Finding Music Utopia
How Would the Ideal Future for the Music Industry Look?
Being positive is the principle of this newsletter and the entire glamglare world. We believe that looking forward to the future and seeing opportunities instead of complaining about everything that goes wrong at the moment is the way to move forward into a better world.
In that spirit and additionally inspired by Elle Griffin’s utopian Substack, The Elysian, let’s disregard trends and current powers that be and think about what a *great* future for music would look like.
When it comes to consuming music, we actually have found a utopia already. Suppose somebody had told me 30 or 40 years ago that we could listen to whatever music, wherever, whenever, for a relatively small monthly fee, I would have put that into science fiction territory. And even then, I would have imagined the necessary devices at the size of boom boxes. Of course, some enjoyment got lost for the sake of convenience, as I have written about before. For an ideal future, I would wish for better ways of committing to and connecting with an artist than tapping the “Save” button in an app. Also, we would want to improve human curation: Today, music curators have many tools at their hands, but it also means scattering the listener experience across websites, playlists, and social media.
One utopian aspect has also already arrived on the artist's side: everybody can produce and distribute music without asking for permission or looking for an investor. Some may say that this has led to a vast overproduction of music and a loss of overall quality; however, this is outweighed by the fact that an artist who otherwise would not dare to engage with the music industry can now find their voice.
Nevertheless, bringing music in front of a potential audience does not mean an artist can live from it. One utopian solution to that problem is a universal basic income that decouples art from its popularity. In the meantime, it helps if popularity continues to distribute more equally so that more of the money currently sucked up by superstars and back catalog musicians goes to newer artists.
glamglare is all about supporting emerging artists, so read about our last seven Song Picks of the Day and enjoy the unbroken creative energy in the music industry.
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Song Pick of the Day
Listen to/watch all seven songs on YouTube. Follow our daily updated playlists on YouTube and Spotify for the 50 latest Song Picks of the Day. Thank you for following us and sharing the excitement.
Sarsten Noice and Claire Morison moved from Montana to LA to work in music. They now teamed up under the name Surprise Baby to “craft a sound which is both authentic and captivating,” and their debut single, “Poison The Well,” is exactly that.
The next song is unabashedly about good times. The Californian pop duo The Eiffels channels the 80s in “On a Roll,” and singer Sean Ulbs hopes “that’ll have you hitting the repeat button faster than a disco ball spins.”
From there, we have a complete change of pace. “Play Pretend” is an intricately crafted art pop song by Boston musician Mali Sastri aka Singer Mali. “Operatic anti pop,” Mali calls her genre – listen yourself to get an idea.
“Sparkle,” the new single by Kid Bloom, is “inspired by the oddball, angular charm of classic rock legend Joe Walsh.” In case you don’t know, that guy goes crazy for eight minutes in this song. Kid Bloom keeps it shorter, but you totally get how much fun he had recording the track.
LA indie rocker Cherry Glazerr is back with the first single of her fourth album, I Don’t Want You Anymore. “I wanted this album to be just heart and soul. Completely exposed,” she says, and you get that from “Soft Like a Flower.”
With “Bye Bye,” by Australian singer/producer HAiiNES, we change the vibe again completely. HAiiNES makes a breakup sound like a beach party. “Bye Bye, I’m done with you forever, let’s stop right there,” she sings cheerfully. Letting go “should be a positive experience for yourself, and I feel this song replicates exactly that,” Emma Haines explains.
We return to LA for MC Hentz, aka Dalloway’s new song “Giving Tree.” The track is an antidote for the “take care of everyone before yourself” attitude that was an essential theme in her childhood. You can discover a lot about Alice in Wonderland and other children’s themes in this song.
Nine Photos with Bushwick Murals
Bushwick’s murals change constantly and make for excellent backdrops. Almost every week(end), there’s a new one to discover. Explore them for yourself!
