Y’all, I hate being a store. Do you know that one of the only ways musicians make music in the modern era of (admittedly beautifully democratized home studio recording that has led to) a saturated market and the robber barons of streaming is to be a store? Do you know that Spotify pays out .003 cents per stream?But only after a song has reached 1,000 streams per year? Do you know that only 19% of the artists on the Spotify platform are reaching that milestone? That instead of banning AI slop music, artists can confirm they’re human—but only if they have over 10,000 monthly listeners? That they were found tweaking their algorithm to falsely promote music they had commissioned across their own playlists to redirect that wealth? That means 81% of the artists on Spotify are paid absolutely nothing even as Spotify raises membership prices and locks living artists out of more income. They also support AI military applications. Spotify literally kills people, artist income, and artistic endeavors of the human spirit.

I’m here to make music. I’d much rather you know how terrible streaming is for artist income* than sell stuff, and that support musicians directly, particularly by BUYING MUSIC.

But also, here’s some excellent loccally hand-crafted brass medallions/key chains. I wear mine as necklaces.

*yes, it’s more complicated than this, since artists can now be found by listeners around the world, and aren’t limited to the power dynamics of labels to get their music out. But even as an indie artist, I used to get cash in hand at live shows, both from attendance and from album sales. These are no longer super viable, as venues also close and more and more (wonderful!) artists hit distribution.