What's more important; making the type of music you want to make or making the kind that is popular?

what's more important; making the type of music you want to make or making the kind that is popular?

Why

Make popular music to make money, then use that money to make to music you want to make. Same thing goes for every form of art. You think Pixar wants to keep shitting out CARS movies? Fuck no, but goddamn they make billions of dollars on toy sales for kids so that they can make good movies like Up and Wall-E.

An example in music is Trent Reznor. He hits gold with Downward Spiral, continues to make the music he wants with The Fragile (that I love), but it bombed commercially. So he makes With Teeth a radio friendly butt-rock album to get back into the monies, then makes music he wants to, back and forth really.

do both

I don't think that model always works though. I think that more often than not, artists get sucked into the money and forget their original goal.

then the artist sucked in the first place. idk why you ppl make shit complicated
make an accessible album and after that go back to the shit you really liked making.

thats why they're called projects

This is such a stupid question. Making the music you want is more important to you, making the kind that is popular is more important for your bank account. It's really not difficult.

see also:
>Drake going hard on his mixtape
>"You use to call me on my cell phone" on his album

Are you trying to say Hotline Bling isn't amazing?

Because it is

its not
if you can't understand why then you'll never be a successful artist whether you to make pop or not
lay down and rot

Nah

oh, dont misunderstand, I like Hotline Bling but it's a very safe song compare to the songs that he goes hard on his mixtape

Have fun, make music that you like and keep it as a hobby or you'll get burned

THIS

Good lord the number of stupid motherfuckers out there who thing they are going to be the 1 in a million who can make a living off their music.

unless you're autistic and you make some sort of weird outsider music chances are you like a style that's already popular with some crowd to some degree. you just have to market it well if you want to sell it.

also, you probably won't come up with great music if you don't want to make it, so your question is pretty retarded.

why? working as a musician or in the music industry is perfectly plausible. i know several people who do; session musicians, music teachers, performing artists, audio engineers...

lazy cherrypickers will say that it's impossible and try to work in a "safer" field, and honestly working in music is not for everyone; but if it's what you like, and you know you want to do it for the rest of your life, it's the best choice.

this guy gets it
it shouldn't even be a distinction
most people who make pop music also like lots of pop music and love making it, they do it out of love
i might think the music they listen to is terrible but they don't care what i think

making music purely for financial gain is a pretty stupid choice, there are much easier ways of becoming rich

what kind of retarded question is this? go back to Sup Forums

No

Wall-E is good but Up is complete garbage

Hmm, if one were to enter the music industry 'safely', what sort of degree or courses would this person have to take?

Guys who can't commit to writing and practicing daily.

Guy who is not even a moderately successful musician

You don't have to take any really. Your best bets though would be a sound engineer/production degree, a music management/business marketing degree; or, an electrical engineering/electronics degree.
The scene I play in right now is so full of engineers (mechanical, electrical, software, etc.) it's ridiculous. Makes me wish I had pursued electronics, then I could be making pedals right now.

Guy who is bitter at his own shortcomings.

Nice projecting m8

I'm not bitter about my shortcomings at all. I have fun doing what I do. Can you say the same?

This doesn't make any fucking sense.

Why would you switch back and forth on making music you actually want to make and disingenuous conformity? If making music that others want you to make makes you money, why would you switch if it probably won't make you money? Either be a sellout or have integrity. There's no reason to being inconsistent.

Also, if you could make popular music without the money, then why would you need it to make the music that you want?

>You think Pixar wants to keep shitting out CARS movies? Fuck no, but goddamn they make billions of dollars on toy sales for kids so that they can make good movies like Up and Wall-E

I doubt that they mind making them, since it makes them billions of dollars. They don't even NEED to make the Cars movies to make films they "want". They could pretty much shit out anything and they'd make +$300K from the box office alone. Hell, the films that they "want" to make usually end up getting close to a fucking billion at the box office.

Ah, I see. Why is there a software engineer at the scene tho, like I cant imagine much use of them beyond music softwares like FL Studio or are there other jobs that they have to do in music

the camerawork in cars was next level, senpai
pretty sure they enjoyed making it

Kek, I suppose I should have clarified, those are just people playing in the scene and they happen to have day jobs as engineers. Again, you don't really need a degree to get into music/music industry. Most of the industry people I met in L.A. didn't go to college for anything remotely pertaining to the music industry, other than maybe business/marketing.
Though if you were a software dev you could be making music apps or VSTs/plugins.

Ahhh, I see
>Though if you were a software dev you could be making music apps or VSTs/plugins.
Advice taken, thanks famicon.

again you're being close minded.with all the technology we have today it's not a bad idea to try and do both.
You guys overanalyze this shit as a something you have to do your whole life

If you can make money producing some pop songs. by writing the lyrics or making house music while your experimental noise band hasn't taken off yet. do it
Like david bowie says he uses money to able to the projects he comes up with. without having some kind of hindrance to not pull it off

Anyway this is just advice. you can do whatever the fuck you wanna do

If you go into the software racket, please make an app like Spire, BUT enable goddamn file transfers.

>with all the technology we have today it's not a bad idea to try and do both.
What does technology have to do with music? Do you mean music equipment? You don't need to sellout to have get the shit you need.

>You guys overanalyze this shit as a something you have to do your whole life
No I'm not, your logic just don't make sense and seems entirely pointless. You don't NEED to make money selling out or making popular music to make the music you want to make. Literally nothing would be stopping me from making the music that I would want to make, so what's the point in making shitty pop songs I otherwise would want to make? There's nothing ideal or guaranteed about this method, as trend hopping doesn't instantly make you popular or making you money.

Kind of how death grips made bottomless pit with its more accessible sound with "rare", "limited" records and tapes to make some easy cash. I'm excited for what's next bc it's probably going to be really different

This. I know hardly any new and innovative bands/artists that did not start making pop shit or as cover bands.

>The Moody Blues
>Rush
>Pink Floyd
>Beatles
>Björk
>Radiohead

Original user you replied to here. My point is a career in music isn't perceived as 'safe' because it doesn't really work in a linear way and degrees don't guarantee employment. However, skill is necessary and you need to figure out a way to get it. It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to get good at an instrument or at songwriting, you could go to college for that; I know some people who went to music college and it's very intense, if you can take it you will learn a lot but if you're not the kind to do well with pressure, I don't think you could take it. You can get lessons and practice on your own, I'm sure that's how most of your favorite musicians learnt, but it takes a lot of commitment and if you're the kind that needs a dynamic environment to progress, you'd need to stay really busy and that's not very easy.
For performing artists, the only way to get good is to rehearse and perform a LOT. It can be frustrating and hard, you really need to be social and move around a lot to accumulate experience and make a name for yourself.

noted