaw for a musician to like their music? Before I’d even heard the new LTJ album, Vinnie’s affinity for it raised red flags in my mind. Perhaps I had subconsciously surmised the direction the band was taking from the progression of their previous records, but I don’t think that’s what triggered in my head. Rather, I suspect that on some level, I simply could not identify with being a satisfied creator. My experience with writing songs is far too limited to draw on, but if I can take anything from my other efforts (writing, for instance), it’s that I’m never satisfied with anything, sometimes to a paralyzing extent. I can’t help but be aware that everything I’ve done could be better, potentially much better, and that makes it very difficult to even say something is good enough, much less great or exceptional.

Then there’s this excellent interview with my favorite artist, Joey Cape, in which he discusses exactly this in response to being asked to pick his favorite song that he’s written:

[I don’t like my songs. I think it might be an actual flaw when people that write music tell you they love the music they write. I don't really understand that. Most songwriters that I meet are always trying to perfect their art or trying to be better at what they do, so they're just basically not all that satisfied with anything they do, and I think that's what makes most artists at least capable or good at what they do.]

If I was leaning towards that opinion before, hearing it from someone I respect more as an artist than anyone has only strengthened that stance. I don’t mean to say that it’s impossible for a good artist to appreciate his work, but I figure it’s likely that any artist that does has reached his peak, and that peak is probably far lower than I’d like it to be.