Artists, face the music

It is time for me to vent about some of the frustrations people in the music industry experience. 

 

Why this happens is beyond me, but the 'walk the talk' frame of mind is non-existent. The same complaint that I receive from artists, musicians and producers alike is that there seems to be no sense of "togetherness" in the industry. 

 

Here's a common scenario people cite: Joe/Jane Soap was my friend, now he/she is established and they are not willing to help me like they did before. 

 

Negativity

 

My view is that negativity breeds more negativity. No matter how you look at it - who’s right, who's wrong - it does not matter. Complaining about it all the time will NOT change the circumstances. The reality is that the "togetherness" is ALMOST non-existent, but this means that it DOES exist, even if it is in small amounts. Focus on that! It is simple to do as well. Simply focus on your own career, work hard and surround yourself with people who are positive influences on yourself as a person, as well as your career. 

 

 

Food for thought

 

On a separate note: we all see these supposed disagreements in the media and social media platforms regarding artists who don’t get along. All of sudden each one of them is releasing new music and new albums that were completed as a result of the beef that they have towards one another. Their album sales soar as a result of this.

 

Let me throw a spanner in the works with this one:

 

Have you ever thought that this media attention was used to generate hype or interest in the new album? Are the fights/disagreements planned? Well you can decide for yourself... but I digress...

 

The complaining artist

 

Another common complaint from artists is that "nobody loves my music". 

 

There is nothing more frustrating than having an artist complain about how they are not good enough because they are not getting "noticed". The bottom line is, STOP COMPLAINING! Give the world something to notice because all that they are noticing are your silly complaints. (See what I did there?) 

 

Further to that, I have experienced numerous unfortunate encounters where I was on the receiving end of negative comments by some of my peers. Did I care? No. Did it hurt? Definitely. However, it is how we react to these types of situations that matters. Use the negativity as the fuel for your success. What I did do after these encounters was to simply surround myself with people who were positive influences. I worked hard, focused on what I was good at and eventually the people who were bad-mouthing me were complimenting me. That change in attitude does not matter to me; however, it did show me that what I was doing was starting to get "noticed". That same "notice" for which up-and-coming artists seem to be looking.

 

This little rant of mine may be short, but the message is powerful, and if you take these on board it will help you improve as a band, producer and/or musician.