If you want to know how the creative world works, read these twelve things
This week’s episode of the New Creative Era podcast deep dives into the economics behind a couple of creative releases, with real numbers and detail behind them.
We always appreciate conversations like these, as we learn especially well through hearing the experiences of others. This is why we've recently shared pieces on the economics of self-printing a book, running a YouTube series, and being a Hollywood screenwriter.
As both cultural creators and consumers we can all better educate ourselves on how the creative worlds around us really work. This week we want to shout out some ideas that have been important to our creative education.
Twelve books and essays that show you how the creative world really works
Let's skip the boring theory and get straight to what it's actually like to make art at the highest and most calamitous levels. That's where these books and essays go.
The classics: Each of these takes you inside the creative life in a real way, presenting potential role models, anti-models, paths to follow, and pitfalls to avoid.
- Just Kids by Patti Smith, a poetic look inside the creative journey.
- Please Kill Me and Rip It Up and Start Again about the origins and surrounding scenes of early punk and post-punk.
- Our Band Could Be Your Life, which tells the early stories of punk and hardcore in America, and that heavily influenced this project.
- Steve Albini, "The Problem With Music," an all-time legendary essay by the musician and recording engineer that offers a cold-blooded evisceration of the major label system that remains a relevant must-read.
Great books that go behind the scenes of movies. Because films are so grand not just in their consumption but their creation, a slew of great books go deep behind the scenes of the film business. Some of our favorites:
- Devil’s Candy about the disastrous making of Bonfire of the Vanities.
- The Studio, a classic about old Hollywood.
- Rebels on the Backlot on the history of early indie film.
- Peter Biskind’s books Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, about '70s auteurs, and Down and Dirty Pictures about '90s indie film.
Deep cuts. The above are more well-known works, but when we go deep into our memory bank, three more stand out:
- An indie musician tells Pitchfork how much money he makes. In 2001 the front man for the indie band Silver Jews told Pitchfork exactly how much money he made: “The best way to describe it is I get by. I probably make $23,000 a year. For a 35-year old that's not so hot, but my goal when I left college was not to have a boss. And I've met it for going on seven years.” He was someone I looked up to, and he only made a little bit more than I did at the time. Forever changed how I thought about artists.
- An amazing first-person account of the final tour of the band Don Caballero, honestly and savagely written by their drummer, that ran in the zine Chunklet and that gives a real taste of life on the road.
- A wild early internet project called Mixerman featured an anonymous recording engineer on an invite-only message board live-blogging his daily encounters with a corny, unnamed alt-rock band. A minor early subcultural sensation turned self-published book.
These are some of the books and articles that opened my eyes to the inner workings of the creative world. What about you? What would you add to the reading list?
FEATURED RELEASES
Negriz De Baere, Matriarchy: A Community-Funded Book
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Ambient Soul Music Club, Four Track Originals, Vol 2
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Joanne Lam, Full Circle: A Multi-Sensory Postcard
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SCRY, CAPTCHA
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Traceloops, Running Flipbooks
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Simon Roberts, The Brexshit Times (artist zine)
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FUTURX, AI+Music
One of the early releases on Metalabel originally published August 2024, our friends at FUTURX are exploring how to shape a common language around AI for those working in the music industry. As timely as ever, they've made this thoughtful release $2 for a limited time. Don't wait.
Do's and Don'ts with Kirsten Chen
This week we sat down with writer and archivist Kirsten Chen to get her thoughts on building creative worlds:
Thanks to Kirsten for sharing her wisdom, and to you for sharing your time.
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