The Kids Are Alright...Or Are They?

Much is made over how easy it is to get your music out, to be your own man or woman or neither, and how you can do it because...because.
Never mind that it's not actually easy, doable certainly, well if all you want to do is sing into your phone and put it on FB or Instagram or YouTube, then yeah, it's easy.
The bigger problem is then what?
Mind you, there are many many people singing into their phones, or tablets, or laptops, assuming anybody under the age of 18 uses a laptop other than for school. You still have to have something that pops, and if you want to be something beyond the modern equivalent of a one hit wonder, more "content" and a verifiable fanbase that moves beyond "likes" and "emojis". Which isn't as easy as you might think.
That isn't necessarily a deterrent to creative types; as one, it's what you do, independent of anything else, but if you want more you have to feed the voracious "content" machine. It's how you make money these days. More content, more views, more ads, more money, more work, all the time.

Unsurprisingly, a number of "content" providers have found themselves the victims-I don't know if that's the right word as they chose to do this-of burnout, depression, and sadly, even suicide.

The truth, as some would say, is that until you reach a certain point in the hierarchy of fame, something few do, it's work, work, and more work. Putting out an album, touring, and then taking a break to decompress and create the next album, is no longer an option unless you're already very well known, think Taylor Swift, or someone like me who is happy to do his thing and there's no pressure to do anything more than that.

And I don't tour. I go out and sing for people locally, engage with like-minded songwriters, and am happy with that. I did that when I was younger, but that was in the misty past when you had no choice because without a label, making records or getting any real exposure was impossible.
Now, if you're Social Media savvy, you can get that exposure; sometimes very quickly, but that's only the beginning. I find it fascinating to read of artists signed to labels that have to go to performing school because they've never really performed in front of people and don'r know how to put on a show or how to engage with the audience.
Wow.
That's not actually surprising, but...

But being an artist, a creative type is never easy; never has been. It's always been a hustle and probably always will be. For all the sheen and hype being thrown at someone like Greta Van Fleet as the new saviors of Rock, they're still going to have to prove they more than a regurgitation of the classics, that they can be their own identifiable voice within a genre with many well known voices.

So do the kids have it easy, have it better than those of us who came up during the golden age of recorded music? No. It's still a hard road, but the twists and turns have changed.

Song of the Week: 

This week's song is Being Modern/Mad from Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch. It started out as 2 songs that we decided after recording them, that they should go together. I got the idea from bands like the Beatles and ZZ Top, where songs segued into one another without a break. The first part is about the imagery of love versus how it actually works, and the second part is about the ying/yang of longing for love after being burned by love.
You can hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.
Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch will be release on 11/30/18.

©2018 David William Pearce