Thursday, November 04, 2021

Curating music in a socially responsible way

I am not doing well enough with my daily songs.

I know, I just wrote about realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect playlist and went over specific reasons why. Still, here we are in Native American Heritage Month and I just feel like I should be more ahead of the game.

I know I want to do daily songs by native artists all month, and for there to be a playlist by the end of it. I even know which songs should start and end both the month and the playlist.

Everything else just feels like I am throwing it out there, and have to because I haven't spent enough time reviewing. I was finishing Halloween and then I will need to start on Christmas right away, and then I want to have something special for February...

I may be at the point where I mentally know that perfection is not possible, but where I have not yet emotionally accepted it.

That does sound like me.

I think part of the pressure I put on myself is because these are two areas that are so important to me. 

I love music. I am comforted by it, excited by it, thrilled by it, and fascinated by it. I could find more applicable verbs if I tried. 

Music does not mean as much to me as equality, but they are not in competition. Music can help with that. I seek out artists from marginalized groups, and that is important to me both ethically and musically.

Early on in starting the reviews, I gave each opening act their own review. Sometimes if there wasn't a lot of information or two bands played short sets, I did combine, but the really solid rule is that it doesn't matter if they are local or touring or have been together for two months and will dissolve next month or they have been doing this for nine years and scraping by with day jobs or if they are famous:  I will listen. I will hunt up their web links. I will give them a shot. 

Bands are made of people and people matter

That "people matter" part might be why I have so much trouble with bigotry.

There remains that inconvenient fact that I do not have much of a platform. It is very questionable about whether the agonizing I do over the content I put out matters at all, but it does matter to me. I know, and I have thought deeply about it, and if it comes up at some point, then I will be ready.

And I still wish I were better organized/less tired/had started working on certain things sooner.

I don't necessarily wish I had a larger platform. If more people would be better, I don't think I would need one. For now, I think I am still gearing up for whatever comes next.

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