Maybe it’s time to demystify the image of the tortured artist. If this collective imagination is so deeply rooted in our cultures, it’s partly because of Baudelaire and all those artists fed on ideas, opium and melancholy. Baudelaire’s spleen is that “disgust for everything,” a sadness with no apparent cause that seems to relentlessly haunt “cursed” artists.

The list is long: Van Gogh, Beethoven, Kurt Cobain, Avicii, Keith Flint… Enough to make us believe that the greatest artists will always be those who have suffered the most, those who were consumed by their art.

The artist is, by definition, a sensitive being. They absorb the world, they transform it, and with every creation they offer a piece of it to the public. This sensitivity can make them more vulnerable to intense emotions and excess. As psychologist Benjamin Getenet writes in Psych’ART: dépasser le mythe de l’artiste tourmenté (The ARTchemists, 2024), “7 musicians out of 10 reportedly suffer from mental disorders”—a huge figure, but one that reveals a genuine public health issue.

But what does all this really tell us about the mental health of today’s artists, especially in electronic music, where we glorify the night, excess, performance and productivity?

Libération reaches a similar conclusion in Nicolas Celnik’s article “Artistes et troubles psychiques, une créativité folle”: the image of the “creative genius, tortured soul” is “not entirely false,” but it drastically oversimplifies the reality of mental disorders and helps sustain an imaginary world in which suffering is almost expected from renowned artists. Does creation really have to be born out of suffering, or even mental illness, to reach the sublime? That’s a mistaken, if not downright illusory, idea.

Musical Catharsis

Not that art has no power over pain—creating is cathartic. This may be even more true in electronic music. Psychic suffering, like music, has something invisible about it. It cannot be seen, it is lived from within. That may sound a bit metaphysical—because it is—but rhythm and bass can heal. (See: Bensimon, M., Amir, D., & Wolf, Y. (2008). Drumming through trauma: Music therapy with post-traumatic soldiers. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 35(1), 34–48.)

For example, the 73 Hz frequency, known for helping combat anxiety, is often present in many tracks without us even realizing it. To get more technical, any track in D with a sub on D2 will fundamentally revolve around 73 Hz. In reality, most kicks and bass lines drop into that range. Gamma waves (above 30 Hz) therefore have relaxing properties and can sometimes allow heightened states of consciousness. That explains why electronic music resonates so strongly with our brain—ours, but also that of the artists.

And for some of them, producing or mixing is exactly that: turning inner chaos into sound therapy.

However, we can’t set sadness up as a guarantee of artistic quality. Keeping alive this imagery of the “cursed poet” means feeding a culture of burnout; it means maintaining the idea that you can’t be both happy and a good artist. And that is precisely what we ought to overturn: defending the possibility of demanding, profound creation carried by artists who are also allowed to be well.

A Public Health Issue

It’s also worth asking why this imaginary persists, and what, in today’s music industry, might push a DJ to neglect their mental health. In our fast-paced society, it is common for DJs to let themselves slide into a lifestyle that also neglects their psychological well-being: gigs scheduled too close together, lack of sleep, junk food, jet lag, pressure from bookers, alcohol and other substances. A way of life we endlessly glamorize on social media.

But “fast life” is not exciting—it’s destructive. Without a solid support system and clear boundaries, disaster is almost inevitable.

So we keep fueling the idea that you need to be a bit “crazy” and a bit sad to be creative. Yet the scientific data say exactly the opposite. A meta-analysis conducted by researchers from the University of Essex and Humboldt University, discussed in Libération, compiled hundreds of studies on ways to boost creativity: drugs and alcohol come dead last, while meditation, traveling and exposure to other cultures rank among the most effective methods.

In other words, the myth of the drunk or high genius belongs more to rock legend than to psychology. It tells us far more about our collective fascination with self-destruction than about the actual reality of musical artistic creation.



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