In 2010 I saw a great movie that went totally under most
people’s radars. Even I barely watched it, but caught the trailer and was
intrigued enough to put it on my Netflix list. Among the movie’s many strong
points was its soundtrack, which mixed ambient sound, classical music and
modern instruments, turning some scenes very cheeky and others downright
disturbing. I was excited to hear it over and over, to write to it, and to promote
it to others. This is how I respond when I like music.
I’ve spent the last two years trying and failing to buy this
soundtrack.
I won’t name the movie or its distributor because I don’t want to
single out its composer for derision, nor will I name that composer. The day after I saw the movie, I searched for the soundtrack
through Google, Amazon, and eventually tried iTunes and Youtube. I couldn’t
find it for sale or streaming anywhere. I even resorted to the forbidden areas
of the internet, without luck.
Figuring it had limited distribution (if any), I tracked
down the composer’s recording label. Their website was a post-modern mess, so
minimalistic that it took me what felt like an hour to find a contact feature.
They never messaged me back, but I did find the composer’s social networks. When
I discovered his Twitter account, I was elated.
He didn’t respond to any of my tweets, and I found that he’d
set his account to Private, so I couldn’t read anything he said. I sent him a
request to follow him.
It was 2011 before he accepted my request. In 2011, I still
hopped on the opportunity. I tweeted at him that I enjoyed the score very much,
and was there a way to buy it?
There was no response that day, week or month. A month
later, I tweeted at him again. I couldn’t DM him because he wasn’t following
me, but I didn’t mind that. It was also then that I noticed his account only
tweeted every few months, when his music showed up in something. At that point
there would be a single tweet, telling his hundred followers to go watch this
movie or show. Because his account was set to Private, no one except his hundred
followers ever saw this. It couldn’t show up in any keyword searches or
conversations. And never in his accounts history had he actually responded to
anyone about anything. He was unilaterally marketing to almost no one.
Within the last month I entered the most desperate and
stupid ploy. Seeing that he’d tweeted within the last three minutes, I sent him
one more @ message asking if his work might become available eventually. He’s
never replied to it. Good chance, he never will. And that's fine - it's clearly a lost cause, and I'll leave him alone.
Maybe he doesn’t know how Twitter works. Maybe he can’t get
the rights to sell the soundtrack and is too frustrated about it to talk to
potential consumers. Maybe he’s almost blind and can barely use screens, or
maybe he’s in a cult, or maybe he’s secretly a dog. I don’t know and I don’t
want to judge this individual, but to judge this public appearance.
Specifically, everyone: don’t do this.
Maybe you’re so busy that you can’t reply to every fan
comment, or you can’t check into social networks daily. That happens. But come
on, the least you can do is:
1) Don’t
hide your promotion.
2) Don’t
refuse to engage with people who need help buying your stuff.
Now ideally, there’d be a 3), and to me, 3) is the most
important.
3) Be
courteous to the people who like your art.
But I understand that 3) is tough for a lot of people
for a lot of reasons, and nobody can sustain that all of the time. Even the
nicest people have raw days. You’ll have a lot more, though, if you do the
above.
Counter est. March 2, 2008