How to support musicians AND have a much better listening experience — double the goodness, double the fun

The New Golden Age of Music Series

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new,” according to that wise ol’ philosopher Socrates.¹

And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today:

• how we can — right now! — increase our listening opportunities and pleasure

• and, in so doing, help build a new artist- and user-focused music ‘system’ that makes the pathetic² music industry we’ve got now redundant and easier to displace.

In other words, how we can bring about a new golden age of music.

Time is of the essence, because the proverbial wolf is at the door — as one of my favorite new artists for chilling out, Carrie Newcomer, sings in the video above.

The wolf is, to be honest, already past the malfunctioning alarm system and in the darn house, stealing our treasured keepsakes (real music) and replacing them with worthless trinkets that wouldn’t garner even a smidgen of interest at a flea market or car boot sale.

Said wolf is, of course, Artificial Intelligence — ‘call me Artie, all my pals do’ — sneaking through the establishment with his confederates, the Algorithms — known in the criminal underworld as ‘The Als’ — substituting the songs of live musicians with their own derivative and counterfeit junk.

Artie and his gang are part and parcel of a longer-term trend to sell us on genetically modified and ultra-processed songs, and below we’ll hear from Charles in San Francisco about how that happened and why we need to make a stink about it.

Then we’ll learn three concrete strategies — two of them easy to do and one mainly for the rabble-rousers among us looking for a righteous cause— aimed at stealthily putting Artie and the Als out of business so we can have what we want rather than the adulterated, unhealthy, and unsatisfying crap they want to give us.

As Carrie observes, “When the old world ends, a new world starts. What finally comes together, first had to fall apart.”

Before we get to all that, if you didn’t do so already, check out the ‘Ladies Night’ Tune Tag I did with Brad Kyle to hear some kick-ass rock ’n’ roll and R&B by women artists:

Tune Tag #90 with Ellen from Endwell, Pt. 2👩Ladies Night👵: Heart, Fanny, Bonnie Raitt, Shirley Eikhard, Pat Benatar, Pursuit of Happiness, Uncle Dog

Also, don’t despair, the women are on the way here! Very soon I’ll be coming out with posts on the charismatic and irrepressible Sister Rosetta — guitar virtuoso and the Godmother of Rock ’n’ Roll — and on the indispitably divine Miss Aretha. So stay tuned, and subscribe if you don’t want to blink your eyes and miss them.

You’re not wrong, my friend — the music industry is feeding us genetically modified, tasteless ‘slop’

In his post “What can tomatoes tell us about popular music?,” Charles from Zapato’s Jam explains exactly how music has been deliberately engineered over the past 25 years to be more repetitive and standardized, losing the variety, complexity, and sophistication that characterized what we came to expect and enjoy in the 20th century.

In what I would consider a perfect analogy, he compares songwriting to tomatoes, bemoaning the fact that most of what’s available now has become tasteless from selective breeding and genetic engineering, and that it’s now much more challenging to find ‘heirloom’ tomatoes (or songs) that give the pleasure and nutrition that we should be getting from this essential soul food source.

Ever notice how nature — and great songs — tend to be extravagant and even wanton in their sentiment and their effect on us? They are an aesthetic and sensory ‘experience’ in and of themselves, like the heirloom tomatoes above. (Whereas formulaic songs and fake food leave us unmoved and unsatisfied, and sometimes even worse off from the experience.)

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It’s worth noting that Charles is talking about popular music — the ‘hits’ — and not about the indie music scene, which is populated by many ‘heirloom’ musicians, no matter their age, who are continuing to honor and build on the past as they experiment with new forms and approaches to music. Some of these indie musicians reside on substack. I’ve posted about them here.

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Charles takes us deeper into exactly what has caused this problem, and I have to say, it’s both eye-opening and dismaying what has ‘happened’ to popular music.

“Eight songwriters have written or co-written a quarter of all the songs making the Billboard pop charts over the past quarter century. Take a moment to process that.

“A lot of the rest has been written by committees of journeyman songwriters working on salary or commission, using techniques taught by guys like Asaf Peres… For a deeper look at who these people are and how they do what they do, check out my column on ‘The Songwriters Who Ate America.’

“…But it gets more problematic. More recently, computer algorithms were brought in to assist with writing hooks. We know that formulas work for making catchy hooks and riffs, and it was just a matter of time before people figured out how to program computers to do this. Now, AI is being groomed to take over the complete crafting of songs.”

Charles believes that it’s up to us to fight back against the highly processed musical junk food that they’re feeding us.

“This suggests that while the flattening of popular music will continue, it will not stamp out human creativity, originality, the drive to make great art, or the audience’s human need to connect with the artist. That doesn’t mean we should be complacent. I believe it is important for us to push back against that flattening.

“How? First, it requires acknowledgment that the homogenization of music, while perhaps not an outright conspiracy, is real and is impoverishing our auditory lives. Acknowledging that means being aware of the phenomenon in the first place and resisting it. The push-back comes when we reject formulaic songwriting and actively embrace the search for music that defies our expectations, music that isn’t ‘easy.’”

Turns out, people are already in step with Charles and fighting back.

The counter-revolution has begun, and we can join it.³

Strategy #1: Fight the bullying algorithms with music curation and community

As Emily White of emwhitenoise shares in “The next generation of independent music tastemakers,” despite the vast treasure chest of music available on the streaming platforms and social media channels, their algorithms are deliberately pushing us towards the same dang handful of songs.

Songs they want us to listen to over and over again that we ain’t interested in.

Gee, wonder who’s making money off these?

Even worse, “Social media is now the top of the funnel for music discovery, overtaking streaming as the primary driver of music culture. Despite music being everywhere on Tiktok and Reels, it often exists as anonymous, disembodied sound without context. How many times have you heard a snippet of a track repeatedly on TikTok but had no idea who the artist was or what the rest of the song sounds like?”

How can musicians build audiences in a context like this?

Enter music curators, who are taking on the role played by DJs in the good ol’ days and introducing artists and songs they think you really really should hear.

“A new class of hybrid music bloggers / influencers / content creators are filling the void, building audiences on TikTok, playlists on Spotify and transforming those into music communities on platforms like Substack, Discord, Patreon and Twitch.”

Instead of having the same old lonely and depersonalized listening experiences on social media and the streaming platforms, music lovers like us can now hang out together and share recommendations through apps and platforms that are already here or in development.

The future is indeed here — or the past is back. However you want to look at it.

Check out Emily’s post for where you can find these influencers, apps, and platforms.

One of these places is, of course, right here on Substack. If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to file away this post for easy reference:

But there’s even more you can do to fight back and at the same time dramatically enhance your listening pleasure and experience.

Strategy #2: Ghost Spotify in “joyful resistance” to bad algorithms and in favor of much better sound quality

If there’s anything you take away today, this is it.

Kate Ellen and Seth Werkheiser at Little Door provide what they call “The Joyful Sabotage Guide to Supporting Real Music and Reigniting Pleasure in the Age of Tech Oligarchy” — an excellent post on how to break up with that cheatin’, double-dealing Spotify and take up with a musical partner worth investing your time and effort in:

Ghosting Spotify: A How-To Guide

They explain their thinking. “It’s about recognizing that these corporate structures aren’t inevitable. They’re not unstoppable. And with just the right shift in behavior—whether it’s artists walking away or listeners hitting pause—we can tip the scales.

“Spotify isn’t some all-powerful overlord—it’s just another corporate tech machine, and guess what? We get to decide if we like the world it’s building. A system that turns art into pocket change while CEOs swim in gold-plated Scrooge McDuck pools? Nah.”

They describe what they’re offering as a “mischief manual” for “joyful resistance.”

We’re protest song aficionados here, so you’re singing our tune, kate and Seth!

First, they give seven reasons why you might want to leave or downgrade your Spotify account.

Then they clinch the deal by:

• having you do an audio test to see how bad the Spotify platform is in terms of sound quality

• explain how to transfer your playlists

• outline the pros and cons of different alternative platforms where you can take your business and get a better listening experience.

Easy-peasy.

In case you thought that wasn’t enough, they also:

• advise on how to manage/protect your digital listening library

• advocate for owning music in physical form instead of, or in addition to, streaming

• encourage listening to music with others

• detail the ways in which we can support and give back to musicians.

This is a fantastic, information-packed post. Be sure to save a copy.

Strategy #3: Lobby record companies to give artists back their shelved songs — Free the Music or Face the Wrath!

Did you know that there are ‘vaults’ in record companies chockablock with songs and albums that, against artists’ protests, they have refused to release?

If you do as much research as I do, you know that record companies have made many poor decisions over the years. Just to give you one example, one of the biggest-selling albums of all time, Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell, which went 14 times platinum in the US alone, was passed on by every record company. It wouldn’t have seen the light of day if Todd Rundgren hadn’t decided to produce it. You can read my post with the story behind that here.

You think that’s bad, Aretha Franklin’s producer tried to talk her out of doing both “Respect” and “I Say a Little Prayer” (below). To give Jerry Wexler credit, he did release and support both songs and owned up to being wrong. I’ll be sharing stories like that in my upcoming post about Aretha.

(I never get tired of hearing her arrangement and interpretation of “I Say a Little Prayer.” If you’re interested in that song, I’ve written a post about the songwriting and the different interpretations by Dionne Warwick, Aretha, and Hollywood.)

The Meat Loaf and Aretha examples beg an important question: How many songs are buried in those music company vaults that we would love to hear and have in our libraries?

And why must the record companies sit on them when the artist has pleaded to get them back?

John Strohm makes the case for his Blake Babies bandmate Juliana Hatfield, who wants to put out her song “God’s Foot”:

“Juliana would love to put out the actual master of God’s Foot. Her fans would be thrilled, it would be a healing experience. Bootlegs are available, but it isn’t the same. To be clear, I do not expect every major label to hand back every shelved album regardless of circumstances. Many albums were shelved for good reasons. Many are forgotten. But many — like God’s Foot — mean a whole lot to the artist and their fans. If the artist wants to share the music after so many years — whether or not there’s a significant public demand — they should get their wish.”

Imho, getting back a song here and there is not enough. Authors have been experiencing the same thing with their books — publishing companies refusing to return the IP to the author even when they themselves don’t want to publish the books anymore.

This has happened even in cases where a book had good sales, because publishing companies (and record companies) are no longer interested in supporting anything that isn’t an instant hit. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the midlist has disappeared and even authors with steady sales over many years have been cut loose.

Books that we would love to see reissued — like many rock biographies — are also languishing in the publisher vaults. (Used copies for some are so rare and expensive, only the rich can afford them. There are some women rockers whose autobiographies I will never be able to afford.)

It’s also worth mentioning that many record labels and publishing companies have been remiss in providing real marketing and sales support for decades. There was a time when they stopped putting in much time or money and expected the writer or artist to take on the lion’s share of the effort in peddling the product. But, of course, they didn’t change the terms of the agreement to reflect that revised allocation of duties.

It’s downright shocking when you look at what companies have gotten away with since the 80s in the wake of mergers, acquisitions, market concentration, and the creation of an oligopolistic marketplace. The upshot has been products not getting the professional marketing support they should have, depriving them of a real shot at being successful (if they were released at all).

Things have, thankfully, changed since then and authors and musicians now have the ability to give a book or song a real shot at life through independent distribution and marketing. Creative products represent the life force — the blood, sweat, and tears of the artist — and as such have no place sitting in a dank, lonely vault unseen or unheard by those who love that artist’s work.

The solution? Pass a law requiring the return of intellectual property to artists and writers if the record label or publishing company no longer wishes to distribute it. In the past artists didn’t have the power to dictate the terms of a contract unless they were a Bruce Springsteen or Whitney Houston. Force those companies to do the right thing by all artists.

No more sitting on creative products. Unchain that melody! Set free those words! Let them do whatever magic they were created to do.

Ted Gioia in his recent post “30 Ways to Revitalize Arts & Culture” argues that “corporations should lose their copyrights (on books, recordings, etc.) if they keep these works unreleased or out-of-print for an unreasonable time period. Rights should automatically revert to the original artist (or heirs) after a work has been unavailable for ten years.”

Ten years! In today’s world, speaking as an indie author, I would argue two years at most. Play-or-pay.

No more coddling of music industry companies that are top-heavy with management and administrative staff getting extortionate salaries, benefits, and perks, who appear to be doing little to help legitimate artists while putting massive funds and effort towards producing and selling a shipload of schlock from Artie and his pals The Als.

Puh-lease! Enough already with the loiterers and exploiters.

I’ll end today’s impassioned diatribe against corporate malfeasance with the perfect song about the perfidy of the music industry, from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, co-written by Tom and guitarist Mike Campbell.

Tom explained the impetus behind it:

“This was a reaction to the pressures of the music business. I wound up in a huge row with the record company when ABC Records tried to sell our contract to MCA Records without us knowing about it, despite a clause in our contract that said they didn't have the right to do that. I was so angry with the whole system that I think that had a lot to do with the tone of the Damn the Torpedoes album. I was in this defiant mood. I wasn't so conscious of it then, but I can look back and see what was happening. I find that's true a lot. It takes some time usually before you fully understand what's going on in a song — or maybe what led up to it.”⁴

He speaks from experience when he exhorts us that “Everybody's had to fight to be free. You see you don't have to live like a refugee.”

So let’s not, fellow music lovers! Time to reclaim our musical legacy and birthright, starting with the brilliant strategies above and inspiration from Carrie, Aretha, and Tom and his fellow Heartbreakers.

Have other strategies? Don’t want to divorce Spotify? Happy consuming the ultra-processed and sugar-laden stuff? Or other reactions, pro or con. Let me know in the comments.

1. Or at least it’s attributed to him. Thanks to country singer-songwriter Allison Moorer for leading her latest post with this quote.

2. By ‘pathetic’ I mean exploitative and unsupportive of artists, disrespectful and exploitative towards customers/users, unwilling to invest in product quality maintenance or improvements or in any sort of innovation, and yet allocating outrageous rewards to management for such short-termism while ignoring long-term vision and strategy upon which corporate health and wellbeing should be based.

3. Fire up your favorite protest songs!

4. Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/tom-petty-the-heartbreakers/refugee.