Creativity Quote by Melissa Auf der Maur

There’s a shrug in that line, but it’s a strategic one. “Only so much you can do” isn’t defeat; it’s a musician calling out the tiny box rock culture keeps trying to squeeze itself into. By naming the “rock video” as a genre with limits, Melissa Auf der Maur hints at the stale grammar of the form: the same performance shots, the same masculine cool, the same half-narratives that exist mostly to make a song look marketable.

The “so” and the casual cadence matter. It lands like backstage talk, not a manifesto, which is exactly how the critique slips in. She’s not declaring war on MTV aesthetics; she’s exposing how predictable the game has become. Rock, especially in the late-90s/early-2000s orbit Auf der Maur comes from, was sold as rebellion while being packaged with rigid expectations. Videos were a big part of that packaging: proof of authenticity staged under bright lights.

Subtextually, it reads as an artist negotiating control. If the medium is constrained, then maybe the real creativity has to happen elsewhere: in live performance, in image-making that refuses the usual cues, or in treating the video as a necessary accessory rather than the main event. Coming from a woman in a scene that often policed who gets to look “credible” on camera, the line also has bite: the constraints aren’t just technical, they’re cultural. The quote punctures the romance of the rock video and replaces it with a more honest view of pop infrastructure: even rebellion has a template.