Dear Reader,
I hope you're having a really good day!
Please forgive me for the delay in getting Part 2 of this newsletter out to you. Due to technical difficulties, I had to put it off until now, because I wanted to deliver a good enough quality recording to you.
In Part 1, I started talking about a phrase that's been going around for years, now - that "Music is worth π© today". (If you didn't have the chance to read it, you can click HERE for Part 1. There's also an audio file there for you to listen to).
So is that really the reason why I don't release two songs a week, every week? Are people right when they say that "music is worth nothing, today"?
There are multiple reasons why I don't release more often, actually.
The main one is that I don't wish to compromise my artistic credibility. Also, because there are certain industry games that I refuse to play. Mainly, though, it has to do with my personal work ethic. The same way I felt used and abused a few years back while I was working in a factory just to survive, is how I'll feel if I become a music-making robot, churning out 8-10 crappy songs a month just to please the record industry!
βRobot Songwriterβ - by Jo Huber
Again - what I'm saying is in NO way targeted at my music colleagues who release a lot. I love and admire them for being able to do what they do and I really respect those who can deliver some amazing quality tunes. I'm simply expressing my own values, because I've only ever written two songs in the space of half an hour that I could call good enough to release. They were my best tunes, actually, but I realised that I can't keep that up; at least not at present, with all my personal problems still lurking around. I prefer to release a song when I feel it's good enough for releasing, when I feel that I've given it all of me and not purely so that I can be in people's faces all the time. But if I listened every time someone said to me that, "music is worth π© today!", I would have given up altogether long ago, because that statement is just not true!
Here's why:
People are still downloading music in 2024 like there's no tomorrow, so music must be worth a lot of π©π©π©π©π©π©π©π©s!
If people believe that it isn't, that's purely the result of the "Get it! It's FREE!" attitude towards everything that's been waved under every consumer's nose since the turn of the 21st Century. This was a fatal marketing tactic and blind trap that so many people fell victim to and now many expect everything for nothing. They taught us about this in economics at school in 1987: in human psychology, when everything is free, it becomes less appreciated.
Yet artists (myself included) continue to bow to the Spotify gods by sending our listeners the link to stream our music there for free, purely for the sake of status. Status is important, too, I get it. There are weeks where I have hundreds of listeners on Spotify and weeks where I have thousands streaming my music every month (thank you! ππ). But by sending you over there to stream my songs for free, I am indirectly telling Spotify that what they're doing is fine and that they should keep doing it... i.e. let people stream our songs and pay us crap for it! THAT's what's really got to change. As long as we all keep doing that, music will continue to be worth π© until we stand up for what we believe in (and deserve). When we say that music is a gift, we don't mean it should be given away as one all the time!!
Let's stop taking advantage of something that is as important to our wellbeing as the air we breathe.
You think we have no power to do so?... Consider this:
Imagine, for a moment, a world without art!
If I told you that, as of right now, you won't have access to music ever again... not even to paintings. Forget about dance, that's going, too. So are movies. Gone, forever! How would you feel about that?...
Art is our spiritual connection to the higher intelligence out there. Ask any artist who gets in the flow, or any raver tripping away to their favourite music. It is also a much-needed escape from routine, from the mundane and from the harsh reality that we often face. Take art away and the world would soon be impossible to put up with. We would be left with eating, working, sleeping, showering, politics and wars! Wow. Can I please go back into the womb, now?!
I am forever grateful for my artistic gifts that I, in turn, love giving to you. We all get free gifts once a year for our birthday... but I don't see anyone giving us a birthday present every day! If they did, our birthday just wouldn't be special, anymore. It would be just another day of the year with a freebie. It's the same thing with music. It's definitely not worth βπ©β. We just need to appreciate its value a bit more, again.
Love & Decibels,
xxΒ joΒ xx
π Special thanks go to BandCamp for standing out among the Spotifys of this world.
BandCamp is an online platform where independent musicians can showcase our music for streaming and buying. A few times a year, the platform hosts what they call "Bandcamp Friday", foregoing their fees and artists get to keep 100% of their sales. Many artists actually release music whereby part or all of their sales go to charity on Bandcamp Fridays. You see? Everyone benefits!
Eternal gratitude for such platforms! πβ¨πππ
Today just happens to be Bandcamp Friday!
Head over to https://www.bandcamp.com and pick up your favourite songs today, because all the profits go to the artist.
Thank you!
You make an excellent point. As a collective, we get so much for free we expect it. Writers, musicians, artists of all kinds are even taught we have to give our art away for free so people can get to know us. A lot of what we consume is either free or we donβt pay much for it, so weβve become spoiled and donβt appreciate what went into creating it. It seems to me more valuable to get to know a bit about an artist, really follow them, and purchase what they create for a fair price. That feels more real and fulfilling.