Talking dirty

Attached to the ménage of every artistic outfit these days will be an employee who believes there is a magic formula which,  once found, will bring in millions of everything: fans, column inches, money. Perhaps all artists secretly believe that what we do must have universal appeal: our insights are simply too significant to be overlooked. The only reason why other people don’t come to our concerts, buy our discs, or otherwise frequent our places of high culture is that it hasn’t yet got through to them that we exist. They only have to be drawn in by the right kind of publicity and everybody will love what we do.

To find this publicity is the job of expensive professionals who spend their lives identifying the perfect image or coining the irresistible slogan. I notice that little thought is given to the possibility that the chosen image or slogan might have a counterproductive effect: that the great unwashed ignore the whole exercise no matter how thrillingly they are talked down to, while those who are already interested may rapidly go off the idea if the publicity is too trashy.