The Pandemic Effect on Creatives
And: Violet Skies interview, Fan-powered royalties, Stranger Things' sync wonders
Hey subscribers, we got tons of interesting stuff for you this week, starting with an obvious truth that shaped the last two years.
Whenever we have the chance to interview artists for our music blog, we always ask what impact the pandemic had on their career and their music-making. The answer is always pretty positive. In fact, for the majority of them, Lockdown was a creative blessing. The world stopped and made it possible to focus on what they really wanted - without getting lost in the whirlwind of everyday life. Of course, it came with a series of general challenges, including solitude, uncertainty, and anxiety, but it also gave everyone time; time to stop, reflect, and invest personal resources into songwriting and producing.
This is pretty interesting from the perspective of music curators (like us) because many of the projects we get sent today are actually a direct product of the pandemic-induced free time. We could perhaps call it the pandemic effect.
It is sort of a giant silver lining to a global catastrophe, isn’t it? One that you would not necessarily expect.
On a bigger scale, we can identify two main takeaway:
Creatives are everywhere, and art is enjoyed by many, with time and money being the main constraints.
Public funding for the art field is tremendously needed, especially to level the playing field in relation to time, income and background.
We have recently interviewed indie newcomer ear candy, who - when asked about the last couple of years - shared with us: “In all honesty, aside from the lack of gigs and life experience, nothing too crazy. It's been a great period of time to reset my brain, craft my sound and my brand and goals and work towards putting them into action. That, coupled with the stress-free songwriting time, has honestly been magical”.
Lo-fi hero Common 2 had a more heartfelt answer: “Honestly, the pandemic is the reason I'm here. I spent several years working jobs I didn't like and spending most of my limited free time at bars. Musically, all I had going for me was the bands I played drums in. March of 2020 completely changed all that and suddenly I was holed up in my apartment for months, basically spending all day every day working on music. It was the shock to the system I needed to get out of a cycle that was killing my creativity.”
That said, we do need to keep in mind data we do not have about people that were instead forced to stop making music, because of the financial struggle that comes with unemployment.
Written by Gabriel Mazza
Interview: Violet Skies
“As well as putting on inclusive female and LGBTQ+ writing camps, the in-demand songwriter recently released a stirring debut album” - An insightful interview with Violet Skies by Songwriting Magazine, talking about her recently released album and how she founded sheWrites.
How do SoundCloud’s ‘fan-powered royalties’ work for artists?
SoundCloud has been trialling user-centric royalties (opposite to the pro-rata model) for about a year now. There is a report out by MIDIA on the experiment, if you are interested.
Don’t Know What To Post? These 10 Prompts Will Help!
Bobby Owinsky got you covered - some inspiration for your social content strategy.
Industry News
📀 That syncing feeling: how Stranger Things supercharged the music industry
“The chart success of first Kate Bush and now Metallica thanks to ‘syncs’ in Stranger Things shows how TV shows and TikTok are increasingly crucial for heritage acts”.
🌏 UMG has big plans for Thailand’s ‘T-Pop’ with Hype Train deal
“After K-Pop’s global success in recent years, will other regional scenes in Asia follow suit? In the list of contenders alongside C-Pop (China), J-Pop (Japan), Pinoy or P-Pop (the Philippines) and Dangdut (Indonesia) we can also count T-Pop from Thailand”.
📚 Clouty launches Musiq, a financial-style index for songs
“If the catalogue-buying boom has taught us anything, it’s that a growing number of investors see songs as a valuable AND predictable ‘asset class’ – with the predictability coming largely from streaming.”