Wit & Attitude Quote by Kristin Hersh

Hersh is doing that rare thing artists do when they stop blaming “the market” and start indicting the people who hide behind it. The opening move is surgical: she doesn’t contest market forces as such, she contests the alibi. “I don’t mind what the market is” reads like a shrug at commerce; “but why is it vapid?” is the knife. Vapidness isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice, maintained by gatekeepers who confuse predictability with demand and then call it democracy.

The second sentence flips a common industry contempt into a dare. If audiences are “idiots,” she implies, then the real idiot is the executive who refuses to risk their own cynicism being disproved. “Show them good music instead” exposes how paternalistic the marketplace can be: it claims to serve “what people want” while actively narrowing what people get to want. Hersh isn’t romanticizing listeners; she’s rejecting the patronizing loop where tastemakers keep standards low, then cite low standards as proof they were right.

The sting is in the final line: “They’re not going to know the difference.” On the surface it’s an insult, but the subtext is almost generous. People aren’t trained, not innately incapable. If you’ve fed them wallpaper, don’t be shocked they stop noticing color. Hersh’s intent is provocation with a practical proposal: raise the ceiling and see what happens. It’s a challenge to an industry that markets safety as inevitability, and to artists tempted to accept that story because it’s easier than fighting it.