Why now is the best time you could ever start a music career & the current social state of mind.
You’ve been thinking about it for ages; what it would feel like finally be on stage. Adoring fans singing along to every lyric, lining up for autographs on their T-shirts after the show and jet-setting to the next gig between radio interviews. The dream is there and your passion for music has never been more intense, but so many questions seems to stand stubbornly between point A and point B. How to get there? What do you need to learn? Who can you trust? Is now even the right time??
Already this year we’ve had one of the wildest years of all of our lifetimes. Simply by being a part of the human race we’ve been wrapped up in an international health crisis, national bushfires and international protests – and we’re only half way! So who really cares about music during all of this anyway? Will anyone even listen to my songs or care?
Certainly social distancing and isolation lockdowns have greatly affected the way and quantity of music consumption so much so that as of now in 2020 at the time of this article, Spotify is at its highest ever monthly subscriber base with its biggest spike occurring since lockdowns coming into effect. Newsroom has also shown how social distancing has affected music consumption, specifically with relation to Spotify as the world’s largest music streaming platform.
The long story short is this: As we have seen many times in the past with social and economic trends, there is always a demand for live music, however consider the current social state of mind. Music lovers the world over have been cooped up like chickens in a cage for months and are generally only now beginning to see the other end (albeit with a new normal in place). The need for live music (which has existed since the dawn of man, or at least since shortly after recorded history began) will never go away, however it will have peaks and troughs not unlike most market and social trends. Having just had such an enormous, ‘off-the-cliff’ interruption into the live music scene, more music lovers than we have ever seen before in our lifetimes will be demanding live music performances from musicians, singers, songwriters and performers across the world. Live tours are already starting back up, local pub gigs have just begun filling and patrons are in the mood like they’ve never been to be engaging with live music on the basis (however subconscious it may seem) of expression; therapeutic outlet and general escapism from the relative distinct madness that has pursued us socially, mentally and emotionally so far in 2020.
Some artists will emerge like Phoenix’s flying high. Others with their wings clipped from the hardship. The real question is – which one are you?
This whole next wave of live music demand is a reactive measure many predict will be the single greatest increase in the live music scene worldwide this generation has ever witnessed.
So if you’re someone that dreams of performing and being on stage, recording your music and making this your career, consider now – you are at the birthplace of the next generation of live performers who make entire careers from this point forward. You can choose to be one of them if you put in the work and make those connections now. Learn the skills you need to let your talent reach the stage and be a part of the greatest growth phase the live music industry has ever had. But don’t wait too long because you might just miss it!