As consumers of music, here is why i hate you. Here is why i need you.
Okay, you know how screenwriters hate the idea of working on “spec”? How models hate working for “exposure”? How Metallica were huge douches about Napster?
The experience of being forced to work for free is built in to the system in which a modern musical artist typically exists.
Let me tell you about my day. I spent about 7 straight hours recording today. I recorded a few piano tracks. I recorded a bass track. I recorded some synthesizer tracks. I recorded some vocals. I recorded a glockenspiel. I recorded me snapping my fingers for four minutes straight, twice. I spent ages making adjustments to amplitudes, dynamics, timing, tuning, panning. My eyes are tired. I have a song i wrote stuck in my head, and it will still be there when i’m sleeping, underpinning my dreams. That’s not a metaphor or an exaggeration. I have literally had dreams where i could still hear the song i’d been working on earlier over and over again, and woke up with it still there.
It’s a three and a half minute song, yo.
Let’s say you make a generous wage of $15/hr. If you were paid that wage for the hours i put into this song today, you’d have made $105.
Consider this: i am not signed to a label. Most bands, once signed, are being given a loan by the label to survive while they make their record. Then they spend what they make on that record paying off that loan even though the label is already taking a percentage of sales, which are (hopefully) plentiful due to the marketing and distribution klout that the label carries.
So, that’s off the table.
Consider also this: how much are you willing to pay for just one song? If you’re anything like me, probably somewhere between $0 and $1.
How much do we pay for an original work of art by someone who spent, let’s say ten total hours on a piece? Could be $20. Could be $2000. They set their price. Their talent factors, sure. Talent does not factor in the sale of a song. If i asked you to pay $20 for a song, you’d tell me to fuck off. Anything more than one dollar, probably the same. That is the culture. That is the situation. Fine.
But back to that $105 dollars you made in 7 hours of work. Assuming that you are willing to pay between $0 and $1 for that song, i have to sell it to at least 105 different people to make that - i say at least because if there is an option to pay $0, most people will take it.
Now, further consider that the number of people who know i exist, know i make music, and are actively going to listen to it if they were directed to it is probably… 5? (That last criterion shaves off a lot of contenders).
So, i will not make that $105 for this song. I will especially not make that $105 for each of the other eight songs on the album, which may have taken more or less time, in any case. Because people only buy albums for less than the cost of one song. Or they don’t buy albums.
I therefore have to put days of work into writing, recording, mixing, and marketing just one song without compensation, do it ten more times if it’s an album, and then hope beyond hope that at least one person will buy one song from me for one dollar.
Which will compensate me for about 4 minutes of work - perhaps not coincidentally, about the same amount of time it takes you to listen to my song once.
So, i need to support myself with a fulltime job. And i do. Because being a fulltime composer of music for free in the vain hope someone will offer you maybe ten bucks for a collective month or two’s worth of your life is not feasible. And that means i don’t HAVE 6-8 hours a day to work on music. I have maybe one or two. Four if i stop texting people back and forget to eat dinner again.
Here’s why i hate you. None of what i just said changes the fact that you are unwilling to pay me an hourly wage for the work i put into music, even though that music could give you a lifetime of pleasure. None of what i just said changes the fact that the maximum price for a song is a dollar. I wouldn’t pay more either. I grew up with Napster. I was born into pirate culture. I get it. But you’re part of it.
This state of affairs ensures that the only reason i write songs is if I want to hear them. Because i can’t trust you to value it as much as i did; putting my time and effort into it.
Here’s why I need you. If i must work “for exposure”, then you’d better fucking pay attention. If you care about me, and the things i put my efforts into, then listen to the music i post here. It’s free. It’s out there. It’s not for profit. It’s here because i want you to hear it.
So hear it. Decide if you like it or not. If you don’t like it, fine. If you do like it, you now have a responsibility. If you see that i am selling music, and you like that music, consider paying $0 to $1 for it. Consider what music - or any art made by an independent creative, whether it’s photography, painting, sculpture, or crafting - consider what that art as a whole and in general means to you. How much you need it.
Maybe you need certain music so much that you feel like access to it should be a basic human right, because not being able to be exposed to that music is fucking criminal. I feel that way about a lot of music. It’s part of why i’m hypocritically conflicted about the pricing of music. You don’t buy a song, you buy the right to hear it at your leisure. And if you feel like it’s a basic human right, why should you pay for it? Makes sense.
But people like me, we’re just creating shit, and throwing it out into the void, hoping someone sees it before it fades into obscurity.
I don’t even care that much about this Holiday album. It has some fun songs i wrote. It has some fun songs i played. They don’t have a lot of personal meaning for me. I may just release it for free. But i am releasing it because i care about it enough that i believe in its inherent value. Because i think people would relate to it, think it’s kind of darkly funny in an endearing way, and want to hear it maybe more than once.
There will come a day, though, when i post a link somewhere on this website to an album of songs that really matter to me. Songs that i spent years on. Songs that have been haunting me for half a decade. And when i send that album into the void, and there is no response; no echo. I will be heartbroken. Because i will believe in it, but one song on it is only worth four minutes of the total time it took me to create it, and i won’t be able to find people to listen to it, let alone consider that price.
Tl;dr - i have no faith that anybody will demonstrate that they value the work i have done, and therefore i can never make a living on the thing i am most passionate about.
