Is Being a Musician Bad for Your Mental Health?

Photo by Benjamin Wagner on Unsplash

Earlier this month, a report from Swedish-based digital distribution company Record Union (RU), made rounds in a few music outlets. The document addresses the apparent correlation between mental ill-health and independent music making, declaring that an astonishing 73% of indie artists suffer from mental illness.
RU is also offering to donate $30,000 to enable projects that aim to prevent or treat mental illness among music makers. Ten projects will be shortlisted from a pool of online submissions via a voting system, and finally evaluated by a “panel of experts” to decide which one gets the funding.

My initial reaction was of applause: here’s a substantial effort to bring mental health into the mainstream discourse of the music industry, with data to back it up and a plan of action to follow. But then I dug deeper.

Source: Record Union — The 73 Percent Report

Here’s the full survey report (PDF).

Let’s get straight to the point: the data presented is weak.

A sample of 1,489 people is not that comprehensive, a two-week timeline for a web survey seems a bit rushed, and most importantly, the omission of demographic items other than age feels…