What’s the point?

Now when most people ask, “what’s the point” they are throwing in the towel and writing the entire endeavor off as futile. That is not what I’m asking. I really want to know what people think the point is.

My attention has been directed to two Items posted on the interweb. I got this from an anonymous source (winks).

"If enough SL musicians submit CDs to http://hounddogradio.net (url pointless, the entire comment is no longer there) he'll do an SL Segment on the station. You must have product on the market".

Now I’m not going to dwell on how freaking pointless such a segment would be on some interweb radio station, but I will ask the question, what does PRODUCT have to with MUSIC?

Now I do have product available, but featuring my music on a radio show because I do have something to sell kind of misses the point. Lots of goobers on Second Life have stuff to sell. Most of it doesn’t sell because either it sucks, or they don’t market it right. But shouldn’t a radio show be interested in music that would be of value to the listener even if there was no product available?

Is music only serious if the artist seeks to be grist for the music industry mill? I don’t think so. But lots of people see it just that way. While I care very deeply about my music, I don’t care at all about the music industry.

The second post was in “Sweet SL Music”, a blog posted by a dear supporter of mine, Sweetmunster.

“What is really going to become of all the musicians here in sl? Is this a stepping stone to the big bad world of rl stardom or will it all become a little too comfortable? It is easy to lose sight of your initial goals here.”

This really got me thinking. Second Life fits in with my goals remarkably well. I play music for people that reaching in the real world would be prohibitively expensive. So many of my supporters live in either the UK or Europe that the odds of them ever finding my music without the aid Second Life are astronomically small.

I’ve seen a lot of very talented musicians in Second Life, and only a very select few could ever stand a hope in hell of becoming anything significant in a real world setting. But that is okay, you is what you am, and if your music finds an audience anywhere the musician is well served, music is well served and the people that enjoy that music are well served.

Frankly I’m a bit tired of people treating Second Life as some kind of inferior outlet for half assed music. Yeah, a lot of it is pretty bad, but some of it is quite good. I’m freaking brilliant, and I play on Second Life. The music is good or not so good because it either has or lacks merit. The setting is irrelevant to the quality of the music.

So what is the point? To have product available? To seek the approval of the “Music Biz”? To use Second Life as a stepping stone to REAL LIFE STARDOM? I can only really answer for myself. The point to me is to write great songs, play great shows and make great recordings. To reach the people I can reach and make a stab at wresting a few dollars out of the system along the way. I could do all this in “Real Life™” or Second life.

When all is said and done, the point is the music to me.