How to Support Your Favorite Bands and Musicians Leave a comment
The world, you have concluded, could be a significantly better place if it had been listening to the songs and attending the performances of your favourite lesser-known indie band.
Whether or not you discovered this favourite musical act on a curated Spotify playlist or received hooked when serendipity put you close to their stage at a music pageant, you need to share these golden hooks and candy vocals with the entire world. These are your jams. You’re a fan.
However with the music business upended in the previous couple of a long time by the rise of MP3s and streaming, the pandemic shutdown of touring and live music, and now a future that might embrace AI-generated tunes, many musicians are struggling to make a residing. The pennies they earn from streaming companies mixed with live-gig ticket income, merchandise gross sales, and doable promotional offers could barely cowl bills.
That is the place the fandom is available in. Those that actually need the acts they like to succeed have a number of methods to indicate assist and ensure that the music continues and people creating it receives a commission. This is how one can be a greater fan.
Find out how to Help Musicians in Individual
The obvious means to assist musicians is by shopping for their music, shopping for tickets to attend their reveals, and paying for official merchandise.
However there’s some nuance to spending these {dollars}. For example, if you wish to purchase posters, T-shirts, and vinyl albums for a musician, the most effective place to try this is immediately, at a dwell present, the place the artists could possibly pocket as a lot as one hundred pc of merch desk gross sales.
That is preferable to purchasing from, say, Amazon, and even the band’s personal web site, the place delivery and different charges would possibly apply, or printing and manufacturing prices could take a chew out of the underside line (for them and for you). The price of shopping for at a present is likely to be larger, but it surely’s more likely these {dollars} will go to the musician, not the retailers and delivery firms.
And if you happen to purchase a T-shirt or hoodie, clearly, sporting it in public can elevate consciousness of the musician; it is free promoting for the artist.
Artists make a lot much less cash from music gross sales than they used to, however shopping for vinyl albums or CDs at a present nonetheless makes a distinction. You’ll be able to stream your favourite artist all you need (we’ll discuss that in a bit), however buying bodily media is an efficient option to put cash of their pocket.
Some bands may also have a donation or tip jar on their web site or could provide crowdfunding campaigns for brand new albums or excursions.
Find out how to Help Artists On-line
David Lowe, who performs as LUCKYKAT, has a great list of ways followers may also help musicians, a few of them without spending a dime. Amongst his recommendations are following artists on social media, tuning in to livestreams they might be doing on Twitch or different video companies, signing up for his or her mailing lists, fan golf equipment, or newsletters, and sharing and commenting on their songs and posts. The latter few of these may also help increase the artist’s publicity and encourage more and more algorithmic social networks to indicate their content material to different customers.
Streaming an act’s songs on companies like Spotify and Apple Music could generate solely a fraction of a fraction of a penny, however these streams do add up. It might only be a few hundred dollars for an act with an energetic fan base, however that is not nothing. So even if you happen to personal their vinyl album and play it religiously, hold these digital streams going, particularly if you’re on the go. Write opinions or submit optimistic feedback in locations the place that is an possibility, resembling on YouTube or SoundCloud.
