What does a career in music even mean anymore? Is that even something I'd want? The more I learn, the more I wonder: Is it something anybody would want? As you get a peek under the veil and you see the industry for what it is, it's hard to imagine.
I feel so fortunate and privileged to have landed where I have. Slaight Music is an organization that really cares about emerging Canadian artists. With less pressure to recoup every expense or squeeze every dollar out of me, I get to focus on the important part: the music. They offer a glimpse of a career in music that may be less sexy than what they sell in the movies, but far more aligned with my values.
As I speak with friends who have been releasing music for years, a much scarier vision of a life in music emerges. Exploitative labels, 360 deals that squeeze artists, unlivable wages, scam artists selling you the latest way to make it big, deals designed to kill competition, unreleasable music, the list goes on. Releasing music as an indie artist is discouraging, less so with the help of Slaight Music, but if my goal when I started was to get signed by a big fancy label, my goals are changing.
While this all comes with a healthy dose of reality and frustration, the silver lining is that I'm giving myself permission to just make and share music. If I am no longer pandering to the industry, I get to do this on my terms, and that feels really liberating – it creates a vision for a "career" in music that I would sign up for. I don't necessarily need my music to mean something to people, or to open doors for me, or pay my bills, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't holding out hope that I'd find myself in a position where I could just focus on music – even if that reality doesn't really exist anymore.
Every time I release a new song, there is hope. Hope that the inexplicable, unplannable, intangible will happen – that this song becomes that I've-made-it moment. So far, that hope has only come with many a healthy dose of reality checks – this is not that moment. You see the stats, and maybe this is going better than you could have hoped. You reassess and see it for the success that it is, but it still won’t make any money. Releasing music asks you to hold two truths: the success and the failure, and it's exhausting. And I suspect that is true wherever you are in your career, whatever your success. The permission I’m giving myself to make music and share it means I get to focus on the metrics that matter – someone is listening, and maybe they even like it.
So, in hopes that I release a song and that people like it, ‘All the Way it Feels’ comes out on May 13th (maybe this will be my big break!). Pre-save it here <3
I hope it makes me rich, but more importantly, I hope you like it – or perhaps it will even come to mean something to you. For now, I hope you pre-save it. Once you hear it, I hope you share it and ask your friends to listen; I hope you save it and add it to your playlists. I hope it goes well enough – whatever that means – and that I get to do it again.
Sharing music is a love language. If you enjoy listening to the music we make, please share it however you share music <3