【英语生活】别宠坏了艺人

A few weeks ago I had lunch with my brother-in-law. First we discussed our unseemly mid-life urges: his to do triathlons, mine to buy bright green shoes with six-inch heels. We then moved on to our respective professions – opera singing and writing – and the question of how one can go on getting better at these after having spent a quarter of a century trying.

He told me that following his last, flat-ish decade, he had recently put on a spurt, and was now singing better than ever before.

How come, I asked. Fear, he replied. He explained that when his existing contract at the Sydney Opera House ends he could find himself out of work. This fear was doing more to make him improve than rave reviews had ever done.

I was reminded of our conversation last week as I read about the heroic struggle between Guy Hands, the fat, tousled-haired financier, and Robbie Williams, the toned, close-cropped crooner.

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, Hands has taken over the record company EMI and has had the cheek to declare his intention to run it like a business. This means firing almost half the staff and telling artists that they can no longer have multi-million pound advances. Result: various luvvies including Robbie William's agent have been bleating, and industry experts have remarked that Hands is treating EMI like a motorway service station, and that he evidently doesn't realise that artists need managing.

Artists do need managing. I have no idea if Hands will do it well, but he can hardly do it worse than his predecessors. EMI had made a total hash of it, as have most others in the music business, indeed in publishing, newspapers and in movies, too. When it comes to managing creatives no one seems to have any idea how to go about it.

The first big mistake is to think there is something called an artistic temperament that dreary suits need to tiptoe around. In fact creative people are born just like everyone else. If my brother-in-law and I are even remotely typical, three things motivate us. We need to make enough money to support our families. We need some recognition for what we do. And, ideally, we'd like to get a bit of satisfaction out of the work itself. It is all pretty basic.

One could argue that creatives are different as we are more insecure than, say, accountants but I don't accept this. We simply articulate our insecurity more loudly – something that is made even easier if you have a newspaper column like this one.

The rot sets in when creatives start to be successful, and when their managers start telling them they are wonderful every two-and-a-half seconds. Praise is a mind-altering drug and needs to be prescribed in ever larger quantities to get the desired effect.

Look what happened to Barbra Striesand. All those decades ago, when she made Funny Girl, she may have been a moderately reasonable person.

But now she is such a raging, bonkers ego that she can't perform at all without writing into the contract demands for multiple leather sofas to sit on backstage.

There are two reasons companies think it is a good idea to manage creatives by a drip feed of indulgence or what is called love-bombing. First, they hope that great work will result. Only it doesn't. Such loving neglect makes artists into spoilt toddlers who have no incentive to produce anything that their audience will like.

Jeanette Winterson wrote two or three good books in the 1980s but since then her ego grew and her ability to write readable books shrunk. Her publisher, Caroline Michel, “managed” the situation by sycophancy: “The biggest misery for me is finishing a book by you,” she once wrote.

In my experience, Americans are slightly better at managing artists than Brits, particularly when the “artist” is a relative nobody. All three of my UK publishers responded to my manuscripts with mild surprise because they arrived on time. They all said “Lovely!” and proceeded to do no editing at all.

In the US the style is to drop a love bomb at the same time as administering a swift kick up the backside. My US editor sent me an e-mail saying she was “in love” with me and my book. I was a genius and she was humbled to have the huge honour of working with me. She then added that the book was far too long, unfunny and it was going to need a lot of work. I loathed both the slush and the sting but I did as I was told, grinding my teeth. The result was a better novel.

Intelligent managing, with firm deadlines and tough (good) editing is in every writer's interest. JK Rowling would have benefited from a great deal of it, and even Shakespeare should have been quietly told to cut that dreadful play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The main reason that managers fail to discipline creatives is out of terror that they might leave. Yet this is a risk they should be more prepared to take – as long as promising new stars are coming up behind.

Guy Hands last week gave staff a little book containing trite advice from many in the music business, including Joss Stone. He might have done better to include the warning from the uncreative world of investment advertising. At the bottom of each advertisement is the warning: “Past performance should not be seen as an indication of future performance.” Exactly. If someone wants to pay a lot for Robbie – or any of the other spoilt, past-it stars – maybe Hands should simply let them go.

前一阵子，我与妹夫共进午餐。首先我们讨论了自己不合时宜的中年欲望：他想做三项全能运动，我想买一双六英寸鞋跟的亮绿色鞋子。接下来我们谈到了各自的专业——歌剧演唱和写作，以及在经过了25年的努力后，一个人如何能把这些做得更好。他告诉我，经历了过去平淡的10年后，他最近突飞猛进，现在唱得比以往任何时候都更好。

如何做到的呢？我问。害怕，他答道。他解释说，在目前与悉尼歌剧院(Sydney Opera House)的合同结束后，他可能会失业。这种害怕对他进步的作用，要大于以往所有的各种评论。

在我读到身材肥胖、头发蓬乱的金融家盖伊•翰兹(Guy Hands)与曲调优美的短发低吟歌手罗比•威廉姆斯(Robbie Williams)之间的英勇争斗时，我想起了我们的这番谈话。

如果你没有注意到这场争斗的话，那么让我来告诉你：翰兹接管了唱片公司百代(EMI)，并且厚颜宣布打算把它当作一家企业来经营。这意味着要裁减近一半的员工，并告诉艺人们，他们再也拿不到大笔预付款了。结果是：包括威廉姆斯经纪人在内的各式人等一片哀怨，而业内专家评论说，翰兹对待百代就像对待高速公路服务站，他显然没有意识到艺人需要管理。

艺人的确需要管理。我不知道翰兹能否做好，但他很难比前任做得更糟。百代曾经被搞得乱七八糟，就如音乐行业中其它多数公司一样，实际上，出版业、报业和电影行业也一样。在管理创造性人才方面，似乎没有人知道该如何着手。

第一个大错误就是认为，世界上存在一种叫做艺术气质的东西，需要穿着忧郁的服装，踮着脚尖走路。事实上，创造性人才和其它人一样都是凡胎俗子。如果我妹夫和我勉强还能算是代表的话，那么可以说，我们的动机有三样：我们需要赚足够多的钱来养家糊口；我们需要为自己做的事情得到认可；此外，理想的状况下，我们希望从工作本身中找到一些满足感。这些都是很基本的东西。

可能有人会说，创造性人才不同，相比于其它人，比如说会计师，我们更没有安全感。但我不这么认为。我们只是更大声地说出了不安全感——如果你拥有我这样一个专栏的话，那就更容易了。

在创造性人才开始成功，在他们的经理人开始时时把“你很棒”挂在嘴边上的时候，腐烂就开始了。赞扬成了一种改变思想的药物，需要不断加大剂量才能达到期望效果。

看看芭芭拉•史翠珊(Barbra Striesand)吧。数十年之前，当她唱出《Funny Girl》时，她或许是个还算理智的人。

但如今她是如此地暴躁和狂妄自大，如果不在合同里写上后台必须有多层皮沙发上，她就根本不能演出。

一些公司认为，用偶尔的放任或所谓的“爱心轰炸”来管理创造性人才是个好主意。这有两个原因。首先，他们希望这样能产生伟大的作品。可惜结果并非如此。这种溺爱会让艺人们变成被宠坏的小孩，毫无动机去创造受众喜欢的作品。

珍妮特•温特森(Jeanette Winterson)上世纪80年代写过两三本好书，但此后，她的自我膨胀起来，写出可读书籍的能力却萎缩了。她的出版人卡罗琳•米歇尔(Caroline Michel)以拍马屁来“管理”这种情形：“你的书一旦出版，是我最大的痛苦。”她曾这样写道。

根据我的经验，美国人在管理艺人方面要比英国人稍微好一点，特别是在“艺人”相对无名的时候。我在英国的所有三位出版人对我书稿的反应都是略显惊讶，因为它们准时送达了。他们一致表示：“不错！”然后不做任何编辑就付印了。

美国人的风格则是给你一颗糖果的同时，在屁股后面再踢你一脚。我的美国编辑给我发来一封邮件，说她“爱”我和我的书，我是一个天才，和我一起工作是她的巨大荣幸。然后她补充说，这本书篇幅太长，内容无趣，还需要大量修改工作。我既不喜欢她的奉承，也不喜欢她的挑刺，但还是咬牙切齿地照她说的做了。结果一部更好的小说诞生了。

巧妙管理，坚守底线，再加上严格（优秀的）编辑，这符合每个作者的利益。JK•罗林(JK Rowling)本能从这一做法中受益匪浅，甚至应该有人悄悄告诉莎士比亚(Shakespeare)删掉《仲夏夜之梦》(A Midsummer Night's Dream)中令人讨厌的戏中戏。

经理人不能约束创造性人才的主要原因，是害怕他们会离开。但这是一个他们应当做好更多准备去承担的风险——只要后面还有有潜力的新星冉冉升起。

盖伊•翰兹最近发给员工一本书，里面有音乐界许多人士提供的老套建议，包括来自乔丝•史东(Joss Stone)的建议。他或许做得更好，在书中加上了非创造性行业对投资广告的警告。在每则投资广告的末尾，都有这样一句话：“过往业绩不代表未来表现。”完全正确。如果有人想出更多钱聘用罗比——或其它任何被宠坏了的昔日明星，或许翰兹应该直接让他们走人。

译者/力文