And The True Value Of Music Is?

Throughout the ages, music has provided inspiration, moments of calm, empathy, peace, love, excitement, encouragement, escape and has often been a focus for political opposition. For me as a writer of politically and environmentally themed songs, including songs of protest, music has given me a voice, and while some may take the view “oh no, not him again!”, you only have to look back at my song lyrics over the last decade to see that some have been uncomfortably prophetic: and I’m just one of many thousands delivering important messages and thoughts through our music.

There’s little doubt in these days of streaming and taking, copying and ‘passing off’, most musicians are unable to make a living from their craft. There are also many more musicians these days because technology has enabled anyone with any form of talent to create and circulate their creations. The Lockdown years made it essential for many to break out of their four walls, and in many cases helped people to remain sane. With an increase in numbers you’d normally expect a reduction in quality, but while there is some poor stuff out there, most music created by independents is of a really high standard. 

It rather scuppers the Chris Moyles’ stance that “most unsigned bands are crap”. I prefer ‘independent’ to ‘unsigned’ anyway because I never set out with the intention of becoming ‘signed’. That just creates value for someone who wants to fill their pockets on the back of the talent of others, and I have no interest in that. ‘Independent’ is how I’ve lived my life outside of music, so I’m not likely to change my spots within it.

For a while now, my Bandcamp digital works over two years old have been available on the basis of “name your price”. I’ve done the maths, and over the long term this strategy pays, and on average I receive just short of £7 for each full album. Music needs to be accessible to everyone, and these are tough times. Even when someone buys a ten track album for £1.00, it means each song is valued at 10 pence, and while some might find that disappointing, that same 10 pence equates to about 300 streams of the song on Spotify. When someone buys my music at any price, it means they give it a value beyond its pounds and pence, because it’s something they own for life: a piece of me with a piece of them, and that’s a wonderful thing.  

Now for the other side of the coin. I knew that my latest release “A Proliferation Of Pointlessness” (APOP1) would sell poorly, and the title of the album was itself designed to highlight how difficult it is to earn from our creations. My only social media is Blue Sky, I individually emailed each one of my supporters, sent Bandcamp messages, and popped posts on Mixcloud, YouTube, and my own website newsletter feed. Sales were predictably poor in spite of wonderful reviews, comments and comparisons, and I took the decision then to defer any further solo releases for a better day. The point of the pointlessness has been clearly made.  Almost everyone who bought a copy of APOP1 paid over the odds for the album, and I’m hugely thankful for that core support because it shows that for them, my music carries real value.

I can think of so many ways that music helps us, and I mentioned some of them in the opening paragraph. For my own part, there are albums that I use frequently to block out noise because of their soothing qualities: “Black Dance” by Klaus Schulze being on of them. Klaus probably didn’t have that in mind, because once an album leaves its creator and enters the commercial world, it’s for everyone else to know how a song from it, or in that case a whole album, will affect them. It’s impossible to take cash out of the equation altogether or most of that independent music wouldn’t exist, but music’s true value far exceeds any monetary reward.

Peace.

John