Back in 1965, a relentless reporter cornered a young Mick Jagger, bombarding him with an onslaught of pointed questions surrounding competition between The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

While the reporter didn’t get the juicy headline he so desperately wanted, artists everywhere got a 36-second masterclass in dodging competition from one of the greatest performers of all time.

Reporter: “How do you compare your group with The Beatles?”

Jagger: “I don’t know. How do you compare it with The Beatles? I don’t compare it at all. There’s no point.”

Reporter: “Well, let’s get down to brass tacks: do you think you’re better than they are?”

Jagger: “At what? It’s not the same group. So, we just do what we want and they just do what they want. And, there’s no point going on comparing yourself. You can prefer us to them or them to us. It’s just diplomatic, you see?”

Reporter: “Do you feel you do what you want to do better than they do what they want to do?”

Jagger: “Uhm. Well, I don’t know. I don’t know what they want to do, you see? It’s very diplomatic.”

While competition certainly makes sense in the world of sports––where at the end of each game somebody wins and somebody loses––there’s no place for competition in the arts.

One way to determine whether or not art is “successful” is if it’s original.

Ironically, it’s impossible to be original in the arts if you’re competing with another artist, because to compete is to agree you are playing the same game.

And so in art, to compete is to lose.

 Cole Schafer.

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