I would never imagined at 15 years old having the ability to reach so many people in so many places with my music. I figured maybe I would come close if I was able to make a name for myself and have an active performance schedule. Fast forward 18 years and you have what seems like an infinite amount of ways to reach an infinite amount of people.
Here's the catch.
Most everyone has the same reach now which translates to oversaturation. The pro is that I can record my live shows and make them available for all to see. The con is that there are so many people with the same idea and it becomes overwhelming to the point that we don't really seem to care about the music others put out.
There was a time when I was excited to purchase ONE CD (or cassette tape). I would listen to it over and over and over. I studied the cover art and tried to figure out what hidden messages there may be. I would study the lyrics and the photos of the band members. I basically had the whole album memorized. Those are the same albums I continue to favor today.
There were times when I wanted to find an album I heard about, but when I went to the CD store I had no luck. Maybe if I was lucky and smaller music store would have what I was looking for, or at least order it for me. This all changed when I was in one of my college classes and someone mentioned itunes. I asked what it was and immediately thought how stupid it sounded. Download MP3's!? Not me! As I began to play around with the service then I found I had access to all of those hard to find albums and many more I didn't know existed.
I have downloaded so many albums that I can't even recall the names of 90% of them. I wouldn't recognize if you played a single song and asked me to identify the album. I can't recall the artwork or what the musicians look like. I find it hard to recall their names as well ( except for the name of the main artist).
The point? It is great to be living in a time where we have access to some many outlets. However, we are oversaturated to the point of having limited focus and to the point that we don't seem to enjoy the music as much as the acquiring of the music. This makes it incredibly difficult to "break through". Let's put the focus on the true fans. Pushing to stand out over so many great musicians isn't going to yield the best results, but relating to those the truly care for your music just might.
