Wud Records: the future of our Musical Discoveries compilations

The future of our Musical Discoveries compilations is in severe jeopardy. Very few people are listening to our recommendations any more.

So far this month we have observed 14 streams for the first track on the latest compilation, which is a fantastic creation from the amaziing Stone Age Man, and NONE beyond that.

Since we started monitoring the streams a few months ago, nobody has listened beyond the third track in one of our monthly compilations. Fourteen streams for a first track is actually the highest since we started checking, but how many actually listeners reached the end of that first track? As nobody listened to track two yet, ‘none’ would be a reasonable guess.

Does that mean we need not bother making compilations longer than three tracks? In which case, what is the use in making these playlists if nobody actually gives a hoot, not even the artists who we discover and highlight?

We would love to help shine the spotlight on musical artists who are making wonderful music and are barely being heard. We have been doing our part for eight years. The next playlist, July 2024, will be #96. But if nobody cares enough about wonderful independent music to actually listen to some of it sometimes, or acknowledge its discovery in some way, what is the actual point?

This apathy-based frustration applies even more to the discovered artists themselves. Why do not more of them not take this opportunity to share with the world the fact that somebody else discovered their music independently and thought it was so fabulous they recommended it to other potential fans?

In 1979, when Horn, Downes and Woolley wrote the song Video Killed the Radio Star, they left out a word. It probably would have sounded weird with a bar of 5/4 in the chorus of a mainstream pop song. The word was ‘games’.

Video games killed the radio star, not video. And now, social media is killing video games. Music is way down the list by now. It is so much easier to scroll through social media than actually do something, such as working on getting good at a video game, or even listening to a whole song.

Apathy is what is killing independent music now, just as much as all the mainstream corporate media leverage is brainwashing the majority with cheap muzak designed by committee in a boardroom. There are people in their 30s and 40s who taught their children that Take That and The Spice Girls were great bands.

This is another major reason why so much low-quality music is so popular. The majority of people who hear mainstream music have been brainwashed for years. Mainstream media tell us every day, to quote RockStar Games: “We know what’s good! And we play it until you like it!”

Music consists of four elements – melody, harmony, rhythm and dynamics. Rap and trap music has no melody or harmony because it is poetry, or spoken word.

Dynamics in recordings are squeezed out by mastering engineers making their tracks as loud as possible. We invite you to research a thing called The Loudness Wars. So dynamics are also gone.

Which just leaves the rhythm, which is nearly always four beats to the bar at around the same tempo using very similar collection of sounds. Not much to rejoice about there.

Brainwashed people of the present and future will find it increasingly difficult to understand and consume beautiful music of the past because it will contain unfamiliar and therefore unpallatable elements.

It’s a development along the lines of pubs that only allowed bands to play covers. No original songs permitted, as obviously everybody will die, or worse, if subjected to something unfamiliar or original. Jumping Jack Flash and Wonderwall again please, boys and girls. That’s the only things people wanna hear. Yeah, right…

Brainwashing is great news for mass media corporations, who can use AI to generate cheap muzak, and thus earn bigger profits without having to pay musicians or composers any more. Nobody has been signing actual musicians for years as they are too expensive.

Is the only way to save music through the traditions of classical music, and formal musical education for the privileged minority? Perhaps. Because sitting around doing nothing will achieve nothing – apart from the oblivion, and at best the extreme marginalisation, for all the most wonderful music as we have known it.

There are two excellent videos by Rick Beato on this subject, and we shall link them below.

So let’s return to the future of our Musical Discoveries compilations, and our attempts to shine the spotlight on independent artists making original and valuable music.

Yes, we understand that social media algorithms are very tight now compared to even one year ago. It is harder for anything non-mainstream to gain any traction.

It is also profoundly unhelpful when we try to inform our followers of the release of a new compilation and the new AI police bots consider this suspicious activity. This means we are locked out for 24 hours and then have to correctly perform a series of ten exceedingly annoying tests that don’t always work very well, or be locked out for even longer. It has taken 12 days to inform our supporters, instead of 30 minutes, and it’s a major PITA.

But even though social media is somewhat dead (please refer to this previous news post), we expected more inertia from the previous seven years of compilations.

Surely people who follow us on social media remember that we make these things every month? Surely the people we tag whose music we include can use this opportunity?

No, it would seem not. The hard facts speak for themselves.

We are phasing out and probably ending our Musical Discoveries compilations.

We tend to feel: What is the point? Why should we spend our precious time trying to expose wonderful music to the world when the world simply isn’t interested in music any more?

After the July 2024 compilation, we shall be scaling eveything back. We shall produce a Musical Discoveries compilation every three months instead of every month and see how that goes. If anyone actually cares and would like us to continue with the monthly Musical Discoveries, please let us know.

The compilations we have created shall remain both on SoundCloud and here at our website. If we see people listening and we receive more feedback, then we shall continue with them. But for now, the future of our musical discoveries compilations is in the balance.

The sad truth is that nobody seems to care enough any more.

Music is DYING. And nobody cares.

Just think about that.

Rick Beato: The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZ0OSEViyo
Rick Beato: I Know You’re Angry, So Am I… – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU96wCDHGKM

Porcupine Tree: The Sound Of Muzak (Rockpalast 2005)