It ain't easy being a diva these days. Queentide's out here doin the most when it comes to the independent artist grind, and porch rock don't record itself!
Over the last year, Queentide has been putting their blood, sweat, and spittle into the mics of an amazing recording studio down in LA, immortalizing your favorite new songs into little sound files.
In a world saturated with ai-written music, half-baked tiktok filters, and ultra-polished instagram feeds of what "successful" music life should look like, Queentide is striving to keep it real asf.
Every dollar you pitch today goes directly into the creation of our biggest collection of songs to date, helping us fund the pre-production, recording, mixing, mastering, distribution, and pressing vinyl.
There's a few reasons its hard to make money as independent artists right now, including, but not limited to:
- Low Streaming Revenue: we make a fraction of a cent per stream, this is why its so helpful when you buy music (in-person or on Bandcamp!) ex: A Queentide song, West Goleta, has been out for 4.5 years, has 68.5K streams, and we've made a total of $300 -- less than $5 a month on it, or .0045cent per stream. If everyone here bought that song, we'd make in one day what we've made on the song in 4.5 years.
- Middlemen: distributors, aggregators, services take a cut before you get your fraction of a cent
- Exploitation: some promoters or venues expect you to play for exposure, leading to burnout
- Unpaid royalties: without publishing administration or management, indie artists miss out on royalties owed from public performances, music used in shows or youtube vids, or international plays
- Playlist gatekeeping: major labels are majority stakeholders in Spotify and other streaming platforms. They use their leverage to get their artists on the most powerful playlists. Indie artists have to hire PR firms or curators to even have a chance.
- Predatory marketing services: fake promoters, radio play, playlisters, press, bots for fake streams: we are swimming in emails like this and have no idea who is legit and who is a scam
- NFT/AI misuse: some platforms use indie artists' music for AI training without consent or compensation, basically teaching streaming platforms how to make AI-generated indie rock music.
It's overwhelming out there, and if you can't tell, we aren't entertainment industry business experts. We're just a buncha guys who love to make music that means something to us, to our friends, and to our fans.
Supporting us to make music independently:
- Enables us to make meaningful, authentic music in a way less stressful way
- Imprints you as an important part of our journey
- Supports underrepresented perspectives for how to measure success in art
- Invests in the local/DIY music and art scene, instead of just paying for corporate music
- Makes high art more accessible: funding ensures the music can be produced with quality and distributed widely, even if traditional industry backing isn’t available.
Helping local artists helps create a stronger community as a whole!
Thank you for your time :) and hey, if you can't afford to donate, you can still support by sharing our music, and playin' it LOUD
Organizer
