Aaron Lee Tasjan, a Nashville based musician, posted a short video on his IG page that lets us look at how an artist experiences releasing a new album. With his permission, we’re posting the transcript. There’s a lot to learn about what fans can do to help and how important they are to the artist.
Guest Post: Aaron Lee Tasjan
“The music listener is really the star of the show.”
Okay, Get Over It Underdog came out on Friday. Today is Monday.
It’s been an amazing release experience so far. By all the various measures that we have these days to determine the success of a release, this one’s been pretty successful.
Some incredible reviews. Shout out to music journalists. The people who do that job and take it seriously and do it well are incredible human beings. And they add so much value to the release process in terms of helping to create context for the music. In this day and age, context for the music is important. Listeners want to know why they’re listening.
Radio, the record is doing really well at radio. The single is charting. The album is charting. The record is selling. It’s sold more so far than my last one did in a whole year. One thing that is really important for us to remember as artists, though, is all of these markers should be taken as affirmation. That the record is good, that the art is good, and that people who are hearing it, that have the means to put it through various channels for more people to hear it, are liking what they hear, and that is awesome.
But the most valuable thing that can happen for us as artists when we put a piece of art out into the world, watching folks talk about it, share it through their own platforms, and message us to tell us what the work means to them, and the ways in which, if it fits into their life, the ways in which it is fitting into their life.
To me, that is the true mark of a successful endeavor as a music artist, certainly as a songwriter, and as a person who creates music in an album format, which is what I do. A lot of people value just releasing singles and even sort of say that that’s a better plan. I still enjoy creating a whole work start to finish from the track listing order to the photo that’s on the cover of the record to the way the track listing looks on the back like everything about it is intentional and designed to create a flow and an arc and an experience for the person listening to it.
If you’re an artist and you feel maybe discouraged because you can’t afford a publicist, it’s important to remember as artists when we see people resonating with the work, leaving comments or discussing the work on their own platform to share it with their friends or messaging us personally to tell us, as artists, what the work we’ve created means to them.
That is massive. That’s almost more important than any other element that I’ve talked about. The ones who really take that time to connect and either tag me in their post or, again, write me a personal message, that holds the most value.
The music listener is really the star of the show. And we as artists, it’s not all about us.
It’s about building a bridge that connects the work that we’ve created to the audience that is interested in hearing it. And that bridge is, that’s the connection.
Thank you so much for listening to my record so far and streaming it and sharing it. It really means the world to me.
Aaron is going on a world tour for the album release that starts on August 15th in London, England. He’ll see you there.
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