The next MBW Views op/ed comes from Matt Thomas (pictured inset under), a 30-year music trade veteran.
Thomas can also be co-founder of the trade charity Music Help and a Director of Attune, simply two of the organisations which assist and assist artists, people and firms within the music and related leisure industries.
Attune has not too long ago launched ‘The Pressing Response Information’, a free, interactive useful resource for artist-facing professionals experiencing something from a priority to a disaster. Thomas additionally co-presents ‘Empathy for the Satan’, a podcast that investigates historic case research of troubled artists and explores their lives via a bio-psycho-social lens inside their cultural contexts.
The opinions acknowledged on this piece are these of the author and don’t essentially symbolize the positions of MBW or Music Help.
Immediately, someplace on the planet, an artist is quietly, or loudly, falling aside in entrance of different individuals. And while we as an trade have the instruments and companies to forestall the disaster that may inevitably observe, these typically stay unknown or underused.
Certainly, subsequently, in an trade the place the idea of ‘responsibility of care’ is murky at greatest, all of us have a collective duty to create consciousness of the very actual options that exist already.
With that in thoughts, the more and more widespread items within the media that spotlight the issue however ignore the options have gotten an actual concern.
We’ve got seen a latest uptick of surprising documentaries and flicks concerning the darkish facet of fame and its related pressures, equivalent to Boybands Endlessly, I’m Tim, No Matter What, and Soiled Pop, that includes heartbreaking first-hand testimonies from individuals who had been kids after they had been ‘found’, in addition to the retrospective reportage documentaries about Liam Payne, Lil Peep and Amy Winehouse.
But whereas we seize the popcorn and watch these sensationalist tales, younger persons are nonetheless dying, regardless of us having extra assets and understanding than ever earlier than.
Individuals’s private ache shouldn’t merely grow to be watercooler moments to be dissected on social media; we shouldn’t be treating them as a Netflix and chill accompaniment to real-life tragedies.
They usually aren’t simply remoted incidents – they’re proof of an more and more urgent want for systematic assist and preventative motion throughout our trade.
The proof is true there on our screens, uncooked and simple – Robbie Williams laying naked the psychological devastation of high-profile movie star, younger males in boy bands struggling to manage within the international highlight with out enough assist programs, Avicii desperately searching for relaxation and recalibration whereas attempting to stability the calls for of his profession with tragic penalties, Lil Peep’s struggles with dependancy.
We watch these documentaries, share our ideas and prayers, after which – nothing modifications. The cycle continues.
Decade after decade, we’ve got watched younger performers face overwhelming stress with out enough safety. But these tales aren’t simply an archive; they’re a mirrored image of what’s nonetheless taking place proper now; in recording studios, tour buses, resort rooms and backstage areas around the globe.
It’s this ongoing sample that led us to create the “Empathy For The Satan” podcast, the place we retell the tales behind a few of these preventable tragedies from a contemporary psychological well being perspective – to not sensationalise, however to establish intervention factors that might save lives at the moment.
And right here’s what’s vital: We do have options. We’ve got charities equivalent to Music Help, MusiCares and Assist Musicians UK offering very important companies, report labels with in-house provision for artists and workers, and firms like Attune serving to music corporations fulfil their responsibility of care tasks.
We’ve got the data, the assets, and the potential to forestall these tragedies. But one way or the other, we’re nonetheless studying the identical headlines, nonetheless watching the identical tales unfold, and nonetheless pretending to be shocked when one other younger star reaches their breaking level.
Let’s be trustworthy about this: for a lot of, fame comes with profound psychological challenges that have to be acknowledged and addressed. We now have greater than sufficient proof of the struggles that happen underneath the cruel highlight, and the immense stress positioned on younger performers with out enough safety – too typically with no recognition or response to clear indicators of misery.
I write this piece from each private {and professional} expertise. As a main report label government affected by a mix of psychological well being points and dependancy, I used to be spiralling towards some extent of no return – till an artist supervisor took some compassionate motion that actually spoke to me.
The irony isn’t misplaced on me. In an trade the place we so typically speak about defending artists, it was an artist’s consultant whose form phrases in my storm of unacceptable behaviour led me to hunt assist. We’d like extra of this sort of human intervention, extra individuals keen to achieve out after they see somebody struggling.
We don’t want one other spherical of “ideas and prayers” or rigorously worded statements. We have to put the present set of instruments into the arms of those that could make a distinction.
The options exist – now we want motion from everybody in our trade.
To our leaders: please embrace and implement the assets already obtainable. Make top notch psychological well being assist as normal as a recording contract.
To the media who cowl our trade: please shift your focus from limitless tragedy protection to highlighting profitable interventions and supporting current options. Your platforms may stop deaths by guiding individuals to assist, somewhat than simply documenting when that assist arrived too late.
And to the followers who maintain our trade: your understanding of the human price behind fixed content material calls for creates a extra sustainable setting for the artists you admire.
Now that these highly effective documentaries supply us additional intimate glimpses into these artists’ emotional journeys, sharing their painful experiences first-hand or wanting on the tales of those that didn’t make it, we should always listen. Although we might not have the ability to assist those that’ve already suffered, we are able to use these insights to guard those that want it now, and people to come back.
As a result of proper now, we’re all simply ready for the subsequent headline, the subsequent “gone too quickly”, the subsequent spherical of soul-searching that may final precisely so long as we end our morning espresso – the subsequent very well-intentioned promise to “do higher” that quickly fades because the realities of breaking artists create a big cognitive dissonance.
In the meantime, someplace in a dressing room, a studio, or a tour bus, one other artist is falling to items in plain sight.
This isn’t simply an opinion piece. It’s a plea to make use of the assets we have already got, to implement the options we’ve already developed, to make actual change.
The instruments are there. The assist programs exist. Now it’s time to make sure everybody is aware of find out how to entry them, find out how to use them, and find out how to save lives.
Each life misplaced from this level ahead isn’t only a tragedy; it’s an indictment of the truth that we had the options however did not implement them successfully.
It’s time to vary that narrative.Music Enterprise Worldwide
