bad banana blog

An Interview with "Weird Al" Yankovic

I’ll be heading to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week on behalf of Cannes Centrale (where you can follow along, whether you're going or not). To get myself ready to walk into the world’s most creative lion’s den, so to speak, I asked a few of my friends if they’d chat with me about the State of Creativity in 2011.

Next up: “Weird Al” Yankovic, three-time Grammy award winning artist whose 13th studio album, “Alpocalypse,” will be released June 21. Al gets serious with me about his creative process.

You had your first hit in 1982 and have no doubt seen it all in this business in the years since. Loaded question, I know, but what's the state of creativity in the music business in 2011?

Wow, starting with the easy ones, huh? Well, it’s tempting to be flip and say that the industry is creatively bankrupt at this point, but of course that’s not really accurate. Pop music has always been kind of ridiculous. It’s nothing new. Pop music is always changing, always morphing, but much of it seems to be variations on the same stale universal themes—albeit, in some cases, today we’re likely to hear much more graphic or provocative iterations of those themes.

I think a lot of the creativity in the music industry these days is coming from the marketing side—the industry as they knew it collapsed a decade ago, and they’ve been struggling to stay afloat. When your back is against the wall like that, you tend to get very creative very quickly.

Any kid can post a parody song or video on YouTube in a matter of minutes. I guess that's both good and bad. How has technology changed the way you approach what you do?

The Internet has been a double-edged sword for people in the music business. In this post-Napster world, a new generation has grown up thinking that all music is free for the taking, which doesn’t exactly help artists’ sales numbers. But at the same time, the Internet is an incredible promotional tool—with a little marketing skill, you can make millions of people aware of your wonderful new album that they’re most likely just going to download for free anyway.

A couple other Internet pet peeves: There are a lot of “funny” songs floating around the web with my name attached to them, even though—surprise—they’re not really by me. Honestly, it does my reputation no favors when people are tricked into thinking that some vulgar or mediocre song is part of my oeuvre. Also, there are tens of thousands of people on YouTube doing song parodies—that’s great for them, I suppose, but that means that I’ll never again be the only (and certainly not the first) person to parody any given hit song. But, I just put my blinders on and proceed boldly ahead, hoping people won’t notice that I’m the 20,000th person on the planet to do a Miley Cyrus parody.

29 Ways to Stay Creative

 

Via To-Fu Design, Sapporo, Japan.

An Interview with Twitter CEO Dick Costolo

I’ll be heading to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week on behalf of Cannes Centrale (where you can follow along, whether you're going or not). To get myself ready to walk into the world’s most creative lion’s den, so to speak, I asked a few of my friends if they’d chat with me about the State of Creativity in 2011.

Next up: Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter.

There’s been some recent discussion about social media making us all a little dumber. I’m not smart enough to know what that means. But I do know there’s a difference between knowing stuff and creating stuff. Is social networking making us more or less creative?

I’ll give the same answer I gave to the Bill Keller (at the time, Executive Editor of the New York Times) tweet, “#Twittermakesusstupid. Discuss.” My response was a paraphrase of the Marshall McLuhan quote: “It is the framework that changes with each new technology, not just the picture in the frame.”

Twitter and other social media make us no less dumb or smart than any other technology or communication platform or service. Twitter allows us all to converse efficiently around the events in our lives and the important thoughts and interests in our lives. These can be deep and meaningful conversations or they can be silly, childish conversations. It’s not the technology that drives us down either path.

I know a lot of wildly creative people who have eagerly embraced Twitter. I have my theories as to why. What are yours?

A few comedians I know have commented that Twitter forces them to be great editors and really keep their material “tight.” They have frequently told me that they will write a tweet that’s longer than 140 characters, and when they get it down to 140 or less, they realize it’s a lot better; that the simpler version is funnier.

Your theories are probably better than mine. It is also probably the case that Twitter makes it easy to be creative in fragments, which is the way in which many creative people work.

An Interview with Roger von Oech

 

I’ll be heading to the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity next week on behalf of Cannes Centrale (where you can follow along, whether you're going or not). To get myself ready to walk into the world’s most creative lion’s den, so to speak, I asked a few of my friends if they’d chat with me about the State of Creativity in 2011.

First up: Roger von Oech, creativity expert and author of the seminal how-to book on enhancing personal creativity, “A Whack on the Side of the Head.”

How has the role or importance of creativity in business changed over the past twenty years?

Creativity in business has always been important, but until say 15-20 years ago, top management typically expected it from a narrow segment of the company (R&D, engineering, and parts of marketing and advertising). Today, creativity is encouraged in many more functions that were previously told to do things “by the book” (finance, distribution and fulfillment, inventory management, etc.).

Over the past 25 years or so, more and more responsibility to adapting to change and making improvements has been pushed out from executives to the people doing a specific job. Thus we see companies encouraging many, many small changes. This used to be called “continuous improvement” (or whatever the Japanese equivalent was). Today, it’s called innovation. Creativity has been democratized.

We live in an amazing time where the answer to almost any question is just a few clicks away. Some experts are saying this isn’t necessarily a good thing. We’re not learning as much. Not remembering as much. If an idea is a new combination of existing elements, what happens if our brains aren’t holding as many elements? Will our ideas get smaller?

I agree with your central premise here. In order to be creative, you have to have the basic materials with which to create: facts, information, knowledge, experience, and whatever else you can find. If you don’t have this storehouse of diverse materials, it’s more difficult to make new (and unusual) combinations. Also, if an idea or concept isn’t in your head (as opposed to being at the end of a Google search), it’s very difficult to drag it up into consciousness. I personally am glad that I’ve spent a lifetime trying to acquire knowledge and experiences in a variety of different areas.

I think a good memory is a blessing. I also believe it is a skill that can be practiced and developed. If you get lazy (“let the machines do the work”), it can atrophy. This obviously has negative consequences on one’s creative abilities.

Eccentricity and the Creative Mind

"I am a completely horizontal author. I can't think unless I'm lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I've got to be puffing and sipping." -Truman Capote (pictured above)

My friend (and long-time friend of this blog), Mark McGuinness, has written a wonderful piece at 99 Percent about eccentricity and creative work habits. As a creative coach, Mark has closely observed the work habits of creative people from all kinds of disciplines, and has come to view eccentricity as more than just a quaint offshoot of a creative lifestyle. In Mark's opinion, eccentricity is essential. Read the whole piece here.

Indian Matchbox Art

I've always been a sucker for matchbox art. So small. So ephemeral. So, um, odd when taken out of context and examined as a work of art. Be sure to check out the entire collection of Indian matchbox labels over at Agence Eureka.

Via Martin Klasch.

Creativity, Lateral Thinking, and Humor

 

In this televised course that ran in the early 1980s, Edward de Bono discusses why creative people are oftentimes very rigid, how lateral thinking is vital for progress, and why humor is the most significant characteristic of the human mind. An informative glimpse into the human mind, as well as into a 1980s BBC studio audience. (Plus, check out that intro.)

Park Assist

A simple, clever idea for Volkswagen's electronic Park Assist feature. Solid work from Grabarz & Partners, Hamburg.

Via Ads of the World.

Real Power?

 

From a time in advertising history when a copywriter wrote words and an artist drew a picture and, more often than not, one never bothered to talk with the other. So, here you have an ad with straightforward copy. A literal illustration. And a vague sense that eating Grape Nuts will make you go insane.

Via Box Vox.

Steve Jobs in Carbonite iPhone Case

The accessory every Star Wars and Apple fan didn't know they were waiting for, but were. A one-piece, slim-profile, hard case for your iPhone featuring Steve Jobs in carbonite. Available here for $35.

Via Uncrate.