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

While their major successes were in the 90’s, they’d always had a place in popular culture – albeit British culture.

I went into the call only knowing what I had read up about them and what I had thought about them when they were making hits … so while I was intrigued to chat, I wasn’t exactly sure how it was going to go.

Fortunately for me, I had a secret weapon and that was a Mum who had instilled in me to ‘always be interested in what others are interested in’.

What this means is your job is simple: listen to them and follow where they take you.

That doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions.
Nor does it mean you can’t challenge them when you feel their answers contradict each other.
However, rather than go into it looking for faults or specific answers, your focus is simply to understand how they think and see the world.

And I am so grateful for that because the conversation was amazing.

Not just in terms of what was discussed, but how much I understood and – even related – to many of the choices and decisions they made on their journey.

A reminder that whoever you are … whatever plans you have … or wherever you’re from … we’re all bumbling along trying to make sense of the stuff we experience and are exposed to, while trying to keep on some sort of path we feel we can manage or hope to navigate.

I came out of our chat with a totally different perspective of this indivudual – both as a musician and as a human.

More than that, it allowed me to look back on my perceptions and realise how much I had let prejudices, associations and media [mis]shape my point of view. Or said another way, how I had chosen to ‘tune out’ their reality and ‘tune in’ to the noise surrounding them.

Noise created by people who often didn’t know them and certainly didn’t know what they were going through.

We all have experienced a version of that in our life. Now imagine it on a national and international scale?

Which is why that chat not only helped me see their choices and career through an entirely different lens … it made me feel deeply ashamed of myself.

Of my prejudice.
Of my judgement.
Of my wasted energy.

And I told them and they were incredibly kind and gracious about it. Far more than I deserved, let alone expected … but I can honestly say, I now look at who they are and what they have done – and do – with deep respect rather than judgement or ridicule.

That doesn’t mean I suddenly love their music – I don’t – but I do now completley understand where it came from and what it represented. Especially to them. And that – ironically – has allowed me to connect to them as an artist and a human far more than I ever imagined was possible … amplified by their openness, warmth and willingness to be vulnerable about moments in their life that were most definitely not easy.

I say all this because I think where I started prior to the interview represents what our industry is doing day after day.

Relying on cherry-picked data points, shortcuts and convenient answers, rather than going out their way to truly understand the textured lives, perspectives and challenges of the audiences they want and need to connect and engage to.

What’s making this even worse is how many research companies are now outsourcing ‘data gathering’ to AI driven bots … reinforcing that business increasingly values speed, convenience and efficiency over depth of underrstanding.

And the result of all this?

False perceptions.
Self-interest driven solutions.
Increased category convention advertising.

Or, to sum it up even more devastatingly … Maxwell House idiocy thinking.

It’s why I’ve always seen strategy as an outdoor job more than a desk job.

It’s why I’ve put-out books about what society is thinking over what marketing is claiming.

It’s why I’ve always favoured working with people like On Road and Ruby Pseudo over the conglomerate research companies.