Balance between art for art's sake and art for an audience

English Rock Group member Queen’s guitarist & sometimes vocalist Brian May made an interesting quote and observation in his website a few days ago.
My husband is a long time fan of Queen and their music and he has been reading Brian May’s blog in his website and told me about it.

Here's Brian May's quote.

" One needs to find a balance between art for art's sake and art for an audience.
That's where the magic happens. Because if you stray too far from that line on either side, the result is not very useful.
If you're doing things purely to get famous or to make money, they tend to be very empty.

But on the other side of the line is, if you do things purely for art's sake and nobody ever gets to see them or appreciate them, then you're not using your art as communication — which I believe it should be. "

This is an interesting point of view about success and Brian May is a member of one of the top legendary rock groups, his quote is deep and I’m very convinced about it.

I think that’s the key of valuable success. I’ve seen several successful musicians ( composers ) who talked about life and what are some of the things that bring them happiness.
And they answered the same.

“ I’m living for the moment of ecstasy which I can get when I created new music, and I got the feeling that this is the one !”

“ I can not get full satisfaction from just money and stuff. “

This is after they became successful and could get anything they want, they said that material things tend to get boring after a while, but they never get bored with creativity, it’s their passion.

Brian May’s quote ,

“ If you're doing things purely to get famous or to make money, they tend to be very empty. “

Money can make us comfortable living and help us to make joy and happiness, but that’s not all there is.

It may be different depending on the person.
But if one is an artist , I suppose their passion is creativity.

Queen’s first big hit was “ Killer Queen “ which was composed by Freddie Mercury ( which is one of my favorites ) . Interesting thing is, it was not initially a hit in the UK which is their own country ( that came later ), but it was a huge hit in Japan.

Their next big hit was Bohemian Rhapsody composed by Freddie Mercury ,
Then “ We are the champions “ composed by Freddie Mercury
And “ We will rock you. “ composed by Brian May.

These songs propelled them to superstardom.

I didn’t know Queen at that time, I became a fan of Queen much much later, after Freddie Mercury passed away, when I happened to see their stage performance on a video.

From that point, when I needed extra energy, I often watched Freddie Mercury’s extremely high powerful energy, which grabs audience attention .

All of these songs mentioned above are unique and were not trendy music.

I wonder how they could know if the music would be loved by an audience, considering these are all very unique music ?

It’s actually really hard to make that balance between art for art’s sake and art for audience.

And this balance between art for art’s sake and art for audience can be used in many other subjects, and especially in many types of art, as well as all kinds of performers.

Art for art's sake and art for an audience, both are very important.

So, while doing our best to be original and unique, we also can not ignore what are the popular opinions and know what majority of people want.

I found many artists are not good marketers. And as a result they can not succeed and show their unique talent.

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Brian May is one of the most intelligent & educated musicians in the world.
May studied physics at the Imperial College London.

He graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in both physics and mathematics and ARCS with Upper Second Class Honours.

He then proceeded to study for a PhD degree, also at the Imperial College London departments of Physics and Mathematics, and was part way through this PhD programme, when Queen became successful.

He then temporarily abandoned his physics doctorate, to spend full time with the rock band Queen.

More than 30 years later, after a hugely successful music career with Queen, he returned to his physics studies, and in October 2007 he completed his PhD thesis in astrophysics, entitled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud .

He officially graduated at the postgraduate awards ceremony held in the Royal Albert Hall on 14 May 2008.

This combination of Rock Musician and Astrophysicist is very interesting. He is also very original. Before Queen became successful, he made his own electric guitar which he built himself, from the wood of his fireplace.

This unique electric guitar is named the “ Brian May Red Special guitar”. He prefers to use coins as picks, especially the English sixpence coin, when he plays guitar.

His amazing guitar technique is well-known.

All the members in Queen are super talented and very educated and Freddie Mercury is one of my heroes.

Even though I happened to be attracted to Freddie Mercury who is completely opposite from Brian May, and who has different type of intelligence which was mysterious, and can not be measured by degree, however, no one can deny Brian May’s incredible intelligence.

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