The Music "Industry" Can Never Be Genuine
The commodification of art will only make art suffer.
When I was talking to Julien Baker for MTV earlier this year, I asked her how it felt for her art to be commodified. It came up naturally; I’d asked her how her holidays were, and she told me she hated Christmas. “I don’t even end up getting the people that I care for the most really thoughtful gifts because I’m just getting random people gifts — like you do with offices and extended family and people you may have not talked to since straight up last Christmas. You now have to quantify their love in an object to them.”
“It’s very transactional,” I said. She agreed and then we talked about how weddings are the same and eventually I realized I didn’t have that much time to talk about things unrelated to her new record. So I jumped into a forced conversation about Little Oblivions, and then at some point we circled back to the idea of commodifying intimate things, like her art. She said, “I understand that there are entities in place that are paid by the people who pay me money for my record and who pay to have it pressed, those people also pay to have certain firms with certain relationships. It’s like, the job of publicity exists. Sometimes I just think about — wow, I’m out here trying to offer something thoughtful and helpful and insightful to an interview just so if somebody happens to be on their doomscroll and clicks on my words that they feel something positive not something negative. That’s the end goal.”
Since then, I can’t help but ask artists what it feels like to have their art commodified. I could wonder the same about myself; I’ve been, for three years or so now, writing for money. My words have a certain worth, and a low one at that, like what? Every word is 2 cents? I don’t know. I’m bad at math.
I talked to an up-and-coming artist of color on a major label a couple of months ago. My conversation with him, similarly to mine with Baker, organically summoned the topic of the commodification of art. He was ranting about the way relationships in the music industry are not real and he doesn’t feel safe trusting anyone. “I’m young and I’m in these rooms with bigger people, especially bigger people that don’t know where I come from which I struggle with a lot and they only care about money,” he said. “You get fucked over. It’s easy to read people’s intentions. All I’m trying to do is get what I’m trying to get and get out of the fuckin’ way.”
He talked about his label in this way; he mentioned that they make him work at a faster pace than he wants to and force him to engage in collaborative projects despite just wanting to make his own music. When my editor wanted me to reach out to his label for a comment on that, I was tangled up in a situation with these industry people that lasted a day or two. I was on a phone call, and then my editor was on a phone call, and then they wanted the piece to be killed even though this was his biggest feature yet.
In my Music Journalism Insider interview, I discussed my distaste for the way music journalism has become more of advertising than it is journalism. Press releases set the infrastructure for every interview feature; there’s nothing new, interviewers are just asking the same questions. There’s no ethical code anymore. Journalists fangirl over artists they interview on social media, further treating artists like glorified figures rather than people. Their interviews have no depth. I am no exception to this; the problem is structural. Journalists don’t get paid enough, and the industry fosters this complicit attitude. It’s a competition. Everyone wants interviews with the most-hyped artist and they don’t want to risk anything. And when artists are treated like this, the art suffers, too.
I started interviewing artists when I was 17, and I worked unpaid internships until this year. Stereogum has been my first paid internship. I interned at Kerrang!, Adhoc, Consequence of Sound, Paste, Flood, and SPIN before getting compensated for my time. This industry relies on unpaid work by younger people desperate to break in; there’s no integrity and false news stories are constantly running because no one has the time or effort to fact check.
The reason I started this newsletter is because I started reading texts about power dynamics after experiencing one in an interpersonal relationship that left me feeling messed up. However, once you read about power dynamics you begin to notice them everywhere. You realize power structures are unavoidable. You realize the way capitalism impacts communities of all kinds. No one is immune. And now I am left feeling messed up in this larger scale power dynamic of the music industry. I do not want to keep partaking in something that treats art as a commodity, and treats artists as exploitable workers.
Will I, though? Will I keep partaking? Yeah. Most of my friends are anti-capitalists resentfully working shitty jobs. There’s not exactly a choice here. The only decision I can make is that I, as a writer, want to be genuine. I want to believe in what I write. I don’t want to continue typing because I have to; I don’t want to be numb to what I am doing.
And I can tell my work is getting worse. My mom asked me the other day why she hasn’t heard me doing any interviews lately. The truth is I’ve had several mental breakdowns this year due to absentmindedly scheduling four interviews in one week. How am I supposed to care about each and every one of those? How am I supposed to ask important questions if I’m researching four artists at a time? How am I supposed to treat each artist like a person who has poured their soul into something when, to me, it is just one of many things I’m curious about?
And I get constant emails, and if I reply to one then I’ll only get four follow ups if I don’t reply to their response immediately. And I don’t feel genuine in any of these interactions. I feel alone in real life, very very alone, and then I’m expected to engage in threads with these publicists and I often can’t bring myself to. Because then the only relationships I have are transactional, and that makes me feel more alone. I’d rather have none at all.
I just moved out of Brooklyn and my last day at Stereogum is the 12th. I have said that I’m going to take a step back from music journalism. By that, I mean I’m going to take my first break from music journalism internships since I started at 17. I might try to get an internship in the publishing world because that’s something that matters to me right now. I will try not to freelance as much as I used to. I want to foster the part of my life that is sincere — I want to talk to my friends more, I want to read more, I want to write personal and political essays more, I want to spend more of my life outside and not staring at a screen. It is hard for things to not be transactional when you spend so much time not in the real world.
I think there should be as many pieces critiquing the music industry as there are pieces for artist cycles. Unfortunately, most (if not all) publications are looking for the latter. That’s also why I started this newsletter. I love artists and they deserve more than to be reduced to the press release’s narrative. Their art deserves more than to be belittled into a hype that people pay attention to for a week.
And, to end this, I want to say that this does not mean we have to be jaded and cynical. It’s okay to be jaded and cynical; the system is designed for us to end up that way. But we as people have power to change this. On a small scale and on a large scale. This is no reason to give up. More on that soon… but it begins with saying “fuck networking.” Start caring about people.
Bold article. I've noticed since started my blog just over a year ago - aka repository for music musings - that the narrative for certain artists is so strong that I feel at odds when I fundamentally disagree with them. I'm both an indie fan and a Taylor Swift fan (ok appreciater - my daughter is the real fan) but when you read that Folklore is an indie folk masterpiece it does make you challenge the notion that critics just aren't critical anymore and the degree of praise (or scorn) seems quite off (for the record i think Folklore is a great brave departure and a good if overlong album - but i feel it's somewhat short of a 'masterpiece'). And after seeing a number of these you can't help but wonder if you're in the wrong game because you think a critic's opinion is seemingly swayed by a) public opinion or b) the popular narrarive or c) other outside influence. It's very sad because there is great music out there and it's a music critic's job to praise it and at the same time report on but not mistake how good something is (rant over :D). Anyway keep up the good work!!
"I want to foster the part of my life that is sincere — I want to talk to my friends more, I want to read more, I want to write personal and political essays more, I want to spend more of my life outside and not staring at a screen."
Yes. This. I hate to say that I am 39 years old and in exactly the same place as you are (+/- a detour into lifestyle blogging and a full-time corporate b2b journalism job), but it's true.
But I am 100% subscribing so I can see what you do next.