October 2023 - The Unreasonable Silence

Every time someone well known or well loved dies and I see such a strong sentiment of loss, I’m reminded to learn about that person and find out why their lives were so impactful. Then I ask what would I leave behind? What is our own legacy and story, something that will mean a lot to more than a few people?.

Think about this carefully. Money won’t score here as it will only help an immediate few family members. Your property portfolio, your investments, your cars, the 100s of holidays you’ve enjoyed, the tons and gallons of food and drink you’ve consumed won’t be remembered. Neither will how many reps you did in the gym or how many cosmetic procedures you had done, although these might have been tools to help you achieve something that would be remembered.

Your legacy is what counts here and in particular, how your life touched someone elses. Raising and teaching your kids, the charity work you’ve done, the therapy work where you literally put someone’s life back on course, the people who’s lives you changed by just being here…and doing your thing. The music you made and left behind…The TV and films that you produced. This is the stuff transcends death and time.

What’s really fascinating to me about Matthew Perry’s story is not the drugs he took, nor the money he made, but that he put a Matthew Perry shaped dent into human culture, a legacy where his character will be remembered in a pantheon of TV entertainment. But also that despite his own considerable demons, he spent so much of his time helping others with the same issues as him.

If you are struggling for a meaning to life then your answer I think is presented by those who have given it a meaning. Some people think it’s just there to be enjoyed, some believe it’s a commitment to service or duty, but for me, I need to follow an urge to leave a positive mark. I’m not asking for Matthew Perry levels of recognition, that, as it was for him would be a curse, but just leaving a world that has benefitted from you being there is surely an amazing thing. I think we should try to put our time into that, because that surely means the most.

I’ve been recently reading about this concept of ‘Priming’ in relation to psychology, and how we all unconsciously respond to marketing around us. Priming is the idea that exposure to one stimulus may influence a response to a subsequent stimulus, without conscious guidance or intention. It has a particular relevance for any artist trying to get interest in their music because we are all ‘primed’ to take the most interest when our favourite artist releases anything new.

Imagine two artists presenting the exact same album, literally the same songs, same singer, same band, same audio. One is released by a high profile artist that we know, the second is released by a completely unknown artist. Each is given the exact same marketing budget, is promoted on the same platforms, with the same advertising copy. It will be no surprise that the high profile artist will enjoy much greater interest, and will generally receive more engagement. Less surprising is that they will also receive much more negative criticism… The reason for this is that the audience has been primed with an expectation of how that music should sound. The reality may not meet their expectations. There are other priming influences; People will respond generally when they know other people will respond, a rolling snowball of engagement fuelled by feedback from others… The signal to purchase will be much stronger because people are primed to respond to similar buying signals when others do the same. There is a reason that people buy more band merchandise at gigs, this is priming in action.

The unknown artist will present their same album to an empty room. Much like an exhibition stand at a sales conference, the lack of interest, will fail to create any more interest. With no existing priming information, there is no reason even to walk over and investigate, no reason to click the link and hear the music. When you understand that people need to be primed to act, the way the marketing world works starts make sense, why large organisations spend millions putting logos in weird places with seemingly no context about the product they are selling. They are seeding primes… At the mere mention of the artist name, will have a view of what we think about them. This dictates all our future responses to anything they have to sell or promote.

When the product comes, we will all respond..or not..

Making Sense of the Human Condition

Month: October 2023

What we should learn from celebrity deaths.

Why many new artists struggle to get anywhere with their music…