I saw someone (very successful and a nice person actually) make a snarky post about former music business people working for tech start ups and being a waste of time and please to not bother them.
I’m lucky enough to say that I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve had to pivot to where the work was and using my experience and contacts from the years I worked in the major league world to try and make a living.
The music industry changed over the years. From 5 majors with great JV’s and great indie labels having a chance to discover and break artists, writers, producers and all other creatives.
When I started, the people that took me under their wing were the ones I admired and the ones whose names I read on albums I bought growing up. They weren’t kids, they were 3 decade long A&R people, promotion people, marketing, radio, engineers and producers.. they had lifelong careers with respect and experience.
When I started that option of being a lifer seemed to actually exist… over the next decade, the signs started showing that to be taking a bad turn. Record stores closing, technology making the business change, mergers, closing of labels and artist development disappearing.
As a result, huge job loss, no more job security, mergers and redundancies… people lost jobs (some because they had no business being there) but the majority because their home of employment was gone… because of the industry shrinking, overpopulation of talented professionals left them with nowhere to go. This lead to trying to make a living. What was seen as a potential to be a life long job or industry disappeared. Many people tried to make something on their own, as most businesses fail. Not because of not being good, but because sometimes that’s just the way the ball bounces.
So now all those people are left to try and find work. Find ways of keeping a roof over their heads, feed their families, make a living. What does one walk with when this happens other than their skills and their contacts.
Start ups, many who aim at the entertainment business look for people with contacts… they hire these people and these people who try to make a living from this opportunity… so they call on the people they know, worked with or can connect with as their first outreach. I know it’s humbling and they feel like Willy Loman hitting the pavement and doing their best to get back on the good foot…
It’s hard man… so reading stuff like that, while (as I said, luckily) doesn’t effect me currently makes me feel bad for any person out there just trying to catch a break… empathy man… have some. We all go up, we all come down… life is short and all we can do is try. Try to make it and try to live… don’t need people pushing others down because of where they ended up no fault of their own.
