A Right To Like. A Right Not To…
Personal taste is just that: personal. As someone who receives a lot of music submissions for my weekly Compendium on Folk Friday Radio, I hear music from across music spectra, sometimes commercial, and sometimes anything but. However, I’m not a music purist, so if I like a song enough and it fits with the ‘Progressive & Acoustic’ mood of any particular Compendium, then in time it will be played.
As a songwriter, I see curating a playlist like putting an album together. While each playlist carries a different mood, there need to be a number of ‘lifts’, either in tempo or in atmosphere to hold listener interest. Therein lies the 21st Century’s biggest music issue: listener attention span.
Just as musicians check their online profiles to see how many times a song has been played, and the average listen time, radio presenters can do that with their shows, especially on platforms such as MIxcloud where listeners can go back and listen multiple times if they wish to.
It’s just the same for videos on YouTube, Vimeo, Vevo, or whatever platform as artist chooses for music promotion. Most platforms come with some form of analytic: a dashboard that provides you with an idea of how you’re doing, and in almost every case listen time percentages can be very disappointing.
When I listen to other artists’ music, it’s really rare that I can’t bring myself to listen all the way through. On those rare occasions, I will know very quickly when a song doesn’t pass muster. I don’t do comedic songs on The Compendium, and while I have in the past played the occasional song containing excessive swearing, any radio presenter will tell you that their station needs to follow ‘community guidelines’, ‘broadcasting standards’ and other seemingly restrictive terms. Otherwise, every song gets a thorough listen, sometimes several.
Submission rates have ramped up over the 3 years I’ve been running the show, and it’s reached the stage at times where I struggle to listen properly to everything. The musician in me tries very hard to hold to that standard, but I also have a life! Family will always come first, and I enjoy an active music life. I create my own music – solo and collaborative, with seven collaborations currently in varying stages of progress. I run my own radio show and commit to listening to between 8 an 10 hours a week of other shows. I review albums for Fatea Magazine…and I’d quite like to get back to playing live shows!
Yet I find time to listen properly to the music of others because that is something I’ve always done – even before the Compendium. Most listeners barely get beyond the first few bars, the hook, or occasionally the first chorus, before they press a social media ‘like’, ‘share’, or pass the occasional comment. Musicians need more from listeners than a cursory listen, and that’s why I value so highly my regular listeners to The Compendium and those who consistently support my own music creations.
In the final analysis, each of us has a right to like or dislike what we listen to, but we won’t know whether we like it unless we read beyond a media headline, past the preface in a novel, or listen to a whole song to fully understand its meaning. Art appreciation needs to last longer than a fleeting glimpse or a cursory listen, and experience in anything doesn’t come from soundbites. How we turn this juggernaut world around to a better way of appreciating music and art, I really don’t know, but I feel that at least it’s important we should appreciate it better.
Peace.
John