When it comes to making music videos, Walk Off The Earth is by far the most innovative band I’ve come across in my young life.
They have an ability to whip up insanely creative, joyful, organic DIY clips in their home studio. Music videos have been around for 30 years—and “song films” before that—but nobody has done them with this much fun and ingenuity.
Rock & roll, we know, is a hybrid of several musical traditions (blues, gospel, country, etc.) that have rural roots going back to Europe and Africa. But the synthesis of these styles into a new musical shape occurred in American cities, in places like New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York.
By the mid-20th century, many of the best musicians in their traditional fields had flocked to these cities for the same reason other creative people had. That’s where the action was. That’s where their peers were working, hanging out, exchanging ideas with each other. (That's why I slept a few nights at NYC's Tompkins Square Park in the 60s.) In these urban melting pots a cultural and aesthetic innovation was born: rock & roll! Like so much of art, culture, and commerce, rock owes its very existence to CITIES.
The hero myth, the notion that great accomplishments are achieved by superstar geniuses working alone, is an alluring but dangerous fantasy in business. Look no further than rock & roll to slay that chimera.
In the world of rock—as in mainstream business—it’s the TEAM that gets things done.
A few of my favorite citations from rock luminaries—with business implications—from my upcoming Business Lessons From Rock tome...
I wanted to be someone who invented something. — Chuck Berry
The architect of rock & roll guitar-picking understood that creativity rules! In order to stand out from the pack and produce something important, you have to invent, originate, initiate, formulate, manufacture, or generate SOMETHING NEW. Why is this so hard for businesses to comprehend?