Irish singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow followed his fellow James James Blake's well-trafficked post in late September with one of his own a few days later. He wrote another post this week as a follow-up, and I'll reproduce both here for the record, as both posts occurred in the screenshot-from-Notes format. All grammar in everything I quote is as-is, errors and bespoke capitalization and all.
The original post is long and thoughtful, and his caption was:
"Bit of a long one but hopefully worthwhile for anyone who wants to read. The music industry was always a strange place, not saying it used to be the perfect, but the music used to be the thing, now it’s relentless chasing of stats over everything else has made it an extremely hostile place for great artists to sustain themselves or break through. From tech companies owning and controlling all your data, to the organic nature of music discovery being subsumed by content machines, i haven’t spoken to a single musician or music fan in the last year who isn’t depressed by what it’s become. Selfishly I’d like to know that when I do post about my work, about my shows, that people are actually seeing that. But it’s beyond that, change is needed otherwise less and less great new music will get made, and that isn’t something anyone should sit idly by and watch happen if they can do something about it. X"
Original post (Sep. 29, 2024)
This has been in my head for a while, I see some people posting similar thoughts lately so I figured i'd add mine to the mix.
The music industry is in a weird weird place. the last 10 or so years has moved towards an almost exclusively social media and stat driven situation.
In the beginning it was almost quaint, a way to find and grow an audience in a fairly organic way. For someone like me who literally started from zero, no labels no media interest, it was everything.
I've never been super aggressive with social media tbh, the more forward facing parts of it were always a tricky one for me.
But there was a moment in time where I was able to build my career by connecting with people, playing small shows, then bigger, going back, establishing something meaningful. I remember the first year of my first album, It was tough. No one paid attention. I would play shows to 15 people.
But they'd buy a t shirt or some vinyl and it was enough to keep me moving. 6 months in things started to click but it was slow and deliberate. without twitter or facebook as ways to identify where to play shows I'd have been lost. It never occurred to me to give up because l'd speak to people who'd tell me it mean't something, so I believed if I could get it to enough people that it would work. thankfully it did work out that way
Now the social media companies, who were grateful for people like me and others to populate their platforms and develop them over time, have taken all that work, put it behind pay walls. artists spent years connecting with and building something, now suddenly most fans won't see the posts that those artists put up.
If I look at data behind my ig account, the algorithm allows my posts to be seen by a small fraction of followers. only way around that is to pay, which is mad. So then you post and repost the same stuff in the hopes more people will see it, which I'm guessing annoys people because the entire inception of the model, to share what's happening in real time, goes out the window and is just a slog of the same content over and over.
Social media apps have moved to a model of feeding you stuff you don't follow, endless infinite scrolling. artists have deviated to meet that reality, they're unlikely to get to their own followers with their own music, they try with content/moments that might potentially go viral, in the hopes that a viral moment might lead people back to the work they actually want to share.
Which is 100% how the model is supposed to work, how they want it to work. It's not about music, it's about stats.
But it's definitely hit an inflection point. I can see it when I go into meetings where people want me to work with their artists. They're scratching their heads trying to figure out how to make things work. People are tired of the endless infinite scroll, So they're not as engaged or motivated as they used to be. the whole thing has become beige.
And now there are no other real paths. those same people who are scratching their heads are the same folks l'd sit in a room with 4 years ago and listen to them talk about press, music sites, radio, like they were all embarrassing irrelevances.
I'm not saying I want to go back to an industry where it was gate kept by all those people, a lot of them were great but a lot of them weren't. But also they cared, good or bad a lot of them gave a shit. My favorite people to work with were my press people, they were smart and engaged and wanted to build with me. And when they bought into your work they'd champion you and that made such an impact.
I need people who might not have ever experienced that version of this industry to know that it did work and honestly it could still work if they hadn't binned it all off.
I don't know if or how we'd ever go back to something like that. The music industry makes more money now than it ever did. it doesn't make money for the people coming through. Back catalog has been a gold mine, labels can take more punts on more new stuff, which is good in theory but in practice means they bin a lot of stuff off it it doesn't meet wild early expectations.
So then you'd rely on touring. Touring makes more money than ever but again not for people coming through, costs have gone up but fees haven't gone up proportionally.
In the here and now, artists deserve to have access to their fans without being gate kept.
I don't think social media apps are gonna give that up, so for me, as quaint as it may sound, a mailing list is the one thing an artist owns and controls, so maybe considering signing up to your favorite artists mailing lists.
Also I'm sure there are still people who out there with YouTube channels and blogs that give a fuck about music and share the music they're passionate about, so maybe go seek them out too.
Ultimately the impetus for writing this is two fold.
The first, selfishly, I would like the people who follow me, who've paid attention, to know when I'm doing things. It blew my mind during the summer the sheer amount of people who didn't realize I was playing shows in their towns, who didn't know I had just released an album, people who are clearly dialed in and motivated and who thought I guess because they followed me online that they were getting everything I was posting. I had massively [WC: this screenshot ends here as written]
The second reason is because, as someone who suffered from crippling anxiety, made an album and for a year no one knew about it, I was able to keep it moving because it was a version of the music industry that allowed someone like that to slowly find their feet, build and be able to meet the moment when it happened. I want that for other people, somewhere right now there's a special piece of music that l'll never hear because that artist won't get to the points I got to. That breaks my heart, you can read that as fake or whatever but anyone who knows me knows how serious I take all of this and how grateful I am to have been successful in this world. I Want that for other people.
The industry does still work for some people and great music does still get made and find its audience, so don't read this and think I'm not aware of that. But the people breaking though organically are the exception and not the rule now, and considering this is an industry that's entire value is derived from the work we create, I believe it should work for us and not us for it.
your work is your content, the audience you cultivate is yours and shouldn't belong to a social media company or anyone else.
Follow-up post (Oct. 20, 2024)
A friend of mine said earlier that the currency of music is empathy. I think it's a Billy Bragg quote? I don't know much about Billy Bragg, but I love the quote and the idea behind it.
Since I posted a couple of weeks ago about where I see the music industry, l've been inundated with comments and messages.
it's heartening to know that so many feel the same, it's sad it's gotten to a point where so many feel like they've lost hope in the industry before they've even been allowed crack into it. What was striking was how many people didn't realize that social media sites limit access to fan bases, which makes total sense. If you don't see someone posting, you assume they're not posting, you wouldn't assume it's not being shared with you.
One thing I mentioned in my post was about touring. For my part I undertook to give new people opening slots on as many shows as possible. We've picked those artists and will be announcing them this week once it's all confirmed. I'll be doing it more next year, I hope more artists follow suit
At the time I didn't go into it in greater detail re the commerce of touring, a lot of people dm'ed me talking about their experiences, asking questions.
my choice early on was to put as much time, energy, money as possible towards making the show the best thing I could manage. I believe it's worth it to be ambitious, I think people deserve the best show possible. If it means I leave money on the table, then so be it. Some might call it foolish, but it's what's given me my career, I can make my weirdo musical decisions and still play to thousands of people in places thousands of miles from my home. I also feel an enormous amount of pride knowing that l've been able to employ a band and crew for 10+ years, allow them to do the thing they love to do in the manner they also deserve.
But these last few weeks, trying to figure out how to make the mechanics of this North American tour I'm about to start make sense, it's brought me to a fairly dark and exhausted place in my head. I've been reticent to speak on it, but I started a conversation a couple weeks ago and people shared, so they deserve me reciprocating that energy and continuing that conversation.
What l've realized is that I'm also at an inflection point. I've undertaken fairly wild schedules to make tours work. There's always been leeway, if a show has to get cancelled/rescheduled, a bus breaks down, the tour can handle the loss.
Those days are over. It now costs twice as much, genuinely, to play the same venues I've historically played. And fees haven't risen alongside costs, certainly not even close to the degree they'd need to in order for it to plug the gap. I say gap, it's a chasm.
It's wild.
I would like to keep doing things as I have been. I want to keep employing my crew and band. It's not excessive, it's ambitious but always been realistic and made sense. The schedule has to be relentless to come close to breaking even on tours like this. I'm not here playing the worlds smallest violin, relativity is a thing, i'm not about the intensity of my job versus others. All I can say is that when it all rests on your shoulders, it's a lot. If I go down for whatever reason, the entire tour goes down, suddenly financially you go from breaking even to needing to find a way to warp space and time to make that 10-15k back. So it’s' a lot And i have been struggling with it. To the degree I had considered cancelling the shows and rescheduling the dates, the hope being I could figure out a way to add more shows, fit more into my schedule, to give me that buffer. Turns out though that being mentally shattered isn't enough to kick in my tour insurance, without tour insurance it would mean my band and crew not getting paid in the here and now. And that's not something l'd be willing to do.
Plus a lot of people have bought tickets, some might be flying in from other places, I don't want to let anyone down.
I just wanted to be open and honest about it. hope it lands the way I intend it. There isn't an ounce of 'woe is me' in any of this. I stopped touring in 2018, the fact I get to come back and play to crowds is never lost on me. I am going to put on a show for you that is everything l've got, rest assured.
Mainly this is me attempting to add my voice and perspective to a conversation I see happening. I think the social media aspect of it is vital, at a time when costs are through the roof, it's harder than ever to let your fanbase know you're playing at all. So any notion of playing bigger venues to compensate for the costs has to be parked until we get access to the audience we've built. it's been interesting talking to some of these new companies who are trying to help with this. It still feels new and that there's work to do, but it is encouraging.
I am naive, l'm also a business person. I believe the currency of music is empathy, I also know the currency of music is currency.
I've run my business pretty well which is the reason why I can even take on a tour like this at all, a month of my time with no income. Others, a lot of people, as we've established, aren't currently able to build their careers out to the point where they have that choice to make.
surge pricing and price gouging I think warp the conversation slightly, those are real issues but it's not an industry wide thing and doesn't affect the vast majority of tickets.
In the here and now if costs can't come down then fees need to come up somehow. shows earn revenue that artists have no access to, venues still take big percentages of your merch income. I'd love to see those things changed. I know a lot of venues stopped taking merch percentage, I think they all should.
Live music is where it lives and breaths, where songs are tried out for the first time, careers honed. It should be sustainable.
for now all I can do is enjoy every show between now and the end of the year, play each one like it's my last. so much work has been done to make it all work, hopefully see you out there. I also need to keep these conversations going, it feels important to be as honest and transparent as I can be, even if every fibre of my low key being wants to go hide under a rock somewhere 😂