There's been much harrumphing recently about how badly we creatives are paid compared to our contemporaries in The City.
I'm not sure it's an apt comparison. Was investment banking ever really an option for too many of us?
In my first year of college, my lowest mark was in Commerce. In my final year of university, my grade in Commercial Law was almost bad enough to get me turfed out of honours. I realise a sample of one is far from scientific, but there's no way I was ever going to be writing the 'City Boy' column in my spare time.
It seems to me that, as a breed, we have more in common with other creative types like musicians than we do with bankers. In fact, probably half the creatives I've ever met outside of work have been musos.
On Saturday night I went to see The Zombies play at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. They were celebrating the 40th anniversary of Oddessy & Oracle, an album that routinely ranks along with Pet Sounds, Sgt Peppers and Highway 61 as one of the great albums of the 60s.
Yet within weeks of releasing the album, the band broke up. Despite already having a string of hits, including a US Number Two with "She's Not There", they simply weren't earning enough to live.
Singer Colin Blunstone went into the insurance business.
Suddenly, that latest round of client revisions doesn't look so bad.
1 comment:
For me, that album is far superior to SPLHCB. I've just about worn out my copy. It gets better every time I play it. It contains what I consider the very best recorded track of the entire 1960s.
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