The next MBW Views op/ed comes from Matt Thomas (pictured inset under), a 30-year music business veteran.
Thomas can also be co-founder of the business charity Music Assist and a Director of Attune, simply two of the organisations which assist and help artists, people and corporations 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 said on this piece are these of the author and don’t essentially characterize the positions of MBW or Music Assist.
At present, someplace on this planet, an artist is quietly, or loudly, falling aside in entrance of different folks. And while we as an business have the instruments and companies to stop the disaster that may inevitably observe, these typically stay unknown or underused.
Certainly, due to this fact, in an business the place the idea of ‘obligation of care’ is murky at finest, 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 now have seen a current uptick of surprising documentaries and films concerning the darkish aspect of fame and its related pressures, similar to Boybands Perpetually, I’m Tim, No Matter What, and Soiled Pop, that includes heartbreaking first-hand testimonies from individuals who have been youngsters once they have 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 individuals are nonetheless dying, regardless of us having extra assets and understanding than ever earlier than.
Folks’s private ache shouldn’t merely develop into 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 help and preventative motion throughout our business.
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 world highlight with out enough help programs, Avicii desperately looking for relaxation and recalibration whereas making an attempt to steadiness 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 strain with out enough safety. But these tales aren’t simply an archive; they’re a mirrored image of what’s nonetheless occurring proper now; in recording studios, tour buses, lodge rooms and backstage areas world wide.
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 would save lives right now.
And right here’s what’s necessary: We do have options. We now have charities similar to Music Assist, MusiCares and Assist Musicians UK offering important companies, report labels with in-house provision for artists and workers, and corporations like Attune serving to music firms fulfil their obligation of care obligations.
We now have the information, the assets, and the aptitude to stop these tragedies. But someway, 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 should be acknowledged and addressed. We now have greater than sufficient proof of the struggles that happen underneath the tough highlight, and the immense strain 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 govt affected by a mix of psychological well being points and dependancy, I used to be spiralling towards a degree 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 business the place we so typically speak about defending artists, it was an artist’s consultant whose sort phrases in my storm of unacceptable behaviour led me to hunt assist. We’d like extra of this sort of human intervention, extra folks keen to achieve out once 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’d like motion from everybody in our business.
To our leaders: please embrace and implement the assets already accessible. Make top notch psychological well being help as commonplace as a recording contract.
To the media who cowl our business: please shift your focus from countless tragedy protection to highlighting profitable interventions and supporting present options. Your platforms may forestall deaths by guiding folks to assist, slightly than simply documenting when that assist arrived too late.
And to the followers who maintain our business: your understanding of the human value behind fixed content material calls for creates a extra sustainable atmosphere for the artists you admire.
Now that these highly effective documentaries provide 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 be capable to assist those that’ve already suffered, we are able to use these insights to guard those that want it now, and people to return.
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 major 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 help programs exist. Now it’s time to make sure everybody is aware of the way to entry them, the way to use them, and the way 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 alter that narrative.Music Enterprise Worldwide
