Everyone wants to make a LIVING from their gifts – no one is knocking another ‘acts’ revenue stream. But at the end of that process there was a piece of work that stood by itself as ART. That piece of music was the complete form – it didn’t need a video or high-pressure advertising. Video’s accepted, we’ve now gone from the inventive promos at the beginning of the medium – to material bordering on soft porn. I have no problem with pornography. But that’s not the business I’m in. I don’t know ANY musician who is. And it makes me angry to see it used so cynically and dangerously to sell music. Yes, I said: dangerously. Because a lot of impressionable, fame-hungry kids are going to watch these kinds of images and think: THAT’S what the ‘music business’ is about. THAT’S how to become a music ‘icon.’ I would not wish such a CURSE on anybody. And that’s a male perspective. You try asking ANY of my female friends who are REAL musicians – it makes their blood BOIL to be CHEAPENED by this stuff. There is great diversity and choice in current music – but FEW people are paying for it. Even the biggest record companies are treading water re-releasing classic albums on vinyl. Music as an artistic culture has to be continuously inventive and bold – in its CONSTRUCTIVE form. Not endless, recycled samples, neatly packaged with a T+A show. The lowest common denominator is NOT art – its apathy.