> Sometimes the worst thing you can do is give people exactly what they ask for.
Alan Moore said this in the context of poetry, but with the caveat that everybody is sometimes part of "the" audience, and that every fully fledged human adult should sometimes be "the" artist, I think he has a hugely important point:
> It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.
Alan Moore said this in the context of poetry, but with the caveat that everybody is sometimes part of "the" audience, and that every fully fledged human adult should sometimes be "the" artist, I think he has a hugely important point:
> It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need.