Writing and creating music is difficult. Yet I see on twitter the hundreds of djs that advertise their own music to further their career. Not that anything is wrong with promoting yourself and your music, but I have to take the music as is before I can determine if that particular artist/dj is worth my support. What we see a lot of today in this culture is ‘sellouts’ and music that is created simply for the audience at large. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do love some of these songs and go nuts when they are played, but I don’t think this culture is really about that. We were founded on diversity and acceptance of everyone; this is still a HUGE theme regardless of the genre of edm you listen to. It goes the same for artists creating music. Songs are an extension of the person who created it. You don’t sit for days or weeks working on one song and not feel some personal connection to it at the end.
It is time however that we demand originality from the artists we love. A lot already do this, they create songs from the heart that speak to you in ways nothing else could. The song gives some tangible thing to an emotion you cannot put into words. There are also songs that are created simply to make money. I understand that for some this is simply a business, making money off of a product created; simple economics. But it shouldn’t be about the money; it should, and needs to be, about the music. Isn’t that the reason we all came into this culture in the first place? Because the music spoke to us?
Artists that put their heart and soul into a song deserve to be headlining music festivals or concerts. They deserve our attention and our praise rather than those who create music to see how much money they can rake in. I will say we do a great job of celebrating some smaller artists, but shouldn’t that be more of a focus? Appreciate the greats and the legends, but look to the future to see where we can take the music and our culture. Bring it to new heights by promoting music from the soul rather than that created with a paycheck in mind. If your passion is creating music, does the money really matter?