Hey all! Another week, another blog! We hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and have a great week in store. We just finished our radio interview on 89.3 KNON this morning (9-16-19) and it spurred the thoughts for this week's blog about our musical journey.
Is Anybody Listening? (To Our Music)
Ideally, the answer to that question is a resounding yes! The reality is probably more like, well, maybe(shoulder shrug emoji) According to Spotify and a few other tracking sources, yes people are listening, but maybe not at the rate or as much as we'd like. Who doesn't want their song to sell thousands or more as soon as it's published? Perhaps there are some musicians, but those are musicians are not us. We would love for our album to be on all sorts of charts and trending and streamed again and again and again, but we're just not quite there yet. We're pushing and there are new listeners every day which we are very grateful for.
Maybe Nobody Is Listening, So What?
There is a possibility that when you release an album as a completely independent artist, that nobody or very few people will ever hear it. This is why you can't think of music as money, you must think of it as the art it is. Does not selling millions of copies=failure, does selling millions=success? To the latter, yes, financially (obviously) selling millions is some sort of success. But for the many, many albums that never sell more than a few copies a month or just a few to a few hundred downloads, success is viewed differently. For starters, writing an entire album, recording it, producing it and publishing it is a form of success. Even if the album sucks, you still created it and there is merit in that. Putting an album out completely independent of a label or financial backer is a form of success. Getting radio stations, any of them, to play the songs is a form of success and being able to play venues that encourage original music is also a form of success. So, if you knew that not very many people would ever listen to the music you spent so much time and effort on, would you still do it? I certainly hope so; after all, music is art, and it should be shared with the world, even if the world isn't listening.
No Is A Four- Letter Word
When we decided to put an album out, we really had no idea what we were doing. We spend a lot of time researching and connecting with promoters and radio stations, blogs, etc... and in general, we have received nothing but positive reviews, but we've also received a lot of no(s) too. No(s) from radio stations, promoters, venues, bloggers, etc... if it's an avenue to release or perform independent, original music, we have had our fair share of no(s) from it. To the softer or new artist, no can be a four-letter word that slaps you across the face like a wet towel. For us, it's a reason to look at why there was a no. Sometimes we're not the right fit or style of music, sometimes we just aren't established enough in the area, sometimes you have to be a pest to get a yes, and sometimes, for whatever reason, the station, blogger, venue, just doesn't like us. All of the reasons kind of suck, the last reason the most, but you have to learn from the sometimes(read last week's post) and move on from it, or that wet stinging slap sinks into a resolve of failure.
Staying Power
Do we have what it takes to stick around, or to make it really big? We think we do, but maybe we don't, who knows. Who knows what the music cosmos have in store for us. Regardless of how well the album does or doesn't do, we're not going anywhere anytime soon. We're going to keep playing, keep writing and keep putting out albums, even if we're the only ones listening. We hope we're not, but if we are then we're going to make sure we're making the best music we've ever heard!
Stay Groovy Friends(oh and buy a copy of the album today!)
-Backhand Sally
