EardrumsPop » “If you care, please share… ” – Some thoughts about DIY music and the fan’s important role.

If you care, please share.

Small DIY/indie bands and labels usually don’t sell many records, get much attention or have a lot of fans. We, – artists and labels -, make music and release music because we LOVE music, and we love to create, – but sometimes we all wonder “why do we do this? Is it worth it? Do people really care at all?”.

Then all of a sudden, a nice comment from someone who likes what we do, a tweet, a share or a “like” arrives – or someone adds an extra dollar when they buy our “pay what you want”-release on Bandcamp – and shows that they care enough to do that little extra thing – and suddenly we feel that “yes, it’s worth it, people care and people listen!”.

It may even be your little comment, tweet or blog/podcast etc that is the thing that makes the artist so inspired that they make a new song or decide that it is definitely worth starting the work on a new release. You did that! Think about it!

Very few DIY artists I know care much about the money. It is more important for them that their music is heard, spread to people who may like it, and most important valued by the people who listen to it. A nice comment or a tweet will bring a smile to the face of the artist, because it shows that someone cares and values their work. An email from Bandcamp saying “Cha-ching! Someone bought your album!” is worth a lot, – not because of the money, but because someone showed that they cared, valued and liked the music you spent months to make. Adding an extra dollar to the Bandcamp sum may not mean much to you, but by doing it, you send a strong and good signal directly to the artist: “I like what you do, and I want you to keep on doing it!”

• Prescription or non- prescription drug useED does not refer to penile curvatures, spontaneous or viagra vs cialis.

. The money itself means less than the signal you just sent.

These days, it is really hard for small bands and labels to get through to fans or get noticed by blogs, radios etc.. We’re living in a time where everything is changing in the music industry, all the time. A new map needs to be drawn for every release. All the promotion tools are there, more available than ever before, but the competition is hard, and the noise from all the other bands and labels, struggling to be seen and heard, is so difficult to shout through. It is so easy to get lost in all that noise, – in tweets, emails, Facebook posts, youtube videos, cool instagrams, you name it.

We all still love listening to music, but do we still care? Photo by Ed Uthman.

I don’t think I am very wrong if I say that all of us struggle with this.
We at EardrumsPop do not need (or want) much money to be able to pay our bills or release music, but there are so many other small labels and artists that do. Recently, a brilliant, creative project by a label we love was stopped because too few people supported it. The songs were great, the bands were amazing, but the fans did not support it for some reason. Things like that make me really sad, disillusioned and disappointed. Sadly, I see similar things happen more and more often, – not only the lack of economic support, but lack of support from fans in general.

Do people take music for granted? Are we so used to being served everything we want without doing an effort, that we have stopped caring?

I also sometimes wonder if we, our little, friendly label that gives you our releases for free, are a part of the problem. It is so easy to just click download without giving anything back. Is it too easy? Does the ease of free downloads and a’la carte streaming make you care even less about music and the artists behind the songs?

I really, really hope not.

DIY bands and labels do what we do mainly because it is fun and because we love it. It’s a lot of hard work behind every song, every release, every concert, every video, and it is easy to get that “is it worth it”-feeling when you feel that people take you for granted. We NEED some fuel to keep the engine going, and that fuel is – in addition to the fun and creativity – feedback in any form from you, the listeners
. The feedback can be as simple as a like on Facebook, but it is even better with a comment, a share, a tweet, a blog-post or that you buy the music from the band, – something that shows that you actually care about what we do.

Maybe it is easier to share if we write more songs about cats? Photo by Martin Kenny.

We’re lucky at EardrumsPop: we have always had great “numbers”; thousands of downloads for every release, and lots of “hearts” and plays on Soundcloud, which is amazing and we are so happy that people download and play our releases – but we always ask you to “Please, spread the word if you like it!”. Only a handful do, and it’s usually the same lovely, dedicated people who do. Does that mean that only those handful of people like the music? Probably not. Hopefully not.
Sometimes, we don’t know…

For us, our “fuel” is when someone goes that extra mile for us, sharing the news about our releases, telling their friends about it, blogging about it, tweeting about it, helping us do that hard work with getting the news out, so even more people can hear it. We’re not alone, For a lot of other small artists and labels, that “fuel” is so important. Seeing “numbers” rise and reading statistics is not fun without hearing back from the actual people behind those numbers. All the tools are there, more available than ever before; click “comment”, click “share”, click “post”, click “new tweet”, click “new email”, click “buy”…

So here’s a challenge for you.
If you CARE about DIY pop and good music, and you want your favourite bands and labels to keep on making and releasing their music, please SHOW that you care! If you don’t, and if you take music for granted, I am afraid that small bands and small labels will burn out, – the engines will run out of fuel.

Here are some of “our” bands and people we have worked with.

Show them that you care!

EP-BANDS (Only the ones we know are active are shown)

EARDRUMSPOP – Facebook | Twitter | Soundcloud | Website

AND HERE ARE THE BANDS ON OUR “BETWEEN TWO WAVES” COMPILATION

And, by the way, even this article is shareable! Just use the buttons at the top of the page, and it’s super easy.

Thanks for reading!

Knut

“If you care, please share… ” – Some thoughts about DIY music and the fan’s important role.

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