Art & Creativity Quote by Jimmy Carl Black

The jab lands because it’s aimed at a cultural shortcut: using MTV as a passport stamp for “the English music scene.” Jimmy Carl Black isn’t just dunking on the Spice Girls; he’s calling out the way mass media flattens a country’s musical ecosystem into whatever packages best for export. MTV becomes the stand-in for England itself, and that substitution is the real indictment.

His “not a lot of creativity in the commercial area” is a carefully loaded phrase. It doesn’t deny craft, professionalism, or even fun; it questions risk. The Spice Girls are shorthand for a late-90s pop machine where personality is the product and songs are engineered for maximum reach. Black’s subtext: when marketing and brand coherence drive the sound, experimentation gets treated like a defect. That’s less a moral critique than a lament from a working musician who knows how much gets filtered out before listeners ever have a chance to choose.

The last line does the heavy lifting: “There are still great musicians… but not a lot being heard.” It frames the issue as gatekeeping, not scarcity. England isn’t running out of talent; attention is being rationed by channels with narrow incentives - labels, television, radio, the early globalization of pop. Black’s intent is protective and a little weary: don’t confuse what’s loud with what’s alive.