Logan Sama said:
And as an aside.
Danny and Wiley got together over the summer of 2004 and actually just sat down and made a bunch ofmusic they liked the sound of. And it ended up as the Roll Deep album.
It wasn't actually made with an eye to it being marketable.
thats a fair point, and one we shouldnt forget, but it was still compiled and put together with an eye to being marketable. roll deep had the final say on it and thats the type of album they wanted to represent them.
as for blackdown's dissapointment with the idea that personality will get you further than 'merely' innovation, pete doherty was doing quite fine before the papers caught wind of his drug addiction. their first album was a critical favourite, they had a strong core base, they were on top of the pops, they had played brixton academy. and they did that without the mass media obsessing over pete being a slave to crack. so 'innovation' (if thats what were calling the libs' music) did get them to an enviable stage before the cult of personality took over.
it just depends on whether artists are satisfied with having a strong, faithful core base that you can make a living from, that gets you great reviews and keeps you in business, or if you want more than that - if you wanna be on pop world and on radio one every hour and be on the front page of the sun every day etc etc.
i didnt cuss wiley for wanting to be an artist, just that i found his bars on tracks like 2 far with dizzee more effective than some of the bars he spat on his own album. he sounded slightly timid on his own album, a little reserved, not totally confident like he is on radio. he didnt maximise on what makes him so great. just cos one MC does one thing and tries to be 'an artist' (what is that exactly?), doesnt mean others have to go the exact same route. whats good for dizzee isnt necessarily good for wiley. doesnt mean the only other alternative is going some sort of black eyed peas route either.