What Am I Even Doing Here?

I’m never going to be famous. I’ve come to terms with that, and have somewhat intentionally baked that fact into my business plan for my music. Almost every new artist discovery tool I’ve encountered lives in the Spotify ecosystem (see my previous entire blog on why I’m opting out of Spotify) or TikTok; a platform I haven’t logged into since Larry Ellison took its reigns.

That leaves me with the old IRL model of promotion—which I prefer, except that I’ve been having a hard time getting booked at local venues, more on that later—or the few platforms that I’m still that are still problematic in their own ways, but which I’ve been able to do the mental gymnastics required to still be a part of for the time being.

Instagram is rough. I’ve identified that I don’t want to be an influencer. That’s a hard gig, and the times that I’ve put in the effort of posting regularly, my actual music recording/producing has come to a near grinding halt. It’s really difficult for me to switch from my promotional hat to my artist/producer hat.

I also find it really hard to show up authentically in the vertical video format. I’ve tried and when I look back at a lot of those posts I hardly recognize the person who is talking. That guy is like an imitation of an imitation of some other guy who is imitating something he’s seen before. It feels really reductive when I try to do anything flashy. Somewhat longer videos where I explain my process, or something I really enjoy about a song, feel more like me, but if I’m being real, I realize they’re not terribly exciting.

I also like my life as it is! I thoroughly enjoy the anonymity that I have, and enjoy the immense privilege of being left the fuck alone most of the time! I like that I can go to dinner with my husband and nobody has ever stopped me and asked for a selfie. I’ve never caught anybody “sneakily” taking a picture of me while I’m out and about. Only twice in my life have I been recognized from a very minorly viral YouTube video that I posted circa 2007, and only a handful of times back when I used to write for Time Magazine in a previous life.

In most of those instances, that early childhood side of me that says “I’m wrong and I need to explain myself” comes out, and at that point nobody is having fun.

So why am I doing this?

I love performing! I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that I was a theater kid growing up. But even in that, the biggest role I ever held was Good Old Reliable Nathan Detroit in Guys & Dolls Junior, back in the 8th grade. In every other role I held I was either just an anonymous member of the chorus, or had a maximum of 5 or so lines. And after exiting the spotlight, the rush quickly fades and it’s only a short matter of time before I want to retreat into my usual introverted self. So that’s not it.

Even in the years that I wasn’t actively recording music, I always kept a file on my phone of lyrics for those “maybe someday” songs. I have a few voice memos from that period too. I still have both of these practices. That file currently sits at 55 pgs of mostly one-liners, and dozens of voicememos, most of which will never see the light of day.

But every once in a while, I get that big download from the ether. And it feels selfish not to share it with the world. I feel so lucky. Maybe even chosen, somehow. That I get to be the recipient of these correspondences from the universe that I sometimes don’t understand. The gift is the treasure hunt that they send me on. Sometimes I get to fill in the holes with little flecks of myself. Sharing those pieces in particular help me to be seen, even if only a handful of people are tuning in. 

I know how my favorite artists make me feel. I say artists because of course that means musicians, but also writers, podcasters, TV/movie makers, drag queens, etc. too! Being seen in the works of others is a magical experience, and I want to give that out to my world and to build a community. I want what I’m doing to reach the weirdos in the world who came out of the universe’s cauldron with a similar flavor profile as me. 

Algorithms can be great at connecting people in this way. So I haven’t given up on them entirely. But I also feel like that window is rapidly closing as most of the big ones seem to be hell-bent on a narrow focus of getting a return on investment for the Ai models their CEOs have done the mental gymnastics to justify spending billions of dollars on.

So I think that’s my niche. To go boldly where no one can find me.

Am I being brave by doing so? Or is that part of my subconscious that craves stagnation driving, and sabotaging any chance that I will break out of my beautifully small life? Two things can be true at the same time.

But everyone loves an underdog. Every insufferable hipster, myself included, loves to have a band they can gatekeep from the masses, and “taste peacock” when they want to show off how much obscure music they’ve listened to.

I want to be that girly!

Gatekeep me!

I know what it’s like to fall in love with Chappell Roan before she was big, and then cringe at myself when the mirror of some basic person doing the HOT-TO-GO dance with the flare of a jar of mayonnaise. I’m also self aware enough to know that what I’m cringing at is not that person who’s living their best life, but rather the knowledge that it’s a mirror into my own jar of mayonnaise that I keep dumping spoonfuls of sprinkles and edible glitter in hopes of it one day having something that people will mistake as a personality. It’s the same way that I feel when I see myself posting reels in the desperation that someone will see me and see themselves enough to keep staring into the mirror that I’m trying to hold up to them.

But if I keep being me, and putting me into these songs, and putting me into the promotion, then I know that I’ll be able to live with that. And sure, I’ll slip up, and will undoubtedly cringe at parts of the journey. I’ll also inevitably slip up and forget that the metrics of streams and views have zero impact on me intrinsically as a human. I’ll let them hurt my feelings. And maybe one day I’ll reach a wide enough impact that the comments sections will have a similar impact. And that’s going to suck.

But I’ll be lucky if it sucks. Because it means that my music is reaching people.

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to be more palatable to the masses. Some of my biggest life regrets revolve around the ways in which I’ve dulled my sparkle due to safety, or job security, or making myself more “datable” to the wrong guy, or something similar. My sparkle is the best filter I have! My art isn’t for everyone in the way that I’m not for everyone. It’s actually the best filter I can ask for! If I’m too much for you, or you find my music offensive, that’s great! Now I know that I don’t have to waste any energy on you.

Of course that’s easy to say from the comfort of my keyboard, on a hammock in my back yard surrounded by my dogs. And I hope I can remember that sentiment when the day comes that my music reaches the wrong side of the internet.

How lucky we are to be seen. To be rejected. Because that is always a two-sided coin. I don’t want some shithead internet troll to see himself in my music. Because what does that make me? I want to be the good that I want to see in the world. And this is my small way of putting that out there for others to see. I want this feedback loop, both in and out of my algorithmic lives.

That’s what I’m doing here. Building the world that I want to see, and hopefully empowering others to do the same thing. Because I feel stir-crazy if I don’t! And because I’m LUCKY to get to do it!

Why I’m not on Spotify

I was one of those weirdos who was low-key OBSESSED with his Zune. I know, I know. I still stand by that decision though! Before streaming really took off it was a great bridge to that ecosystem. $15 a month and you could stream any song in the world, plus every month you got to legally download ten songs that you could keep forever! That meant every other month I was burning a new mix CD of my latest favorite tracks to listen to in my Mustang.

The Zune party ended for me in late 2012 when Microsoft started to divest of its Zune infrastructure and I switched to my first iPhone. That ecosystem shift brought me to Spotify. My bi-monthly mix CDs turned into seasonal playlists, along with a MASSIVE “Master Mixtape” playlist that I continued to build for the next decade. Through Spotify’s algorithmic recommendations and curated playlists I discovered bands I quickly fell in love with. Artists like MNDR, and The Cinema. I also associate that period of my life with a new album from one of existing favorite artists, Kesha’s Warrior! (Because yes, my love life was a struggle in my mid-late 20s.)

Fast forward to 2023, when I self-released my first EP, “Chaotic Neutral” under the artist name Stewart Isabella Gardner. I was so excited to have my art out there in the world, I didn’t care that I would be lucky to earn $2 from streaming with that release. I didn’t come here for the money. But with being a published artist came a new attention to the music industry, and a crash course for me. At the end of that year I saw three concurrent headlines about Spotify that really gave me the ick!

All in the span of a few months, Spotify allegedly cut a significant portion of its staff—mostly their taste-makers and playlist curators—with the specific intent of replacing them with Ai. Around this same time they raised subscription rates from customers. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they also made the decision to completely de-monetize smaller artists like myself who make less than 1,000 streams per-month.

The common thread here was obvious. Less staff equals more profit. Raising subscription rates equals more profit. Paying artists less also equals more profit.

By this point, my opinion of the user experience of Spotify also began to sour. The Release Radar playlist that I used to love was getting flooded with remixes that I didn't particularly care for of songs that I had already heard. My Discover Weekly playlist was getting less exciting too. Overall, I was noticing that I was discovering fewer new artists that I actually liked from Spotify.

So what did I do? I cancelled my subscription!

That’s a decision I can easily stand behind. And since I cut ties with Spotify as a customer, it’s been announced that their CEO is allegedly using significant portions of that aforementioned additional profit to invest in autonomous military drones. Then earlier this year they had yet another scandal where they were platforming a deluge of recruitment ads for ICE. No thank you!

Now I’m at a point where I’m getting ready to put more music out there into the world. And I’m at a bit of a dilemma about how I want to do this. Because let’s be honest, there is no real ethical way to stream music. No matter how you slice up the profits, smaller artists are always going to get screwed. I recently heard a statistic that an artist who owns 100% of their royalties needs to hit approximately 6 Million streams in a year just to make the equivalent of working 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job.

There’s no perfect streaming platform either. Amazon Music is a subsidiary of what in my opinion is the most evil and harmful corporation in America. Youtube Music is owned by Google, who creepily follows you all over the internet and scrapes every micro-interaction you have in order to train it’s Ai platforms that are actively dismantling our sense of what is real in every picture and video we see in the world. Apple’s Tim Cook keeps showing up at meetings with the current administration and paying deference to their political whims in a way that makes it hard to get behind their ecosystem. etc.

So what’s a gay to do? I’m just one girl!

But I’m also at a position of immense privilege. I don’t rely on my music to pay my bills. That means that I don’t have to put myself under the thumbs of any of these platforms. And what’s the point of having and acknowledging privilege if you’re not going to leverage it for good? I can choose where I have a web presence, and where I’m a ghost. Spotify and Amazon are out! That’s an easy decision for me. Apple and YouTube, you’re on notice.

I want to have an online presence so that I can find people with whom my music will resonate. But I want to create that as a real, physical space.

In an era where streaming platforms are making human artists compete with cheap Ai SlopPop, I have to double down on offering what those sloppabotammuses will never be able to provide: That feeling of connection when a musician and their fans are in a room together, singing/screaming/crying/laughing their little hearts out! So building that will be my focus. Not maximizing streams. Not amassing followers. Social media isn’t social, it’s just a fucking store. I want community!

And as a final note, it’s worth mentioning that I don’t hold it against anybody who makes the choice to use Spotify. Like I said before, there is no perfect solution, and I definitely don’t expect everybody to know the ins-and-outs of these companies and their practices. Truth be told, I only have a cursory understanding myself. However, as Snoop says in Robyn’s U Should Know Better, “If you knew better you would do better.” And now you know better. What you choose to do with that is up to you!