Success Quote by John McLaughlin

McLaughlin draws a clean line that most working musicians spend their entire careers trying to blur. “Two kinds of success” sounds tidy, almost clinical, but the subtext is lived mess: the marketplace has a way of grading art on metrics that don’t map to what artists value. In his world - jazz fusion, virtuosity, long-form improvisation - the deepest wins are often private, peer-based, and technically demanding: the band locks in, the harmony risks pay off, the audience that’s listening closely actually hears what you’re doing. That’s “musical or artistic” success: mastery, evolution, integrity, the feeling that the work is getting truer.

Then he names the other scoreboard outright: “commercial.” Not evil, just different. The bluntness is the point. By refusing softer words like “popular” or “accessible,” he exposes the transaction at the heart of the industry: attention is bought, sold, and optimized. Commercial success can be a result of artistic brilliance, but it can also be a reward for brand clarity, timing, marketing muscle, or a song that fits a radio format. McLaughlin’s sentence politely refuses to pretend those are the same thing.

Context matters: coming up in an era when rock stardom ballooned and jazz became culturally “niche,” he watched acclaim and income drift apart. The line is both a defense mechanism and a value statement: if you’re chasing the wrong success, you’ll end up editing your music to satisfy people who aren’t actually listening.