JERSEYDEVIL

I know that every generation faces a new, polarizing technology and inevitably, there are those among said generation who will critique it. That is the nature of things. However, there is also something to be said about how, with the acceleration of technology (running parallel to the acceleration of capitalism, acceleration towards collapse etc), each coming generation faces an increasingly more malevolent “advancement”. TLDR, i’m going to talk my shit.

I’m going to speak on the aspect that is most relavent to me, as a musician. I am petrified by what short form video is doing to music and to musicians. I think that tiktok provides the illusion of making music and being a musician more “accessible” while actually pouring gasoline on the fire that the pop music machine had already started. Standards for what popular culture “expects” from music are being doubled and tripled. Let’s talk about song length. Success and marketability favoring shorter songs is not something new, it has been the trend for decades. But with short form video, it goes even further. You’re not just hearing the same song over and over on the radio, you’re hearing the same 15-30 seconds of the same song over and over again. This in-turn, starts to influence the way people write music, persuading people to make songs that *could* have that 15 second appeal. There is an art to pop music, there is an art to writing a catchy hook—this is something else. We weren’t meant to hear or understand music like that. There are so many songs from reels that i found annoying, until i heard them in their full context. It’s insidious. It makes everything feel like a fucking commercial, even if nothing is being advertised.

I’m going to pull directly from someone else’s experiences, someone who’s music seems to be everywhere on short form videos. The ambient musician My Head Is Empty has a hundred million streams on the song “i was only temporary”. Despite that exposure, they experience “never ending copywrite issues” and have “received death threats” by people who refuse to credit them when using their song. Pulling a quote here, from a comment on their own post

“vyva_melinkolya unfortunately it just gets worse. i saw a bot content page that steals pod cast footage and spams dozens of videos with my song stolen, comment on a "motivation" spam content , who actually made a post telling people the name of my song, and the previous page i mentioned, the pod cast spam commented on that video saying "Bro stop don't give out the sauce. this audio helps me pull numbers brooo" - so people are actively INTENTIONALLY stealing it and telling people to not credit me. like. u can't make this stuff up”

Beyond this, My Head Is Empty feels frustrated that despite all this exposure, the rest of their work (nine albums) as a musician remains under appreciated, and i think that frustration is 100% valid. People cannot fully appreciate music, or even understand it as a work of art created by another human, when it’s taken so far out of its context. Again, the soul being sucked out of art by “the machine” isn’t anything new but, this is a whole other level. Being a musician is more expensive than ever, streaming earns you fractions of a cent etc, it all feeds into itself.

When a song or a musician i love deeply finds its way on to tiktok (let’s use Duster’s “Stars Will Fall”, one of my favorite songs ever as an example)I am not upset that i cant “gatekeep” it anymore. I’m not upset by the idea of something I love and hold dearly finding a larger audience. I AM upset in the manner in which it is being disseminated. I’m upset with art I hold dear to me being chopped up and used as “trending audio”. When I saw Duster in concert recently, lStars Will Fall” was the song I was most looking forward to hearing. It was the last song they played, and it was the song seemly everyone chose to talk loudly over. The audience was mostly people my age and younger. This complaint might come off as petty or pretentious or cliche, i frankly do not give a shit.

Let’s talk about how musicians are expected to promote music on tiktok/reels. This is a matter of opinion, at the risk of sounding very pretentious: the “POV we are x band from x” “My label says i need x followers before x” “posting this video until c musician notices me”. I understand that some of it is in jest but, what the fuck? When did this become the norm? I do not blame anyone for promoting their music like this, but we should want more for ourselves. I’ve always said being a musician is deeply embarassing, inherently. If being a musician is inherently embarassing then what is this? I dont have a solution for this, and the music industry has always been ugly and bloodthirsty and seldom fruitful— but i feel like the very small amount of dignity we had as artists is now lost and I cant fucking stand it. Artists seem to promote the same single with dozens of reels over the course of months, hoping that something sticks. I dont want to sound like i’m shaming or, again, sound like i can provide a solution. I’m just very fucking sorry that it seems like this is “the way”. And personally, i’m scared that if i dont “get with the program”, im going to fail.