So we are fast approaching the end of 2019. I’ve been back from tour for almost three weeks now, and as usual, I got sick almost immediately after I got home. I spent the first week getting over the flu, catching up on sleep and getting used to normal life again. Once I felt human, I went right back to recording. All pretty standard for me.
So first off, I would like to thank everyone who came out to these European shows. I honestly wasn’t sure how all this would go. I’ve been putting out records for some time now — 19 years if we are talking self-released, and 14 years through labels. 12 full-lengths, from different projects, and about 10 EPs. Some part of me is always expecting it all to dry up, and that people will stop coming. This isn’t a reflection on how I feel about my work, but more that I don’t really understand how I got here. I’ve rarely been covered by music press, I barely use social media, and I’m not the most social person in general. I’ve had some people who have really championed me inside the music industry, but it’s a short list. So booking a tour, not around a record release or something that you can advertise with, and having people still show up was a bit surprising. In a really nice way. So thank you. I’m still not exactly sure how I reached you, but somehow I did, and you cared enough to leave your house and come share an evening. Life is strange.
But one thing that always happens on tour is I have a lot of time to think. Too much time, if I’m honest. One of the odd things about driving around and playing shows is that there is so little middle ground. I can’t speak for anyone else on this, but personally I am either bored or I’m stressed out — mostly the former. If it weren’t for the actual shows being fun, there wouldn’t be much to speak of. It was also unfortunate that my two days that had neither travel nor a show were both raining pretty hard. But there is so much time spent in vans, not talking, or sitting alone in foreign rooms, and I can only read and play my switch so much. So inevitably, my mind wanders.
One thing I thought a lot about is how much the world of music has changed since I was first getting involved and seeing some success, and how much the value system has shifted. Writing about all of these shifts would be way too much for one blog post, but there’s one I caught myself coming back to a good bit. And that is …
Content is now entirely free.
Not an epiphany, I know, but I started digging into that more, and what it means to me. Because even if you want to buy music, ways to do so are shrinking. And due to our inevitable conversations about use of resources and the effects on our environment, that trend will continue (I am having more and more trouble justifying printing physical releases these days, both from a cost and wastefulness perspective). So when an album comes out, the only thing we now spend on it is time. Attention is the currency. And the stream is endless. Don’t like what you’re hearing? Well, click on something else. It goes on forever.
Watching those who work in the music world, this has been a source of significant dread for a lot of people. Which I can understand. It takes a lot of effort, time and money to produce things, especially with high expectations and standards, and when the final result is to release it for free, just hoping it gets attention, and that the attention it garners will lead to some sort of income or security, either from ad revenue built into platforms like youtube, or a sponsorship, or the attention of a larger industry with real budgets … well, it all gets a bit abstract. And that abstract feeling often drags anxiety along with it. And anxiety often makes people more conservative and less willing to take risks. I think it’s no small part in why you see so many people just copying what has already worked.
But the more I thought about this, the more I had the opposite reaction. I find it freeing. If no one is expected to pay for the work, then it dramatically reduces the sense of responsibility on my end. It changes music from a product to more of an idea. And since ideas are free, it only makes sense to me to be more free with them — to take more chances and explore even more aggressively, without worry for how they will be received. Because worst case scenario, people just have to hit that “next” button. You no longer have to contend with someone feeling ripped off when they don’t like you’re work, just being disappointed. For me, that difference is night and day. People aren’t losing money on this. And while I have never been terribly concerned with how I’m received, I think this has flicked over the last domino in that chain.
I don’t know why this is just now clicking so clearly with me, but whenever I have set out to make a record, it is still, at least to some small degree, something I perceive as someone having to invest in on the other end — like the listener’s investment is a foregone conclusion. But that’s really just something I’ve carried over from when I first got into music, pre-internet, taking chances on CDs based off a review I read or a recommendation from a friend. A record is now something that someone can choose to invest time in, but with no financial risk on their part. This difference felt particularly sharp to me while touring. Live shows have a real weight of responsibility to them. People are paying money and then physically coming to a space to watch you play music. They have to plan in advance, maybe even get a babysitter, or leave their home when they are much happier being an introvert wrapped in a blanket, and they have to stand there for the duration. I am very concerned that I uphold my side of this bargain to the best of my ability — which may still not be enough, sure, but I will try with all the resources I have on that particular day.
But records are not like that, not anymore. They are absolutely optional. Hell, most people don’t even know they’re there at all. So I don’t have the most sympathy when I see people complaining that they don’t like someone’s new work. I now just imagine someone sitting on their toilet, frowning as they type a comment about how this free media isn’t precisely their taste at this exact moment. To which I internally just laugh. Not that people aren’t entitled to their opinions — of course they are. They just don’t have the same weight or bearing in this current environment.
But I also wonder about how else this lack of investment on our parts as listeners changes the way we listen. I can’t tell you how many tapes, CDs or records I’ve bought that I did not like at first, but grew to love only because I had paid for them. I typically had no other new music to listen to, because I didn’t have the money to try again, so I gave those albums way more of a chance than I probably would have nowadays. And songs I started out hating became my favorites, and vice-versa. I learned that lesson over and over, and I genuinely think it’s why I developed a love for albums, and why I have spent so much time writing concept records. But now, with everything being free and so constant, I have to fight the impulse of impatience. It’s so easy to constantly click “skip” if something doesn’t grab me in the first twenty seconds that I start losing sight of what I even enjoy. Not mention the problem that I only know what I enjoy now, not what I will enjoy. Being impulsive only reduces my chances of being seduced by something new. But the only reason I have that outlook is from investing in albums first. I wonder if that will be an antiquated way of viewing art in time.
But I don’t want to imply I have any answers here. Because I don’t. I think we are in the wild-west right now, and not just with music. TV, film, news, information warfare, the concept of experts, social status, human interaction … the internet is having its way with all of them. Some I like and some I don’t. I also know that my personal feelings about it don’t matter much. Genies almost never go back into their bottles. And whenever the landscape around you is changing, I think it’s pretty common to wonder what you’re place in it will be, or if you will have one at all. But it’s during times like these that I am glad I have spent so much time designing my own little worlds. I’m used to inventing a place to go when I can’t sort where I fit in. And now, with even less concern for the tourist who might see the result, I think I can design with even more abandon. Because the ticket only costs a click and a little bit of free time.
I have more to say, but I always do. Until next time, I hope everyone is well.