“The Joy of Music” by Stephen Babcock
I was 15 years old when I first started writing songs. Back then, I was playing drums in a middle school pop-punk bad (queue *cringe face *) but was longing to express myself more in the music I was playing. It could have been the onset of teenage hormones, the fact I was addicted to “Room for Squares” by John Mayer, or the fact that I watched more 90’s rom-coms than any 15 year old should, but I was drawn to expressing my life through music and songwriting.
I picked up my first guitar (a Fender Stratocaster), learned my first four chords (C, G, F, Am), and away I went. In my first week I had written, not one, but THREE SONGS! I couldn’t believe the power and excitement I felt at my fingertips. Over the next few years, I wrote at every chance I could and played a monthly show at a local coffee shop in my small Upstate New York town. Music for me was full of joy and potential. I would look at concert videos every night (queue clip montage from John Mayer’s “Any Given Thursday”) and see myself on stage. I felt I was that artist. When people say “I found my calling in life”, I was proud to say I found mine at 15 years old.
At 17, I applied and was accepted to a music business program at a large private University in New York State. I was excited to say the least, but what I realized shortly after moving in was; most people in the music industry lacked that joy and drive I always had toward music. Music had always energized me. It made me a creative individual with a purpose to do more; a super power only other musicians secretly understood through head nods at shows or technical jargon. But as I met and spoke with people across the university, I realized music was a “means to an end” for so many people. Music was a commodity, not an art, and it was to be sold to highest bidder.
In the years during and following college, I watched music transform through MySpace, to Facebook, to Instagram, and Tik Tok. From CDs, to Napster, to iTunes downloads, and Spotify streams. These were seasons of change and commercialization that were beyond anything I knew as that 15 year old kid. I saw so many of my classmates and friends begin working on or with music that lacked the inspiration I always thought music contained. I watched the friends I had who were also artists slowly drift away from music and lean into different careers and trajectories; settling into the drudge of day to day life. I’ll be honest; it destroyed me. I was living in New York City, pursing a dream around a group of individuals where people either didn’t care or lost the joy that made music a passion in the first place. Slowly music lost its soul and it was obvious. No longer did anyone care about an artist and their story, but if the song could get “100,000 streams on release day”. What’s worse is you could see musicians and artists lean into that too.
It’s been 15 years since I first picked up a guitar and strummed those four chords. Since then I’ve travelled the world, played thousands of shows and toured across the US. I’ve had the privilege to befriend an endless array of musicians, been in writer’s rooms in Nashville, and spoken to labels all over LA. I’ve released countless songs, and most of all, never let the dream of being a working musician and songwriter fade away. But the one thing I haven’t seen in those 15 years is the “joy” I remember music had back then. Music will always be important and will always be what makes life worth living, but I really miss that special, exciting, wonderful “joy”.
The industry has always been clouded with “if you’re not famous, you’re not worth my time” rhetoric. The “what are you doing for me lately” and “We’ll be in touch!” mentality never stops being a drag. At the end of the day, all of that said, I’m just an artist looking for that joy to find its way back into what makes music (and this industry), so special. To find artists and musicians who also value that feeling as much as I do. Until then, does anyone still have a DVD copy of “Any Given Thursday” I can borrow?
-Stephen Babcock