Thoughts after Pitchfork Music Festival

for some reason, i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and in Diplo's P4k interview today, I kinda got inspired:

"So this year I realized, if I don't do the stuff I feel like, if I make rules about what I can't do, someone is going to take my rules and fuck it and do it better than me. Someone like will.i.am will do a record that sounds like something I did and sell a million copies. What are we fighting for? You just have to do, you can't live by the rules of what you're supposed to do. I think every person is good at something and you just have to push that forward. If I can go from doing a record like Snoop Dogg, and then Rolo Tomassi, a punk record, and then work with Robyn and then Tiësto, I just think that's funny."

okay, maybe this quote doesn't totally capture it, but I realize a lot of what I/Everyone tends to do is try to recreate what other people have done in the past. Or, more often, take a bunch of things they've already heard and put them together in a blender and spit out the results. I mean, the Major Lazer show is a great example of something that really seems like something paving its own way. Let's look at it like this and break it down. You have:

-An insane hype man that seems like a dude from a different planet
-A DJ that plays everything from crazy-ass minimal miami bass music to dubstep to Ace of Base to Ska
-A completely bonkers theatrical narrative to an hour set (from chinese dragons to ballerinas to dudes jumping off of ladders and tying chicks in military outfits up with rope and "daggering" them)

Keep in mind Major Lazer has only been a real thing for about a year. ONLY ONE YEAR!!!

When people talk about there not ever being another MJ or Beatles or whoever, I don't think they are following things the right way. They're looking for someone with a TALENT larger than these idols in a kind of old-school way. Like looking for a better singer or dancer or better chord progressions or whatever. In my opinion, the new next level talent lies within what Diplo is talking about. The ability to evolve. The ability to break rules and make things that are amazing. To constantly push ones self and allow for mistakes to be made. While the Beatles and, to a lesser extent, MJ evolved from record to record, what I'm starting to see now are the great artists evolving in very large ways ON A MONTHLY BASIS. Which is something I find myself struggling to keep up with. Like I feel like by the time I figure out how to be as good as some of my current idols, they will have already gone on to somewhere five-levels beyond that.

Anyway, this is all exciting and exhausting and kinda makes me want to give up making music sometimes. But most of the time, it inspires me. Every time I think of giving up making music and just being lazy and listening to it and being a DJ or whatever, something out there online gives me a kick in the teeth and gets me back to my laptop, headphones and keyboard.