04/12/2021
I don't often come on Facebook, but this was a personal milestone and wanted to share.
16 people is not very many people. In fact, I think a lot of artists would be reluctant to post a number like 16, but it's not 16 *plays*, it's 16 people who listened to my music *more* than *any* other artist.
More than all the great music in the world, the Trent Reznors and Brian Enos, the Arcade Fires and Father John Misty's, the frickin Pink Floyds and Gordon Lightfoots... beyond all of them my tracks ended up on their speakers more often?
It boggles my mind.
Very humbling.
"Polyphony" has had around 30,000 plays since it was released the week before Halloween, which is in and of itself remarkable to me. Small numbers in industry terms, but as someone who's toiled in indie obscurity for literally decades, to see more than a couple hundred plays on a track or album after a year is notable. In fact, Polyphony garnered more plays in the first couple of days that it was released than every single other song I'd ever recorded, combined.
Even as I'm writing this I glanced over at my phone that has the Spotify For Artists app on it and it says that there's 13 people listening RIGHT NOW. Another small number, but think about it: that's more than a dozen people, somewhere in the world, listening to something I made at this very moment.
They can't all be my mom.
To my indie artist friends who are wondering: playlists and blogs. You have got to get onto playlists and blogs. You can't just "release" a song and not promote it. Yes, I suck at promotion, most artists do. I am humble and hate to toot my own horn and that's why you gotta find the folks who will do it for you.
Tome To The Weather Machine wrote this very flattering review on their site. : https://tometotheweathermachine.com/blog/james-bethell-waves-upon-the-shore
Bloom/Pool added one of my tracks to a playlist with over 13K followers.
There's more. There's been 173 playlist adds so far and that's what made it bump like that. Small numbers in the big picture and to the big boys and girls in the industry, but it's far and away from the dozen or two plays IN TOTAL that I used to get.
So I am very humbly grateful to whoever you 16 are.
