A few new readers and friends have been asking me about the Gallery Stage Mixtape we’re always talking about around here. “How does it fit into the overall vision of the re-launch of True Tunes?” “Why the constant promoting of it?” “What if I’m not on Spotify? Can you make the mix on Apple, or YouTube?” “Isn’t streaming bad for artists?”

All good questions. So here we go.

• This is designed to HELP artists in several very specific ways. In some ways, yes, streaming has been “bad for artists.” Streaming a song pays less than 1/100^th the amount of money to an artist than buying that song does. So, if a music fan shifts from buying the music they love to simply streaming it, that’s a bad deal for artists. But, most fans actually support artists that they love in a variety of ways. As streaming as proliferated, so has an increase in the sales of vinyl. Fans flood to buy merchandise from the artists they love, be that T-shirts, posters, totes, jewelry, or even CDs. Prior to the internet, the primary way people could discover new music was radio. And guess what? Radio doesn’t pay ANYTHING to artists! Songwriters make some money from radio, but not artists. So, streaming is actually a better deal for artists than radio in that respect – and for artists who can’t get on radio (which is, let’s face it, most of the good ones,) streaming represents a major opportunity. We do hope that you continue to support the artists you love in other ways.
• Discovering great music together builds community and deepens our connection to each other. Back when True Tunes was a record store people would come in to listen to music before they bought it. Some would call in and ask us to hold the phone up so they could hear what was playing over the speakers in the room. This weekly mix (and yes, there may end up being multiple genre lists in the future, but for now we’re blending it all into one mix) is our version of the music we played in the store, or between bands in the club, or on stage between bands at Cornerstone. This is the best way for us all to find new music to be excited about, and to be reminded about stuff we have loved over the years. Let it play while you’re working, or driving, or working out. You never know what you might hear.
• The more of us that listen, the better it can be for the artists we love. The streams add up faster than you might think. When you post this list to your Facebook wall, or stream it at work or church or home, the artists are getting paid. When you hear something you really dig, click the little heart by it and Spotify will start to learn your preferences. You might also want to create your own playlist and call it something like “My True Tunes Faves” – then regularly add your favorite discoveries to that list. If we can get 1,000 people following this one playlist, and each of us spins the list twice a week, that’s 2,000 spins for each artist right there. That will move the needle – especially for the indies.
• At this point the list is only on Spotify because, frankly, it takes a lot of time  to construct a 30-40 song list each week, and I simply can’t justify the time expense of replicating that for Amazon, Apple and the rest. Spotify is, by far, the largest and fastest growing of the services. If you are an avid fan of a different service, though, and would like to volunteer to help build a list on those services, let me know. If we can make this re-launch financially viable we will definitely consider playlisting on multiple services. (Just so you know, even if you don’t have a Spotify premium account, you can still create a free account and listen to the mix. You’ll just have to listen to ads.)
• Playlisting is central to the new True Tunes vision and is possibly essential if we are going to be successful. Social media has a way of making us feel more connected while actually fragmenting us into silos. Things like True Tunes and the Cornerstone Festival drew some of their power from the way they drew us together. It wasn’t that we each went to every festival and dialed up our own personal experience. The beauty was that we went in with certain expectations, but that we embraced the idea that we were going to brush up against something new and exciting and probably outside of our normal channel. Music has a way of helping a community develop a common language. Think of this mixtape as our radio station. If we all subscribe and listen, we’ll be building a powerful new vehicle for helping to launch NEW artists, and a way for veteran artists to stay relevant and viable long past what the “industry” says is their expiration date.

And if we are successful in this venture, and down the road we are able to do some in-person gatherings, this playlist will be an excellent way for us to find new voices to bring to our gatherings, and for to you become familiar with a chorus of new sounds you’ll be eager to hear in person. Consider this the tilling of some musical soil.

So if you haven’t already, click on over and “FOLLOW” the True Tunes Gallery Stage Mixtape. We update it every week. You might also consider following the massive True Tunes Playlist Archives – the list we copy each week’s list into. That list is now over 1500 songs long! That’s over 100 hours long! From Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Mutemath, with all points in between (or at least many of them.)

And YES – we take requests. If you have an idea please let me know. You can send a message through the website and it will come right to me. We have included numerous suggestions over the last few months and they have been awesome.

Thanks for listening! Stay TUNED!