Why Is So Much Current Music About Nothing But Bullshit?
First of all, not everyone who can create a track in their bedroom is an artist or songwriter. Of the estimated 60,000 tracks uploaded every day to Spotify alone, there are actually a small fraction that objectively qualify for mass distribution, or will be remembered, or have any redeeming value. As a longtime music publisher, we’d realistically expect this number to be less than .001%. (It’s no wonder that so many emerging artists and songwriters can’t make a living from a finite pool of streaming revenue, even with improvement to royalty rates, being paid out to throngs of amateurs and deflecting from those with potential.)
Second, at a time in our world as challenging as today, there is a glaring dearth of socially poignant music that speaks to the impact of current events and prospect of positive social change, as particularly exemplified by the music of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Instead of offering us caring human perspective, it’s ostensibly become de rigueur cool to randomly include the F, P and N-words in juvenile lyrics in a misguided attempt at validation in some imaginary, warped zeitgeist. Meanwhile, there are existential issues to address and which to call fans to action, including: Putin’s slaughter of innocent people in Ukraine, assailed voting rights, discrimination of all kinds, disinformation and alternative facts, mental health and suicide, human and animal rights, reasonable gun control, immigration, marriage equality, food insecurity, homelessness, veterans, climate change…and Democracy itself! — and the music community, with some exceptions, is singing about bullshit.
Today, the music industry has lost sight and diverged from its fundamental purpose of developing unique talent with the potential of it becoming transformational, and instead has adopted a ponderous alternate model of mass-simulating the most recent hit. And rather than developing and/or embracing new vehicles for artistic expression, it chases each other down a proverial cul-de-sac of DSP streaming, the platform that’s become familiar, but fully exploited.
So, it’s not the non-professional music creators who are necessarily useless (once upon a time, the record labels and music publishers used to cultivate the most promising), but it is any artist whose mission is to exclusively communicate about nothing and in the mirror image of the most recent fleeting, forgettable, vapid recording that most recently attained some level of success (we could easily name names, but you know who you are). Exclusively is the operative word here, and we are not discounting that there is a place for “Silly Love Songs,” as Sir Paul McCartney once suggested. But this really best illuminates the point that for music to truly resonate it must include a potent Emotional Quotient (EQ). Socially Driven Music not only exhorts artists to expand their repertoire to include thought-provoking songs, it fosters originality predicated on an foundation of social impact EQ and the interpersonal relationships that result from these shared passions.
With music streaming through DSP’s (Spotify, Apple, Amazon, etc) maturing and artists and songwriters having increasing difficulty earning a living from this source for myriad reasons, you’re not in the music business if you aren’t exploring the potential of Web3, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality (XR), Blockchain, NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens), and community and financial tools such as DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) — often in combination with each other. Socially Driven Music is the foremost modern day Label and Artists Services Consultancy company that understands futuristic thinking and how to implement it now.
Check out this full playlist of over 100 brilliantly inspiring songs which we call to be emulated:
Some say that “they don’t write them like they used to,” contrasting songwriting expertise to presently predominant productions infused with licensed beats by teams that is reminescent of methodology in creating benign music libraries. We disagree that meticulously crafted songs are a thing of the past. In fact, one of Socially Driven Music’s core business value propositions is made evident from its work with dormant established songwriters, erroneously sidelined by current trends, to bring those songs to market. We are certain that there are many major songs, many incomplete, languishing in proverbial piano benches. Just as there are numerous legacy artists who are as viable as ever but relegated to catalogue listening versus encouraged to release new material. This is the most logical group of artists and songwriters to reintroduce music of substance and for whom social impact is often intrinsic to their work. Further, these are the musicians who can reenergize the legions of fans disenfranchised with current music that is irrelevant and irreverent. We are confident that it’s long past time to reverse the current trend of the insipid and to create #Music4APurpose. To this end, SDM’s business model also involves working with local “Musicpreneurs,” in tandem with music industry luminaries, who identify emerging local artists and songwriters and facilitate connections to social causes (and the politics that often influence their chances of success) which mutually resonate and which provide topics for music interpretation.
It should be easy to visualize the reciprocal benefits of the integration of music and social good, especially with the catalysts of NFT fundraising and DAO activism. Socially Driven Music facilitates this as a consultancy for music and social impact causes and provides its services to independent and major companies, particularly those with deep music catalogues that can be reinvigorated with new ideas and not be allowed to depreciate through lack of corporate attention (the notorius 90/10 rule). Stay tuned for the launch of our interactive podcast with Mark Cuban and Falon Fatema’s new platform, Fireside, to complement our Discord and other social media communities and contact us if you’d like to be considered for an interview. It is incumbent upon us to set this stage for the resurgence of transformative, iconic music that will endure for generations to come as #MusicThatMatters. Please join us!
SOCIALLY DRIVEN MUSIC = (MUSIC + SOCIAL ADVOCACY & ACTIVISM + 💲)♾
