Category: Music

INDIE ARTISTS NEED SPOTIFY

From Queen Kwong in ‘Why Quitting Spotify Won’t Help Indie Musicians,”

“indie artists like​ me can’t afford​ tо ignore and abandon Spotify,​ nо matter how much​ we despise it.​ If​ I want​ tо book​ a live gig,​ a promoter will check​ my streams first.​ If​ I want​ tо get label interest, A&R will glance​ at​ my numbers before deciding​ іf I’m relevant enough​ tо even respond to.”

This is also true for social media – some media outlets won’t feature you if you don’t have a big enough social media following. See, they think when they publish your feature, then you’ll share it with your big social media audience.

Which is fun, since we all know barely 5% of anyone’s audience will see that feature from the band’s social media feed.

But then, with Spotify numbers – they can be fudged, right? You can artificially boost those numbers. Make a song called “lofi-beats playlist” and hope for the best.

I wrote this a few years ago:

Right now Spotify is for the masses. Easy to consume. It’s a never ending buffet, and while your music is on the menu, you’ll never make enough to buy groceries for the week.

Angel Olsen, Magdalena Bay, Svaneborg Kardyb

A quick three gems I found on Bandcamp tonight. Hit play and see what you think.

GOOD LUCK

“More music is being released today (in a single day) than was released in the calendar year of 1989.”

Lowering the bar to entry into the music world has been a wonderful thing. Along with the internet, it’s made it possible for anyone in the world to hear your music.

The problem is that every musician is doing the same thing. Everyone competing for the same listens and streams and downloads.

(source)

KEEP IT GOING

This is from Cassidy Frost’s latest, How to Dedicate Your Life to Music When You’re Fucking Scared:

“You don’t need to believe in yourself, you just need to act in service of whatever thing you do believe in, no matter how small.”

Stack up Small Acts daily and weekly. They don’t need to be heavy, cost a lot of money, or take up a lot of time.

As time passes, these Small Acts will create a mountain built on all the cool things you’re doing.

Then I saw this is Lauren’s latest newsletter a day later:

“If you keep swimming, shooting your shot, putting in the reps, things are bound to look different or at least pleasantly more weird a year later.”

Heck yes, “pleasantly more weird.”

The work doesn’t guarantee you’ll achieve some new level of success. But the cliche “it’s the journey, not the destination” rings true for a reason.

Act in service of yourself. It has to start there. Yes, help may come, but you must work towards something for someone to believe that helping out is worth the effort.

LIFE IS TENSION

To be alive is fraught with tension – a delicate balance of having your shit together and being moments away from everything falling over the rails.

People talk about the “hot new thing” because of tension. Taylor Swift has a big tour. Great! I’d love to go. Tickets are $1000, and the nearest tour stop is five hours away. That’s tension.

There’s no tension in posting a song on Spotify or uploading a video to YouTube. That’s the easy part. Telling someone, “I posted a new single on Spotify,” is easy. An AI bot could write that. No tension.

Time to up the ante. Send the link to only ten people, and then see what happens. Show your next film or gallery with only a cryptic map to a secret underground venue under the local college water tower. Limit the number of people that can attend your next Zoom meeting.

When everything is available for everyone, there’s little incentive to pay attention; it’ll be here tomorrow, digitally or available to purchase on Amazon.

WORK TOGETHER

I love that Mastodon and Lamb of God – two of biggest names in modern metal – teamed up and released a song after touring together.

“We [in Mastodon] were just talking about the possibility of doing more collaborations because we don’t do it enough and it’s a fun thing to do,” said drummer Brann Dailor in an interview with Rolling Stone.

These two bands didn’t need to do something like that this at all – they’re already legends, selling out venues and plenty of vinyl over the years.

Even if you’re not in a band, DO COOL STUFF WITH OTHER PEOPLE, FRIENDS.

When asked why they didn’t release the song before they left for tour:

“The music industry is a complex and at times clunky behemoth. It’s not like we wanted to just put it out on YouTube, like, “Check out our song,” with a picture of me and Brann, like, “Er.”

YES. Don’t just put it up on YouTube and make an IG story saying, “CHECK IT OUT.” It don’t work for Mastodon, it won’t work for you.

THE BAR IS LOW

Listeners have unlimited options. They have probably 25 albums they could recite word for word and another 10 they put on for a good cry or workout.

Expanding on your “NEW SONG, CHECK OUT IT” messaging is the very least you can do.

BETTER AMATEURS

I’ve heard the song a million times, but hearing guitarist Joe Gore talk about it just gives it so much depth. Like, I can’t even imagine standing in the same room with Tom Waits, let alone making music with the man, and hearing Joe talk like that – even with all his knowledge and skill – it’s just so heavy.

Love the concept of turning the artists into amateurs… using “inferior” equipment, no time to really come up with parts, everything in two takes, and Tom needs to be done by 5 so he can be home with his kids. Man. This is a great interview.

WORKING MEN’S CLUB, VIELS, OM UNIT & JAMES BANGURA

Three artists I found via Bandcamp’s ‘Selling Right Now’ scroller. Please enjoy.