The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

One of the great pleasures that walking has given me is listening to podcasts.

To be honest, prior to walking I never really enjoyed them.

Sure, part of that was because the podcasts available in the early days were – generally – fucking terrible, but more than that … I just have always enjoyed the act of reading.

Still do.

But the beauty of a podcast is it lets me take my mind off the pain/boredom of walking and instead, let’s me lose myself in the joy of the story. And because I have an addictive personality, it means I rarely stop walking until I’ve heard the end of whatever the hell I’m listening too. Podcasts have literally ensured I’ve walked hundreds of kilometers further than I would otherwise have walked.

However for me to really love a podcast, it needs to be about true stories.

Don’t really care what – or who – the subject is about, it just has to be real.

Interestingly, the companies/individuals who do them best – or at least in terms of what I find ‘best’ – are the ones who have always told stories. Who know the craft of it. Who appreciate the importance of space and pace. Who see is as an expression of who they are, rather than simply the business they’re in.

Which is why I have recently been enjoying Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pearce.

Rockonteurs is a music podcast, hosted by ex-Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp and session bassist, Guy Pratt. Each episode hears them listening to different icons from the music industry. Not just in terms of artists and performers … but producers, promoters, songwriters and managers.

Now obviously I love music and a lot of the people they interview are individuals from my era … but that’s not why I like it or why you should listen to it.

The thing that stands out most of all is that regardless of decade, genre, country-of-origin, level of success … there is a camaraderie, respect and overall interest in what each person has done and how they approached it that is severely lacking in our industry today.

Right now, in our industry, it feels like everyone is desperate to be seen as ‘the ultimate one’.

The person with all the answers.

The person with all the knowledge.

The person who defines how everything should be done.

There’s not much humbleness in our industry these days – and what there is, comes across as contrived-as-fuck.

That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be proud of what they believe or what they’ve done … but it does mean they shouldn’t speak with a condescending tone or a desire to belittle or destroy anyone who thinks differently to them.

But it’s happening all the time.

Sure, some of that is amplified by the Linkedin algorithm – not to mention the conference industry – that rewards this sort of bullshit … but everywhere you look you see and hear people making some pretty outrageous, self-serving, blinkered claims.

What makes it worse is that in many cases, the things they feel OK with publicly judging/criticising/labelling are things they’ve never actually made/done themselves … though my personal fave is when you hear them repackage well established approaches/rules/campaigns and then try to claim they have ‘invented’ something new.

Even more bizarre is how this behavior is as prevalent with ‘senior leaders’ as it is with people just starting out … who you can at least understand are trying to stand out from a crowd of sameness.

Just last year, I listened to a very, very well-known and successful leader tell a global audience they had identified ‘the secret to success’ … without once acknowledging everything they said was [1] literally information that was decades old, [2] it is how good agencies have always operated.

Now I appreciate they have millions of dollars of reasons why they have to speak with the authoritative tone of God, but that doesn’t make them right – regardless how smart they may be – but what makes it sad is they have no willingness or openness to acknowledge there are other ways, even if they prefer/believe in theirs most.

And maybe that’s why I really enjoy the Rockonteurs podcast … because there’s none of that.

OK, I appreciate all the guests who appear have achieved a certain level of success, so there’s less to prove. I also accept many of the guests are looking back on their career – rather than ahead – so there is less of a commercial demand being placed on them to ‘win people over’. And finally, I completely understand all the guests have a direct connection to one – or both – of the hosts, so they’re talking to a friendly audience.

[Though I have to say the hosts aren’t great – sometimes bordering on annoying – as they often interrupt their guests in a desperate bid to either show public association with them or remind them that they too were once famous. It’s a bit yuck to be honest.]

But that aside, for an industry that still overflows with fragile egos … the one thing that came through once I’d listened to a few of the interviews – especially the first season – was how united they all were in terms of what they value/d … even though most of them all had radically different styles, views and interpretations of what that is and how to get there.

Underpinning this was that regardless on the level of success each guest achieved, they had been successful.

Maybe in terms of popularity.
Maybe in terms of a single song/album/concert.
Maybe in terms of their influence in a particular genre/fan of music.
Maybe in terms of simply having a career, despite never having a breakthrough hit.

But they had pulled something off against the odds and for that, there was something to hear, something to learn and something to respect.

That doesn’t mean they are not competitive.

That doesn’t mean they like everything each other does/did.

But it does mean they appreciate how hard it takes to make something you feel proud of – even if you don’t like it or understand it – and maybe, just maybe, if our industry adopted this stance a bit more, we’d not only be a nicer place to work, we might end up being a place that makes a lot more interesting work.

Because as I’ve said before [or should I say, what Ferdinand Porsche said before]: It’s better to mean everything to someone than be anything to everyone.

Check out Rockonteurs wherever you get your podcast.

I promise, whatever music you’re into.
Whatever era you’re from or adore.
There’ll be something you’ll like. And learn.

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Please note:

You lucky, lucky people – hahaha.