Creating Music Archives

Creating great art of any kind requires inspiration, but when your life depends on producing art it can be hard to enjoy things without turning them into work.

Music writing can be a double-edged sword as far as fandom is concerned. The fact you’re in a position to influence a group of consumers makes it possible for you to get closer to your favorite artists than you probably would otherwise, but it also means you have to continue following those artists’ every move long after your initial interest in their work has begun to fade. This is honestly a best-case scenario because more often than not writing about music means you have to not only know but learn to appreciate the works of many artists whom you would otherwise not make time to experience. Establishing a career in writing requires that you be engaged with the wide world of music, and that entails keeping tabs on far more artists than those you personally enjoy. Over time this can make the joy of writing feel a lot more like work than most would care to admit. But that’s because writing is just that — work.

This is not a complaint, per say, but rather a matter of fact. You cannot make it in music writing simply by covering the artists you enjoy when you enjoy them. You need follow-through, and more importantly, you need to engage the fans of artists regularly to ensure people continue to care about your writing and/or publication exists.

When I began writing about music I did so because I felt there were artists I knew and enjoyed that most of the world had yet to recognize. If you could find my first hundred articles, I can almost guarantee every single one would be based on an artist or group I admired at the time, and if I’m completely honest, I would also wager most of those posts are fairly similar. They each praise a group I loved at the time, and they each argue others should feel the same. I built my initial following by covering bands like A Day To Remember, Chiodos, Secret Secret Dino Club, and The Wonder Years whenever possible, and I made it a point to interview someone from the band every time a new piece of news presented an opportunity for discussion. As word of my work grew, so did interest from others bands and labels about having their talent promoted through my channels. I was completely blown away by these requests, so of course, I agree to almost everyone that hit my inbox, and as I began to network with the industry at large my writing began to encompass more and more bands. Some acts I enjoyed, but most were perfectly average in my mind, and looking back now I know the only reason I covered them is that I felt that it is what my (arguably non-existent) audience wanted. Whether or not that was true is something I’ll never truly know, but I do know that covering a wide array of talent helped me navigate the industry and secure full-time work in the business I love the most. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Do I continue to cover any and everything that comes my way as a result? Hell no.

It’s incredibly difficult to land a job in music that allows you to share everything you love all the time. Most jobs are far more focused than that, be it covering solely alternative music or perhaps just hip-hop. Finding a paid position that covers everything is rarer than a Morrissey performance that goes off without a hitch, and they are becoming increasingly hard to come by as the demand for specific content curators continues to rise. I used to have a big problem with this because I felt, and still do believe, that everyone is able to enjoy a little bit of everything. I might not love country music, but there are several country artists I enjoy. The same goes for musicals, top 40 radio pop, and obscure shoegaze bands. None of these areas of music are where I spend the majority of my time, but they each are filled with wonderful talent that is deserving of exposure and praise. Just because this is true however does not mean I am the person to tell you these acts exist. I can tweet about it, sure, but I cannot dedicate every minute of my day to telling you about everything I love as I once did. That is not my job.

At first, the need to separate the work I am paid to do the work I would like to do was incredibly frustrating. I felt as though my initial mission to help more people discover great music had been compromised by the need for a paycheck, but over time I came to realize that was not true. Having full-time employment gave me more freedom than I had ever had before as far as creative pursuits were concerned, and though I couldn’t argue the need to cover everything I could do more to help a specific set of artists and bands than ever before. Instead of writing about 40 or 50 acts a week I wrote about 10 at most, but I made sure to make each piece released as good as it could be. Having fewer artists to cover made it possible for me to dig deeper into my coverage and, ultimately, provide higher quality content to my readers.

But what about all that other stuff I loved? Did I turn my back on a world of talent just because they didn’t fit my 9-5 lifestyle?

Of course not.

I still love a wide array of bands as I always have, but these days I keep some things I love to myself if for no other reason than the ability to enjoy certain songs or records without turning that enjoyment into work. Before I had full-time work in music, I viewed everything I enjoyed as something I would eventually cover, which in turn made everything I enjoyed some form of work. Maybe it wasn’t hard work, but it was work nonetheless, and as a result, my relationship with music began to change. The idea of listening to music for the sake of simply enjoying it became an absurd concept, as I hadn’t purely enjoyed music for years on end. I liked it, and I wouldn’t know what to do without it, but at the end of the day I was trying to put food on my table based on what I was listening to, and that put a lot of undue pressure on myself, as well as the talent.

When I speak to aspiring writers and music professionals today, I encourage them to experience as much music as possible. As soon as I do this, I immediately tag my comments by adding that not every great song or record needs to become the sole focus of their work moving forward. It’s not only perfectly acceptable, but it’s also needed. If you lose your ability to simply enjoy music, you will be unable to accurately critique it. The reason anyone begins chasing after a career in music in the first place is based on their love of enjoying music in their youth, and when you lose the ability to appreciate music in that way you begin to lose track of why you work in music. It’s not about clicks, and it’s certainly not about being the first person to hear the next buzz-worthy release. It’s about celebrating art and the appreciation of art, as well as making others aware of undiscovered talent. You can only do this to the best of your abilities if you too are still able to be wowed by music. If you’ve lost that passion, or even if you believe it has begun to fade, take a step back from writing and unplug from everything except your stereo. Put on the records that first inspired your career aspirations and reconnect with the source of your drive to succeed. Never lose your passion.

The following guest blog was written by up and coming rapper Marco Pavé.

What does music mean to you? According to Huffington Post writer Selena May Santos and participants of her 2013 survey music is far more important than meets the eye, or better yet, the ear. One anonymous participant responded with, “Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.“ For me, music is a means to discuss issues that you have experienced or have heard others experience. There’s always a lesson in every song, even if the writer wasn’t explicitly trying to teach that lesson. For example, the singer/songwriter, rapper, modern-day blues man—Future. Who recently was quoted saying, “Yeah because I feel like that’s the number one thing everybody likes to talk about. It’s a catch,” after an interviewer asked him, why he portrays himself as a drug addict. For me as person who knows numerous people who have some form of drug addiction, this is jarring for me. Not because I think that he is making people want to do drugs (even though there are kids that are going to experiment with drugs because, future), but because drug addiction, or any addiction for that matter is a serious issue in communities around the country.

Artists need to be a bit more socially conscious, and no I am not saying that everyone needs to make a heal the world song, I’m just saying think about the message that you are sending and have a better fucking answer to why you’re sending said message than, “it’s a catch.” It’s not a catch when teens are being admitted into rehab for prescription pain medication overdoses. It’s not a catch when father pawns his kid’s bikes to get money for his next fix. It’s not a catch, period. Some may disagree, and say that it’s fine for it to be a catch, but the fact that we do have so many artists who have overdosed on drugs and who are currently addicted he walks a fine line between being a straight up sell out and a liar (maybe he is actually addicted and is trying to backtrack now that we are catching on).

To me being a socially conscious artist doesn’t take much, I believe 100 percent that Future’s music is already socially conscious. Okay, before you call me a hypocrite, let me finish. He is using his music and his brand as an artist to talk about all the problems of being a drug addict. He is also walking the line of having a shit load of survivor’s guilt– he made it from a crazy place and now he’s a multi-millionaire, it takes tremendous strength to handle all that emotionally. His music is very socially conscious it features everything from, drugs addiction, to hyper-sexuality, to misogyny, and the occasional person (groupie) with ulterior motives, these are all social issues. But what makes him not a socially conscious artists, is future outside the studio, in an interview where he can say, speaking someone’s truth is “a catch.” Even if he is playing a character, as any novice acting coach can tell you, “NEVER, break character.” When he stated that it was a catch, he stopped being a social conscious artist that is aware of people pains and is going through, or at least pretending to be going through similar pains, and became a sellout, because this means that he is only making music about drugs because it sells and not because he is thinking about the social effects of drugs and addiction.

In 2016, artists don’t have to make the next “We are the world,” they don’t have to enlist the help of all the neighborhood kids like Nas in, “I Know I Can,” they don’t even have to donate to charities and start foundations, they just need to be more aware of their messages and how they are socially affecting people. Jay-Z, one of the notorious know drug dealing rappers in hip-hop history once said “As a youngin, dumb and, gun in the waist / Sold crack to those who couldn’t take the pain and had to numb it with base.” But when asked about the repeated mention of drugs and crack in his music in 2013 by a reporter with Vanity Fair Jay-Z said, "There wasn’t any place you could go for isolation or a break. You go in the hallway; [there are] crackheads in the hallway. You look out in the puddles on the curbs—crack vials are littered in the side of the curbs. You could smell it in the hallways, that putrid smell; I can’t explain it, but it’s still in my mind when I think about it.” That’s socially conscious, we can tell that even through all the fucked up things that Jay-Z had to do he still has a heart and he fells pain just like any of us. Being a socially conscious artist doesn’t mean that you play holier than thou, it just means that you don’t make a mockery of people who are dealing with issues that you are rapping or singing about, even if it is just a catch.