The term ‘genius’ has been getting thrown around by critics and subreddits when it comes to recent indie sensation Cameron Winter of Geese. Between their current hit album Getting Killed and his solo project Heavy Metal, it’s hard to fault anyone for getting dramatic when describing the 23-year-old New Yorker.
The term ‘genius’ has been getting thrown around by critics and subreddits when it comes to recent indie sensation Cameron Winter of Geese. Between their current hit album Getting Killed and his solo project Heavy Metal, it’s hard to fault anyone for getting dramatic when describing the 23-year-old New Yorker.
There is no doubt of Cameron’s immense - if not prodigious - musical abilities. His solo work is reminiscent of Nick Drake, Velvet Underground or Leonard Cohen, while his band Geese has released one of the most original albums to hit the charts this year.
But why do we have to justify our passion for an artist by labelling them as a ‘genius’? Is it because it makes us feel like a genius? Arthur Conan Doyle said: "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius." With viral sensations like Winter, fans want to feel like they have found something special, like they’ve recognised something that others can’t. This is the beauty of music and of fandom, it is not owing to Winter’s musical genius, it is due to connection.
Bob Dylan often talks about the misconceptions of his popularity in the 1960’s. In an interview with 60 Minutes in 2004, he stresses how it wasn’t genius, but instead being “the right type of person at the right time… it came and it went”. An artist can capture the spirit of an age - and perhaps that’s a kind of genius - but their popularity can more be understood in its cultural resonance, not the prophetical “otherness” that the word ‘genius’ evokes.
Ubiquitously elevating artists to a ‘genius’ status is more problematic than you would think, both for the artists and their fans. The trouble is it seems to take universalism out of artistic expression. Why would someone - a ‘non-genius’, a mere mortal - attempt to write, paint, sing or dance, when there are geniuses out there doing it so much better? It may be certainly true that Cameron Winter has a gift of songwriting that is rarely found in pop music, but why isn’t talent enough? ‘Genius’ seems to justify our idolisation of the celebrity beyond normality. It indicates some anomalous disconnect between how we view people and how we view artists when in reality, they’re the same.
Nowadays, what art we consume indicates our social virtue. Matty Healy points out in an interview with Josh Citerelle how we used to “hang a poster on our wall and stare at it for hours”. It was about your connection and interaction with the artist - a bilateral relationship. With apps like Letterboxd and Spotify, we’ve opened this up. “Now it’s more about pointing and showing off those posters to others.” What was closed off in our private world of exploration is now thrust into the public domain, and serves to construct our own identity.
When we frequently use the term ‘genius’ to describe artists, we’re trying to say more about ourselves. Cameron Winter doesn’t need a prophetic label to validate his work. His brilliance doesn’t lie in his ‘genius’ but in his honesty, creativity and so much else. When we reduce people to these unattainable labels, we take the humanity out of the artist and equally the greatness out of their work. In essence, Cameron Winter is just a great singer-songwriter. Isn’t that enough?
God is real, God is real
I'm not kidding, God is actually real
I'm not kidding this time
I think God is actually for real
God is real, God is actually real
God is real, I wouldn't joke about this
I'm not kidding this time
Cameron Winter, ‘$0’