Anyway, to answer the question, I am someone who needs an individual genius. See: My intense dislike of McCartney, Gary, Nicky Wire, the entirety of Joy Division besides Ian Curtis, Sullivan (well, not really on that one but I'm sure it could happen), so on and so forth. I can't explain it though, just that I am acutely aware that I do it. I just like having a bad guy. It certainly doesn't HURT that these people all made awful music after their collaborations with the "geniuses" ended, though - so maybe it's something founded in fact. The results post split are so varying from the original work, that people are going to be pulled to one or the other.
Ramblings.
― Ally, Wednesday, 4 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
I often feel that identifying a single individual in a band as the genius is the lazy option, a displacement of trying to work out how a piece of music affects me onto something unknowable (it's pretty obvious that genius and madness are, for these purposes, the same thing). And if we're going to gaze at unknowables, then collective creativity / genius / madness is much more interesting to me than an individual's.
Apart from all that, I remain more interested in my reaction to a piece of art than in how or why the piece of art came about. The genius is in the listener, in how the listener listens. That must be true at least some of the time.
― Tim, Thursday, 5 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
As far as I know, most great melodies are not written by committee, though many vital and admirable democratic judgements at local council level may very frequently be.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― Tom, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
Now it's a term applied by critics to their artistic super-heroes, which exists in mutual justification with an agreed canon of classics. Others might feel they need it, I don't.
― Tim, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― mark s, Thursday, 12 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
― the pinefox, Sunday, 15 April 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link