DiScussion: Does poverty inspire great art?

are an obvious example of hard time yielding great work and subsequent riches yielding shite.

the scenes listed were generally made up, artists and audiences, of the young and poor. that several of the key artists involved had upbringings that weren't poor is neither here nor there.

still, your hyperbole aside i agree that lines like "let’s start this debate by looking at a few past examples of just why we should perhaps be so excited, even grateful that we're on the verge of recession" are very silly indeed. in fact they're so silly i'd guess they were included primarily to generate responses like yours, and mine. ;)

i'd say that poverty doesn't generate great art, but great art is something that people will pursue in spite of poverty, and that people who choose to make music and all else be damned will usually be pretty poor, as statistically speaking music is a rubbish way to make a living.

but then i guess sensible, balanced claims don't generate DiScussion, amirite?

but I wouldn't suggest that it provokes a better one, if only for the reason that it's a completlely limiting definition that denies so much. Many of my favourite artists are aristocrats - Lord Byron, Vladimir Nabokov, and they didn't need to live on the breadline to produce worthwhile art.

Escapism inspires, i'm not sure that's something specific to the poor, look at Nick Drake.

Plus, i'm not sure i'd consider music to be art, really.

aren't poor or in difficult circumstances and I'm pretty sure they've been making some of the most forward-thinking "art" for a while now.

serious with that last sentence

it's a discussion.

whole romanticism of the starving artist kick you've got going on here.
How many poor bands have made rubbish albums? Lots.
How many middle class comfortable living bands have made good music? Plenty.

except it naturally, for our musical times, focusses mostly on what was happening in New York at the end of the 70s and start of the 80s.

as to whether poverty = better art, from a european and american perspective, you only have to look at the fact that almost all of the most important musical pioneers of the 20th century (robert johnston, miles davis, james brown - inventing blues, jazz, r'n'b, rock 'n' roll, soul, funk, hip-hop and house) were black. It's not co-incidence all these people are American. Obviously black guys in America have had a fairly rough time in the last hundred years. Almost without exception, these musicians came from very humble backgrounds.

That's not to say of course that only poverty can bring good art. The whole point though is that White westerners have just fucking loved 'black' music and have aped and assimilated it into their cultures. Over the last hundred years, Britian for example has gone from a musical culture that relied on live music only (no record players remember), sitting round a piano, folk songs, and classical performances.

It's impossible to answer the question because we currently enjoy a mixture of these two cultural forces. Who's to say Bob Dylan is more or less important than James Brown...

I don't think it's a case of poverty inspiring great art as such, but you will find when most scenes that explode kick off it has happened in poorer areas in recent times.

The reason why that happens though is because people move to those areas because of the cheap rent, thus the artists can spend more time working on art rather then paying rent/bills.

Manchester and Brighton are two key examples of this in the last decade. The problem is that the second an area becomes cool and gets exposure, everyone moves there and rent sky rockets. Brighton is producing nothing like it was about six or seven years ago, because it's so expensive to live there since it became cool.

Even in America you've had areas like East Village and the Meatpacking districts in NY which became cool and then horrificly expensive and in LA Silverlake went from a semi-ghetto artists haven to land of those who earn $100k a year.

It's never so much poverty as living oppressed which inspires great art. Of course poverty is part of that, but it's not the defining factor. People listen when you have an interesting story or a different twist on things. The vast majority of full time artists I know are living in virtual poverty anyway.

I was having this conversation with a mate the other day. Apparently all the art that comes out of San Franscisco is shite because everyone there is so happy!!! (He's well into art). To which I commented thats why Glasgow and Manchester have made such great music - there's a high degree of poverty. And thats why all you wannabe music stars out there should gimme your money. Get in contact for the bank details.

NOT YOU RICH KIDS

and my gcse music teacher taught the brass section how to play their instruments.
irrelevant i know but on the issue of poverty inspiring great movements, all things great, like great art, are born in misery and nurtured through suffering. one fine example id use is bukowski. only he could have wrote what he wrote and how he wrote it and only because of what life dealt him. abusive father, living on the poverty line, being undesirable and all his others faults which poetically make him beautiful to me and anyone else who adores him and his work.

theres countless more examples of this but that isnt to say having money and being comfortable doesn't mean you cant make good art. great art is very different though and what i would consider great would have come out of poverty or a harsh enviroment.