Dear friends,
I’ve decided to do something radical.
I’m releasing all new studio recordings on Substack first.
There are many reasons, but at the centre is an impulse of the heart.
I want to share first with those who support me most.
Today, I’m releasing the first new song.
It is called “Killing Ghosts”, and I hope you love this little banger!
It was written during the pandemic after the worst break-up of my life. I think you can hear it in my voice.
During that time, I lived in the potential future I might have had.
Those four walls were a prison in which I underwent an exorcism.
I wrote this song the day the demon was released.
The moment life tells you it is time to live again.
Damn guys.
To release this to you this way feels so much more special than to release it publicly on Spotify!
It’s just an audio file.
But an audio file can contain a life.
I’m proud to present the first song of “The Isolation Diaries - Volume 5”, produced with my great friend Jonathan Kluth.
KILLING GHOSTS by Jim Kroft
"One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."
André Gide
Why am I doing this?
It is no secret that the streaming model is broken.
Musicians are paid:
$0.004 per stream.
That means a musician needs to stream:
26,500,000 to achieve the average salary received by employees at Spotify:
$106,000
I have no problem that every market is competitive.
But equally, you have to challenge a bad deal.
And so I'm shifting my mindset from musician to solopreneur.
The reality is that streaming platforms operate on a winner-takes-all model.
It leaves next to zero opportunity where most recording artists live: the long tale.
And yet musicians continue to release exclusively on streaming platforms.
Why?
A lottery ticket can change your life, right?
They don't factor in:
They aren't buying a lottery ticket once a week for a dollar.
They are buying a ticket once every two years for 30K.
(That's the average cost of an album - each of which takes two years to make)
The big tech business model is Draculean.
It feasts on artists’ dreams.
But it feeds itself, not the artists.
Bad deal.
I've decided to challenge this.
Musicians don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.
But how many does that hand feed anyway?
0.19% of musicians earn $50,000 or more through streaming.
So artists upload a 30K product, hoping to trigger the algorithm and draw crowds to their shows.
It’s an expensive marketing punt that gives minimal marketing.
Why do they do it, then?
Two reasons.
First, artists are dreamers.
They do not operate on prudence; they operate on hope.
This is why the streaming model is so brilliantly Machiavellian.
What’s more genius than selling a dream which hoodwinks investment into a speculative model?
The second reason?
Artists comply, fearing platforms blacklisting them if they dissent.
For a song to blow up, it's a game of Russian Roulette.
Except the gun is loaded, and there’s only one player.
I will not play that game.
There is another way, and that is what I am working towards.
I am betting on building my musical future, not on the many.
But by giving one person the best possible experience.
Imagine moving one person.
Even after so many years, the idea still gives me butterflies.
When it comes to business, as artists, we need to kill off our inner megalomaniac.
Move one life, and you move the world.
And if that one person chooses to buy what you create, there is a business model in that - if you can replicate it a few times!
The subculture in which punk and the American indie scenes of the 80s emerged doesn’t exist any more.
But that doesn’t mean the digital economy has no new opportunities.
The question we have to ask ourselves is:
Will we play someone else’s game or invent our own?
Emerson said:
“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”
Today, I am staking my future not on what someone else can give me but on the foundation I build myself.
As always, thank you for the support, everyone!
See you next week,
Jim
For the full EP & Documentary:
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Access the whole EP - 5 unreleased songs
Hear “The Isolation Diaries” Documentary
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