“When you get a good review, you feel good! When you don’t, you just have to realize that you can’t please everybody. We make music for the people who like it, not for the ones that don’t.” (Sass Jordan)
Sass Jordan twittered this some weeks ago. It’s so to the point! This quote made me realize, that everything is about making choices. Here it’s the choice of who you make your music for. And there are always people who don’t like it, especially if you dare to be outspoken. This will give you more extreme reactions than if you stay mainstream: people will really love you for what you do, and some might hate you for it. The difficulty is to become aware that not everyone will love you.
Criticism brings us back to the choices we make, consciously or not. A good way to deal with it is described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: receive it all the way through, note what bothers you about it, note what’s useful, nurture yourself by reading a positive review. And if you think that you deserve the critic, realize that it might be a stepping stone in your development. Start to defend your work to yourself, and create again. “Creativity is the only cure for criticism”. (Julia Cameron)
If you want to be loved by everyone, you have to stay mainstream. But in my eyes that’s entertainment and not art. And there are even people who don’t like mainstream, like me. I hope that you dare to make a choice for being outspoken, showing yourself and your message to others. And that you will keep creating, even if you know that not everyone will like you and your message. You create for the people who like it, not for the people who don’t.