Whenever we have the chance to interview artists for our music blog, we always ask what impact the pandemic had on their career and their music-making. The answer is always pretty positive. In fact, for the majority of them, Lockdown was a creative blessing. The world stopped and made it possible to focus on what they really wanted - without getting lost in the whirlwind of everyday life. Of course, it came with a series of general challenges, including solitude, uncertainty, and anxiety, but it also gave everyone time; time to stop, reflect, and invest personal resources into songwriting and producing.
This is pretty interesting from the perspective of music curators (like us) because many of the projects we get sent today are actually a direct product of the pandemic-induced free time. We could perhaps call it the pandemic effect.
It is a giant silver lining to a global catastrophe, isn’t it? One that you would not necessarily expect.
On a bigger scale, we can identify two main takeaways:
- Creatives are everywhere, and art is enjoyed by many, with time and money being the main constraints.
- Public funding for the art field is tremendously needed, especially to level the playing field in relation to time, income and background.
We have recently interviewed indie newcomer ear candy, who - when asked about the last couple of years - shared with us: “In all honesty, aside from the lack of gigs and life experience, nothing too crazy. It's been a great period of time to reset my brain, craft my sound and my brand and goals and work towards putting them into action. That, coupled with the stress-free songwriting time, has honestly been magical”.
Lo-fi hero Common 2 had a more heartfelt answer: “Honestly, the pandemic is the reason I'm here. I spent several years working jobs I didn't like and spending most of my limited free time at bars. Musically, all I had going for me was the bands I played drums in. March of 2020 completely changed all that and suddenly I was holed up in my apartment for months, basically spending all day every day working on music. It was the shock to the system I needed to get out of a cycle that was killing my creativity.”
That said, we do need to keep in mind data we do not have about people that were instead forced to stop making music, because of the financial struggle that comes with unemployment.
