The world, you’ve got concluded, can be a significantly better place if it have been listening to the songs and attending the performances of your favourite lesser-known indie band.

Whether you discovered this favourite musical act on a curated Spotify playlist or bought hooked when serendipity put you close to their stage at a music pageant, you wish to share these golden hooks and candy vocals with the entire world. These are your jams. You are a fan.

But with the music trade upended in the previous couple of a long time by the rise of MP3s and streaming, the pandemic shutdown of touring and live music, and now a future that might embrace AI-generated tunes, many musicians are struggling to make a residing. The pennies they earn from streaming companies mixed with live-gig ticket income, merchandise gross sales, and attainable promotional offers might barely cowl bills.

That’s the place the fandom is available in. Those who actually need the acts they like to succeed have a lot of methods to point out assist and ensure that the music continues and people creating it receives a commission. Here’s how one can be a greater fan. 

How to Support Musicians in Person

The most blatant approach to assist musicians is by shopping for their music, shopping for tickets to attend their exhibits, and paying for official merchandise.

But there’s some nuance to spending these {dollars}. For occasion, if you wish to purchase posters, T-shirts, and vinyl albums for a musician, the very best place to do this is straight, at a stay present, the place the artists could possibly pocket as a lot as 100% of merch desk gross sales. 

That’s preferable to purchasing from, say, Amazon, and even the band’s personal web site, the place transport and different charges would possibly apply, or printing and manufacturing prices might take a chunk out of the underside line (for them and for you). The value of shopping for at a present is likely to be greater, nevertheless it’s more likely these {dollars} will go to the musician, not the retailers and transport firms.

And in the event you purchase a T-shirt or hoodie, clearly, carrying it in public can elevate consciousness of the musician; it is free promoting for the artist.

Artists make a lot much less cash from music gross sales than they used to, however shopping for vinyl albums or CDs at a present nonetheless makes a distinction. You can stream your favourite artist all you need (we’ll discuss that in a bit), however buying bodily media is an efficient option to put cash of their pocket.

Some bands may also have a donation or tip jar on their web site or might supply crowdfunding campaigns for brand spanking new albums or excursions.

How to Support Artists Online

David Lowe, who performs as LUCKYKAT, has a great list of ways followers may help musicians, a few of them free of charge. Among his solutions are following artists on social media, tuning in to livestreams they might be doing on Twitch or different video companies, signing up for his or her mailing lists, fan golf equipment, or newsletters, and sharing and commenting on their songs and posts. The latter few of these may help increase the artist’s publicity and encourage more and more algorithmic social networks to point out their content material to different customers.

Streaming an act’s songs on companies like Spotify and Apple Music might generate solely a fraction of a fraction of a penny, however these streams do add up. It might only be a few hundred dollars for an act with an energetic fan base, however that is not nothing. So even in the event you personal their vinyl album and play it religiously, preserve these digital streams going, particularly while you’re on the go. Write evaluations or put up constructive feedback in locations the place that is an choice, akin to on YouTube or SoundCloud.