"It costs so much to promote something these days that almost always safety is the preferred option, reference back to things which have been successful in the past. Also, people are simply not given the time to develop and find themselves and their audience as we were"
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Hammill is diagnosing an industry that no longer behaves like an industry so much as a high-stakes casino with terrible odds. When promotion is expensive, risk stops being a romantic ideal and becomes a line item, and that’s where “safety” sneaks in: sequels, legacy acts, algorithm-friendly sounds, the endless recycling of what already tested well. His phrasing is telling: “reference back” makes nostalgia sound less like affection and more like a compliance strategy, a bureaucratic gesture toward prior success.
The real bite, though, is in the time argument. Hammill isn’t doing the usual old-guard lament that “music was better back then.” He’s pointing to a structural shift: the runway has shortened. In earlier eras, artists could be messy in public for a while, release imperfect records, play to half-empty rooms, and slowly converge on a voice and a tribe. That developmental slack produced weirdness, and weirdness eventually produced movements.
Now the market demands instant legibility: your “audience” must appear quickly, preferably pre-assembled through social platforms, and your persona has to be coherent before the work has even matured. The subtext is about power. “People are simply not given the time” implies time as permission granted by labels, media, and gatekeepers - and increasingly by the attention economy itself. Hammill, a veteran of prog’s long-form, slow-burn culture, is mourning not just aesthetics but incubation: the conditions that allow originality to survive long enough to become profitable.
The real bite, though, is in the time argument. Hammill isn’t doing the usual old-guard lament that “music was better back then.” He’s pointing to a structural shift: the runway has shortened. In earlier eras, artists could be messy in public for a while, release imperfect records, play to half-empty rooms, and slowly converge on a voice and a tribe. That developmental slack produced weirdness, and weirdness eventually produced movements.
Now the market demands instant legibility: your “audience” must appear quickly, preferably pre-assembled through social platforms, and your persona has to be coherent before the work has even matured. The subtext is about power. “People are simply not given the time” implies time as permission granted by labels, media, and gatekeepers - and increasingly by the attention economy itself. Hammill, a veteran of prog’s long-form, slow-burn culture, is mourning not just aesthetics but incubation: the conditions that allow originality to survive long enough to become profitable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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