"It's like that scene from The Player when they talk about merging Star Wars and Kramer vs. Kramer, or whatever. You could do that with music and it would just be awful"
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Greenwood is skewering the entertainment industrys talent for turning every idea into a market-tested smoothie. By reaching for The Player a Hollywood satire about cynically packaging art Greenwood signals hes not just talking about taste hes talking about power. The joke in that film is that a grotesque mashup Star Wars plus Kramer vs. Kramer is pitched as visionary because it can be sold to everyone. Greenwood hears the same impulse lurking in music: the pressure to splice genres eras and emotional registers not because the combination reveals something new but because it widens the demographic net.
The offhand or whatever matters. Hes mimicking the way executives treat actual works as interchangeable brand tokens. Star Wars isnt a movie here its a synonym for spectacle and merch. Kramer vs. Kramer becomes shorthand for prestige and tears. Put them together and you get a Franken-product with the sheen of ambition and none of the moral center. Greenwood is warning that music can be flattened the same way: collaborations engineered by label logic playlists designed to keep listeners from skipping stylistic whiplash sold as innovation.
Theres also a self-protective edge. As someone known for pushing rock into orchestral electronic and avant-garde territory he draws a line between hybridization that comes from obsession and craft and hybridization that comes from a conference room. His target isnt genre-crossing its the cynical kind where the seams arent part of the art theyre the sales pitch.
The offhand or whatever matters. Hes mimicking the way executives treat actual works as interchangeable brand tokens. Star Wars isnt a movie here its a synonym for spectacle and merch. Kramer vs. Kramer becomes shorthand for prestige and tears. Put them together and you get a Franken-product with the sheen of ambition and none of the moral center. Greenwood is warning that music can be flattened the same way: collaborations engineered by label logic playlists designed to keep listeners from skipping stylistic whiplash sold as innovation.
Theres also a self-protective edge. As someone known for pushing rock into orchestral electronic and avant-garde territory he draws a line between hybridization that comes from obsession and craft and hybridization that comes from a conference room. His target isnt genre-crossing its the cynical kind where the seams arent part of the art theyre the sales pitch.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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