I have a new album coming out soon, but I’m not going to release it through the usual channels: No streaming services, not even Bandcamp. 

This decision is partially influenced by a book that my friend Wayne Brew loaned me about the social history of cassettes and their place in music. The author, Rob Drew, makes the point that mixtapes represent a gift, a means of sharing music that isn’t widely available. 

The problem with music today is that everything is available everywhere all the time, so nothing is special and nothing matters. That may be an overstatement, but the result of the omnipresence of music is that it’s all out there at once, and the streaming services know it and remind musicians of the fact all the time so that they can sell services that will improve the artist’s odds of standing out in the crowd. 

Take Spotify, for example: billions of songs, all free, more or less. They know it, and they also know the artist knows it. And because it’s a marketplace, they know that the artist wants to stand out because the rules of the game dictate that every artist always needs to be moving on to the so-called “next level.” 

So they sell the artist a promotional package that will put the artist’s music in front of more potential listeners. And I imagine there’s always another level, another goal, another package available for just a few dollars more. In any case, it’s a game I don’t want to play.

The unquestioned assumption, I suppose, is that everyone wants to make money at whatever they’re doing — that everyone subscribes to the idea that we’re all brands, that we’re all mini entrepreneurs, that we’re always trying to grow our businesses. It’s the grand myth of both capitalism and the internet: We’re all here to make a buck. 

This myth, moreover, turns everything into a commodity, something with a price tag. Do you like drawing? Do you like baking? Do you like running? Do you like music? Do you like electric trains? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you, too, could turn your passion into a side hustle. All you need to do is figure out how to configure the thing you love to a format that will appeal to the greatest number of people, and you’ll be set for life. 

Or until everyone’s tastes change. Which is probably yesterday, so you’re going to need to keep up with all the latest trends and jump on every bandwagon that comes along. But don’t worry. It’s all algorithmic. All you need to do is figure out what the algorithms are pushing on any given week and just do your version of that. 

And if you’re not sure you’re up for the challenge, don’t worry. Now we have generative artificial intelligence, which takes the guesswork out of gaming the algorithm. How, you might ask? Because it is the algorithm. Just tell your favorite AI agent what you want, and you’ll have something to sell in no time. Best of all, it will sound like a really polished version of everything that’s already out there. 

Or you can say fuck that shit and do whatever you want. 

Personally, I’m going with Plan B.

Which brings us back to cassettes. Kind of. Cassettes were (and continue to be) clunky and inconvenient: Tapes got twisted and tangled. Skipping ahead to a particular song was an exercise in precision and patience. The sound quality wasn’t always great. In short, although passing tapes along hand-to-hand was a cool way of sharing underground music, it came with some drawbacks. 

Likewise, the method I’ve chosen for sharing my music comes with its own drawbacks: I’m putting the album in a Dropbox folder and sending anyone who might be interested a link. The music files are all MP3s, and there’s also a set of liner notes I saved as a PDF. If you get the link, you need to download the files to your phone or computer where they’ll take up space, and you’ll need to play them on a player like iTunes (assuming it still exists). 

I understand that it’s also possible to upload files to music platforms like Spotify for personal use, so you can, in theory, download the songs, then upload them to your favorite streaming service and include them on playlists and whatnot if that’s what you want to do. Sounds like a pain in the ass to me, but if you really want to listen to the album on Spotify, all I’m saying is that it’s an option.

All of this is to say that we all might appreciate music a little more if we had to put some effort into getting it or if it’s a little harder to find. In the near future, I’ll be sending out links to a handful of people who I think will find something to enjoy in my new album. If they’re so inclined, they’ll give it a listen. 

And with any luck, if they hear something they like, they’ll pass it along (either as an MP3 to an individual song or a link to the full album) to someone else who might like it, and so on and so on. Ideally, this mode of sharing will give the music some degree of special meaning; by sharing it, you’re essentially saying, “Here’s something you can’t get everywhere, but I think you’ll like it.” 

So while the album will be free to share, it won’t be without value. The only catch is that the value isn’t monetary. 

It’s personal.