How do we best support musicians during these times?
To put it lightly the music business has gone through some heavy changes over the past few years, especially when it comes to recorded music. I’ve been around long enough to remember the days of selling substantial numbers of CDs and then how things changed with the online revolution. For a while things like Napster (free music sharing sites) developed which essentially started to erode the value of recorded music. This lead to the current dominant force of music streaming which is controversial and complex to say the least. Pretty much every day I notice the topic comes up about the merits of streaming or the best way to support artists these days so I figured I’d lay some thoughts here.
Personally I feel that though we’re still in a period of great change there is still great opportunity. Music lovers today have many different listening options so I thought I’d create this page to offer some avenues for showing support. Some of these may be unfamiliar to some and are more experimental but I’m feeling this kind of action is what we need to find a better way forward. If you have a favourite musician and you feel things such as streaming is unfair then I’d say reach out and ask how they feel about it directly. Every musician’s situation is unique, some are best supported by buying merch such as t-shirts, others may still prefer direct sales of cds or vinyl, some may prefer new systems like Patreon. All of these things work for me (well I’m not too big into shirts and such at the moment) and what really goes a long way is simply getting out to see a love show and spreading the word about music you enjoy!
Here are a few options for me:
Streaming
My preference is actually Spotify but below is a link to my catalogue on all the major platforms. Generally for the musicians it’s always helpful to give them a share or save or a playlist add as this does make a difference to the new algorithmic tastemakers.
https://stream.grandeboucherecords.com/catalogue
CDs/Vinyl
I still have pretty much all the physical release catalogue available in CD format so for $15 plus tax and shipping I can pop one in the post if you like though etransfer or paypal are the only payment options. The incredibly great Fred’s Records here in downtown St. John’s is the easiest way all around for doing mailorder.
http://www.fredsrecords.com/site/?s=duane+andrews&post_type=product%C2%A0
Vinyl for Djangology coming soon!
Paypal Patronage
I know a lot of people buy things like CDs simply to support artists which is a beautiful gesture but then they pretty much have no use for the CD once they get it. If you’d like to make the same gesture in a more direct way you can donate via Paypal.
You can also download mp3 versions of choice tracks here.
Patreon
This is a new one which I’m starting to explore. For the unfamiliar, it’s like a monthly subscription and usually you can set up a variety of tiers with different features. This has been working great for some people though the challenge can be maintaining it on a monthly basis while it’s still in the growing stages. I’m still working on my Patreon setup but will update here and would love to hear any suggestions. Here’s a link to the general Patreon if you are curious about that.
I think that’s it for now, who knows what tomorrow will bring. Feel free to zap me a note if you have any ideas on how to make these kind of things even better! emailduaneandrews@gmail.com
Oh and I think every musician benefits from having their mailing list grow, you can hop on mine here where you’ll also get access to the ‘Backstage Page’ for selected tracks from the catalogue.