"We asserted ourselves as a music community, and showed legislators that music is positive. Especially if you've sold 300 million records worldwide and pay taxes"
About this Quote
It’s a victory lap delivered with a sideways smirk: civic idealism, punctured by the cold math of celebrity. Novoselic frames activism as community-building first, lobbying second. “We asserted ourselves” carries the posture of a scene that refuses to be treated as delinquent noise; it’s not just Nirvana flexing, it’s an entire ecosystem of musicians, venues, fans, and local economies demanding adult recognition.
Then comes the pivot that makes the line bite. “Music is positive” sounds like the kind of wholesome claim politicians love to applaud in public and ignore in policy. Novoselic knows that, so he adds the clause that explains how power actually works: legitimacy arrives faster when you’re rich, famous, and taxable. The “especially” is the tell. It’s not sincerity abandoned; it’s sincerity forced to negotiate with institutions that respond less to cultural value than to measurable impact.
The context matters: the 1990s moral panic around youth culture, censorship fights, venue regulations, and the perennial suspicion that loud music equals social decay. Novoselic’s argument is strategically conservative on the surface (music is “positive,” we “pay taxes”), but the subtext is accusatory. If legislators only listen once art is translated into GDP and a tax bill, what does that say about whose voices count?
It’s also a clever self-indictment: he’s admitting the band’s success functions like a political credential. The joke lands because it’s true, and because he’s uncomfortable with that truth even as he uses it.
Then comes the pivot that makes the line bite. “Music is positive” sounds like the kind of wholesome claim politicians love to applaud in public and ignore in policy. Novoselic knows that, so he adds the clause that explains how power actually works: legitimacy arrives faster when you’re rich, famous, and taxable. The “especially” is the tell. It’s not sincerity abandoned; it’s sincerity forced to negotiate with institutions that respond less to cultural value than to measurable impact.
The context matters: the 1990s moral panic around youth culture, censorship fights, venue regulations, and the perennial suspicion that loud music equals social decay. Novoselic’s argument is strategically conservative on the surface (music is “positive,” we “pay taxes”), but the subtext is accusatory. If legislators only listen once art is translated into GDP and a tax bill, what does that say about whose voices count?
It’s also a clever self-indictment: he’s admitting the band’s success functions like a political credential. The joke lands because it’s true, and because he’s uncomfortable with that truth even as he uses it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Krist
Add to List
