Playing With Substance
There is something that listeners are beginning to crave in massive quantities, because they’ve been so far deprived of it by major record companies: substance in music!
There are those who do not care, and never will, that everything they listen to has no worthwhile meaning. Music is meant to be art, and the word art comes from the Latin word for communication. It’s not a fluke or a case of evolutionary etymology; it’s the purpose of all art, all music. And when nobody’s fulfilling the purpose of their art, people begin to sense the emptiness.
You might say, why is it that so many artists linger at the top of our charts when they are devoid of substance, when you say that people are craving it so much? Notice the trends; a superficial artist, who is always “market-driven� by the record companies, manufactured from the ground up, is pushed into the forefront of public attention and cultural media channels using marketing and public relations dollars. But even though you can pay for attention, to stay at that forefront you need to have something valuable to offer.
That is exactly why so many flake artists hit the top, and then drop away so quickly it seems instantaneous. The gossip magazines tend to remember them a little longer, but by and large, society has forgotten them.
Here’s the thing: substance alone might not get you a bunch of attention. It won’t prevent it either. But once you get the attention using hard work and do-it-yourself marketing, you’ll keep it. You’ll keep it because people see that there’s more than meets the eye and want to stick around and see what that is. They stick around because, as one fan of my music recently told me:
Your music makes me think about things I don’t really think about—when I feel down and I play it, for some reason it picks me up.
Substance might not get your music heard, but it will make sure you keep your listeners.
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