Politics & Power Quote by Kristin Hersh

Kristin Hersh’s line has the weary snap of someone who’s watched art get bigger and somehow smaller at the same time. “To do it nationally or internationally” sounds like scale, ambition, reach. Then she drops the real cost: “you have to follow a few more rules.” It’s a compact diagnosis of how culture travels. The moment your work leaves the local ecosystem where weirdness can be an asset, it enters systems built for smooth distribution: radio formats, label expectations, marketing narratives, playlist metadata, press-friendly biography beats. The rules aren’t always spoken, which is the point; they masquerade as “professionalism,” “strategy,” “what audiences want.”

Hersh is also quietly refusing the romantic myth that exposure equals freedom. National and international success is framed as an upgrade, but her wording makes it sound like immigration paperwork: you can cross the border, but you’ll be searched, sorted, and asked to behave. For an alternative musician with a reputation for raw, idiosyncratic writing, the subtext is personal: the more people you try to reach, the more pressure there is to sand down the parts that don’t translate.

The brilliance is the understatement. “A few more rules” is almost comic in its modesty, as if the compromises are minor. That downplays the drama while sharpening the critique: the machinery of scale doesn’t need to ban your originality outright. It just nudges, rewards, and punishes until you start editing yourself.