Professor Early commented on a distinction drawn between creator-oriented and audience-oriented work. He presented Motown as a primary example of a record company taking an audience-oriented approach to its product. Mary Wilson’s initial distaste for “Where Did Our Love Go” provides insight into Motown’s commitment to the audience-oriented approach. In Dreamgirl, Wilson writes that she felt that the song was “childish [and] repetitive” (143), certainly not a critical success from a creator-oriented perspective. Of course, the song would become the first #1 pop single for The Supremes. Wilson recounted after that experience, “After that I knew to leave picking the songs we recorded to those who knew best” (153). Wilson may not have liked the music she was creating very much, but she certainly appreciated the success of that music and felt immensely proud of her participation in its creation.
Wilson’s experience is not unique. It is rarely the case that an artist can work without regard to his or her audience in our country. Both of my parents are artists, and each strives on some level to balance creator-oriented and audience-oriented approaches to their work. As an architect, my father tries to blend his own ideas and his clients’ wishes in his designs. Most clients have a laundry list of desires for their property and, being the party with the money, they are in a position to demand what they want. My dad rightfully considers himself an artist and an individual, and his task as an artist lays in both finding compromise with his clients and in convincing his clients to appreciate elements of his vision. While such a balancing-act may not make my father an Ayn Rand protagonist, it in no way diminishes his value as an artist. My mother, an actor, faces much the same challenges in her profession, seeking to fulfill her creative side through theater while earning a living through commercials, television and the like. She, too, was able to perform her creator-oriented work because of her understanding of the financial realities of her profession.
According to Professor Early, Berry Gordy insisted that he was not interested in creating art; he wanted to make hit records. Motown certainly succeeded at the latter—to a historic degree. However, I also believe that many Motown artists were able to achieve the same balance my parents have found, incorporating their ideas into music that the public consumed voraciously. Smokey Robinson wrote and performed several hit songs while simultaneously developing a unique vocal and lyrical style that would help define the “Motown Sound.” Stevie Wonder produced smash-hits without compromising his artistic perspective. Marvin Gaye released the personal and political album What’s Going On and still found significant popular success.
What makes an artist “authentic”? We often hear of artists, particularly musical artists, as having “sold out” as they reach a larger audience or more comfortable fit into a popular genre of music. True art, this theory would hold, is exclusively creator-oriented. In this conception, then, artists who are aware of their audience’s desires are not “authentic.” Motown should serve as an example that becoming financially successful and “selling out” aren’t necessarily synonymous. While Berry Gordy may not have been interested in making art, he created a business framework from which many “authentic” artists developed. He understood that artists of all types must always find an audience in this country if they hope to survive as professionals.
-- Jesse Klausz
