Jay Havaldar

It's difficult to separate art from artist. In our culture, the artist is more than just a person — they are an institution, a myth, a force of nature. We see the artist as a vessel through which the creative force manifests. And so we arrive at ridiculous and irreconcilable paradoxes — how can John Lennon be both a champion of peace and a wife-beater?

It seems that the only successful way to profit off this new paradigm is the “freemium” model, in which you have the option to pay for quality. It’s a natural solution which allows customers to pay what they want. But for this model to be successful and to change what the value of music is, we need to have a discussion about what the value of music should be.

Those who pursue the impractical and the esoteric are, I think, quite a bit misunderstood. The frame of mind that leads to our judgments of what is and isn't practical is very much a product of our environment. Yes, an artist may never cure cancer or build a million dollar company, but we should be a bit more grateful for what they do give us.