Expert in a Dying Field

Anti-anti-intellectualism

I talked with a friend in a band recently and they said, and I quote, “Never let someone tell you bands don’t make money from streaming.” I’m going to take today to tell you how much I love streaming. That’s obviously not all I’m going to write about, but it is a part of what I’m going to write about.

I love streaming. I LOVE IT. I have had a Spotify premium account pretty much as soon as it became available. Let’s get this out of the way - Spotify is a crummy company. Payola, Joe Rogan, terrible artist reimbursement. I don’t begrudge anyone who won’t support them, I can’t blame you.

My reputation at my last job was that I love board games. And I do! It is one of my favorite things ever. I probably had more of a reputation for movies and TV shows than I did music as well.

There’s no thing in my life that has meant as much to me as long as music has. I love my family, my friends and my wife. I love my dogs. I have a memory with all of them that revolves around music. One of the first questions I’ll ask you is what kind of music do you listen to? I’ll go see your favorite band, even if I don’t like the band.

I have travelled across the country to see bands. Made vacations out of live shows. I tried my hand at being a touring musician. I have never had an addiction I can’t break, except for the one I never, ever want to. I am absolutely addicted to it and music has shaped everything about me in some fashion.

I’ve been radicalized by music. Learned to process difficult emotions through music. Worked through my internalized bigotry through music. Found friends, bonded with strangers, it’s been my soundtrack for every game I’ve played. If you’re in my house, chances are, there is music playing almost ALL day.

When I was growing up, the disc jockeys at my local station knew me and some of my friends. I was able to play stump the DJ with my friend Travis Kepley and a DJ from 94.5. The rules were simple, song had to be on the radio and you had to have the disc in your possession. I almost always had every album the DJ played and I had plenty they had gotten rid of.

I grew up on the radio. Oldies stations, classic rock stations, alternative rock stations. MTV, but they didn’t play enough music for me. My college years were tough because Clear Channel/I Heart Music had effectively ruined the radio landscape. Pirating had crippled a lot of mid-level indie labels, which is where I discovered a lot of my favorite artists. The music industry (which is vile, racist, predatory and responsible for aiding and enabling rampant abuse) went deeper into survival mode.

The death of the music industry as is would be a wonderful thing. Labels are bad. Venues are bad. Promoters are bad. There are plenty of wonderful people in the industry. I’ve worked with great bookers and promoters. Venues that really do put the bands first. But, I’ve also used Ticketmaster and LiveNation. I’ve had to rationalize my ethics in the pursuit of music pretty much the second I started learning how the music industry works.

While many of the other creative arts unionized, the music industry has pretty much always been the worst parts of capitalism on full display. Seriously, talk to your favorite artist on any social media platform and they will probably have stories of how they have been abused, exploited or damaged by the music industry. From Ke$ha and Taylor Swift to Victory Records and Tiny Engines. Royalty isn’t safe, as Elvis, Madonna, Michael Jackson and so many more have countless stories about their victimization at the hands of the record industry.

Using Spotify is definitely an ethical dilemma. And, at least for me, the saving grace is that their algorithm is the single greatest non-John Peel level of music curation I’ve ever encountered. I have found so many bands from Spotify, bands that I have seen live. It’s the best parts of the radio, the ability to discover artists and hear the songs over and over again to let myself fully digest them, without the worst part (the ads, bad DJs, no skipping bad tracks, etc.).

I buy albums, t-shirts, go to live shows. I put bands up in my house still (although that’s still finding its legs post-covid). You should, too. That’s not just a value statement, but a fact if you want bands to exist. Or rappers. Or solo artists. Unless you want the Clear Channel treatment to be your only exposure to music. But I also stream. Streaming gives these bands my dollar after I buy their record (Bandcamp is awesome to purchase digital copies from).

Discovering new music is one of my greatest passions in life. Unfortunately, I am in a vast minority.

The peak age for discovering new music, the results suggested, was 24. This is when 75% of respondents said they listened to 10 or more new tracks a week, and 64% said they sought out five new artists per month. After this, though, it seems people's ability to keep up with music trends peters off.

While that is troubling, what’s worse is this -

In 2015, the Skynet & Ebert blog looked at data from US Spotify users and Echo Nest. On average, teen music taste was dominated by popular music, then this steadily dropped until people's tastes "matured" in their early 30s. By age 33, it was more likely they'd never listen to new music again.

There’s a lot of reasons for not finding new music, but what I will posit is this. We are open to new and challenging information while our brains are still developing. Once we hit our mid-20s, the brain is fully developed. You start getting closed off to new information, because it is more work. New music is work, especially if it is outside your musical comfort zone.

Who wants to work for pleasure when you’re exhausted from being overworked to survive? My favorite pass times are a lot of work, honestly. I couldn’t make it happen if I didn’t have people to help me find the things that are worth my time.

Art curation has a really poor reputation in American culture. We hate critics. Snobbery, gatekeeping and exclusion are both rampant stereotypes and issues. It’s a part of an ongoing war on intellectualism in western society. Popular western art isn’t meant to be dissected, it’s meant to be swallowed whole. A lot of popular art is formulaic and shallow by design. Loyal artists are rewarded.

This is not a screed against popular art, by the way. I love a lot of it. I watch MCU flicks. I love pop music. Some of my favorite bands are massively popular and historically relevant. I read pop fiction. And plenty of really challenging media gets popular. Rage Against the Machine and System of a Down opened a lot of young minds to radical thought. I learned about Riot Grrl through mainstream media. The villain of Terminator 2 is a cop.

Still, we are victims of capitalism and anti-intellectualism even in our art. There is value in challenging media. Find new music, see new shows. Push your boundaries and learn. You don’t have to stop loving your favorites but

“There's always the possibility that you're going to come across a record that transforms your life. And it happens weekly. It's like a leaf on the stream. There are little currents and eddies and sticks lying in the water that nudge you in a slightly different direction. And then you break loose and carry on down the current. There's nothing that actually stops you and lifts you out of the water and puts you on the bank but there are diversions and distractions and alarums and excursions which is what makes life interesting really. It's fantastic.” - John Peel

One other note, with the popularity of The Last of Us, I really wish Roger Ebert had been alive to see it. I haven’t yet, I know I know. But famously said (and then walked back) that video games aren’t art. I think one of the greatest strengths of a critic is the ability to admit they are wrong. And I suspect he would have loved the interactive medium that video games have become in storytelling.

And if you feel like sharing new music you love, please do! If you want to share what keeps your mind growing and fresh, do that too.

This playlist is made up of bands that I got into because of Spotify. Most of them I had never even heard of before Spotify put them in my path. There are a handful of songs on this list that were THE songs, see if you can figure it out!