Relationships take work. That's a fairly standard truism that people tend to forget all too easily. It's also one that many people don't realize holds true for the relationship between performers in pop music and their fans.
There are, of course, artists and musicians who thrive on contention, who challenge listeners to question what music is. Practically speaking, though, performers do need fans and not just for their egos. Artists can't book gigs if the venue knows they won't be able to draw a crowd, and they can't keep releasing records if they don't have the money to pay for recording and distribution.
Not to mention that the best form of publicity is free: the online buzz created on Last.fm.
We see a difference here from other mediums like art or even other musical genres like classical. There's no record of Chagall or Beethoven saying, "This wouldn't be possible without the fans."
But if you, the fans are responsible for their success, what do they owe you?
The opinion of fans can be a good measure of which music works and which doesn't. Yet, criticism from fans can also be extremely restricting. Sometimes fans can be too resistant to change so that any deviation from a band's original sound is interpreted as the band selling out, forgetting their roots, or just simply changing for the worse.
The U.K.'s Bloc Party was met with a swarm of feverish, delighted fans after the release of their debut album, "Silent Alarm." Though their first effort was a fairly straightforward post-punk delivery with pulsing beats and spine-rattling riffsn their second effort, "A Weekend in the City," adopted a more progressive feel, coming off as more structured, thought-out and fuller while still retaining dance-able beats. With their sophomore album, Bloc Party took the opportunity to play with tempo, electronics and samples. Some fans balked at the departure and the much more produced sound of the album, but many received it enthusiastically.
Bloc Party's third album, however, continued on the path that "A Weekend in the City" had started on, employing a more techno/electronic sound than the post-punk one with which fans first fell in love. Upon the release of the first few singles from the album, Bloc Party's MySpace wall was met with a fair share of comments from fans pleading for a return to their beginnings.
Despite what many longtime fans wanted to think, "Intimacy" did not come out of nowhere. Bloc Party never wanted to be categorized as just another post-punk band, and they set out to experiment with and develop their sound from the get-go. The musical trajectory from the quartet's debut album to their third full-length is easily explicable, and while some listeners were thrilled by the unpredictable progression, others were dismayed.
Artists and musicians are put in a difficult position. The fans that support them become not only the means by which performers are able to make music, but also part of the reason why they do so. As a result, balancing their own need for musical experimentation with the need to keep fans happy becomes a tight-wire act.
Fans provide feedback that artists can work off of to improve their music. Yet, more often than not, fans fail to realize that music and writing are not static, Likewise, artists shouldn't be afraid to depart from the formula that got them famous just because their fans might be averse to change. When these artistic differences become too much, sometimes it's best for both parties to just move on. Breaking up may be hard, but there's always plenty of fish in the sea.
