"I'm always pleased with my work. Absolutely"
About this Quote
There is something provocatively un-rock-and-roll about the bluntness of "I'm always pleased with my work. Absolutely". In a culture that treats the tortured, never-satisfied artist as a badge of authenticity, Tom Jenkinson sidesteps the expected self-flagellation and opts for a kind of disciplined confidence. The two sentences do a lot of work: the first offers a calm baseline, the second slams the door on caveats. "Always" is the dare, "Absolutely" is the mic drop.
Coming from a musician whose reputation is built on meticulous control and technical precision, the line reads less like ego and more like process. It implies a closed loop: the piece isn't released until it satisfies him. That reframes "pleased" as a quality-control standard, not a mood. In the age of endless drafts, deluxe editions, and algorithmic pressure to keep feeding the feed, the statement is almost a refusal: the work is finished when the maker says it's finished.
The subtext is also a quiet critique of performative humility. Artists are trained to sound uncertain in public, to buffer praise with disclaimers. Jenkinson denies the audience that comfort. It forces a different question: if he is always pleased, what does he optimize for? Not approval, not trends, but internal coherence - the feeling that every sound lands where it should.
And yet the certainty has its own edge. "Always" hints at an almost clinical detachment: satisfaction not as celebration, but as completion. Confidence, here, is not warmth; it's a system.
Coming from a musician whose reputation is built on meticulous control and technical precision, the line reads less like ego and more like process. It implies a closed loop: the piece isn't released until it satisfies him. That reframes "pleased" as a quality-control standard, not a mood. In the age of endless drafts, deluxe editions, and algorithmic pressure to keep feeding the feed, the statement is almost a refusal: the work is finished when the maker says it's finished.
The subtext is also a quiet critique of performative humility. Artists are trained to sound uncertain in public, to buffer praise with disclaimers. Jenkinson denies the audience that comfort. It forces a different question: if he is always pleased, what does he optimize for? Not approval, not trends, but internal coherence - the feeling that every sound lands where it should.
And yet the certainty has its own edge. "Always" hints at an almost clinical detachment: satisfaction not as celebration, but as completion. Confidence, here, is not warmth; it's a system.
Quote Details
| Topic | Contentment |
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