The Dark Side of The Music Industry

Many, many artists have passed away over the years. There's Michael Jackson, Lil Peep, Whitney Houston, XXXTentacion and so many more. Death is just a part of life and no matter how important you are it is going to happen at some point. So, when this factor of life comes to someone with a tremendous amount of popularity, it's always a very serious event in the world. When Michael Jackson died the whole world was in shock and a lot of people didn't even want to accept that he had passed away. And do you know who especially doesn't wanna accept when an artist dies? Their fucking label!

That was a pretty solid segway if you ask me.

It's not a secret that musicians/artists make a lot of money and when they are signed to a record label then they make even more money as well as make the label money. And it is also not a secret that most corporations fucking love money. Jeff Bezos has the most money of anyone in the world and yet Amazon cut medical benefits for a lot of employees. So, when an artist is booming and making their label so much money, the last thing that label wants is to lose their cash cow.

Usually when an artist signs their contract with their label they come to a specific agreement regarding the amount of music they'll be making for how much money they'll be receiving in a certain amount of time. For example; recently, 6ix9ine signed a record deal to release two albums for ten million dollars. Which is a really fucking big deal! But what would happen if an artist signed their deal worth millions of dollars and then died? Well, their label still has the rights to the artist's projects. And they have the power to do whatever they please. And as I said, the corporation does not want to lose this incredible cash cow. They are going to grasp at straws and beat the dead horse.

I just used way too many metaphors.

And now, I am going to start naming certain artists. There actually are a handful of artists who have been treated with a lot of respect and aren't being used for money. Example; Mac Miller died in September of 2018 and the only thing the label has done with his name is release his album that was already gonna come out anyway. Freddie Mercury from the band; Queen has definitely made quite a bit of money for multiple labels since his death but all-in-all has been treated pretty well.

But of course, there are quite a bit of artists that haven't received the most respect in the world. And I'm sure you can immediately think of a few.

One of the biggest ones to mention has to be Lil Peep. Lil Peep died of an overdose in November of 2017 and truthfully at first the label was fairly respectful. His team only released an album that was already finished as well as a couple prerecorded music videos. But recently, on November 15, 2019 Lil Peep's third album came out. It was titled "Everybody's Everything" and it was a combination of older classics and some unreleased songs. And in my opinion, it was awful. I've heard many die-hard Peep fans say that it was a big disappointment and that it wasn't what Lil Peep would've wanted. And I, genuinely, thought it was bland, unfinished, pointless and pathetic. One of the songs called "PRINCESS" was basically just four minutes of nothing. I kept expecting a beat drop or to hear some development but it was insanely bland. It was so clear that this didn't need to be released. At the end of October, 2019, three unreleased Lil Peep songs were released in an EP called "Goth Angel Sinner." So, I don't understand why they didn't just put the good, unreleased songs in that short EP. "Everybody's Everything" was an easy cash-grab and it just wasn't fair that it was released while Peep couldn't have an input.

My final reason why Lil Peep has been disrespected is a good segway into my next topic. In September of 2018, a song by Lil Peep called "Falling Down" was released as a single. And that song featured XXXTentacion. I, personally, love XXXTentacion a lot and I actually really enjoy the song. But Lil Peep famously hated the guy. XXXTentacion was accused of abuse by his girlfriend and Peep very much believed it. Which, to him, was enough of a reason to hate him. And regardless of my opinion on these artists and the song, it is disgusting that the label would put XXXTentacion on the track as a feature when Peep would've hated that. It's unfair and gross to me.

But anyway, my final talking point might be the most unfair thing the music industry has done to an artist. XXXTentacion died at twenty, on June 18, 2018.

Love him or hate him, he did not deserve to die. I'm going to go heavily into detail on why the way X has been treated after death his such bullshit.

Since birth X lived a rough life. He was raised by his single, poor mother and often lived with his grandmother and other relatives. His mother was young and definitely struggled to raise her child. Not to mention how terrible their living conditions were. XXXTentacion really wanted the love and attention of his mother and to live like a regular kid but it just could not happen. With this pain, X became quite aggressive. He fought a lot in school and acted out because he had no real way to relieve the pain. So, he had gotten kicked out of multiple schools and faced many punishments. He tend to gain more pain with his untreated pain and it was a very hard cycle for him to go through. As he grew up, nothing really changed so, when he'd act out his punishment would be much worse. XXXTentacion had gone to jail multiple times as a teenager. Over the years he had faced so much pain but when he got out of jail again in 2017, that's when the real change started. X tried really hard to get better and be happier. He has done so much charity work and has spread so much positivity regardless of everything bad that has happened. And as things started getting better X started to see the light. But in June of 2018, he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. He got run up on in his car and was shot in the back. He died that same day. XXXTentacion had lived his whole life not wanting to be alive. And when he started to get better he lost his life in the blink of an eye. What happened that day was insanely unfair and should've never happened.

I'm sorry if I ranted too long but to me, this is nothing less than a tragedy. So, after all that happens, how does the label treat him? 

Terribly.

Before XXXTentacion died, he had already planned his albums; SKINS and Bad Vibes Forever. So, those were a part of his contract. Therefore, I can totally understand why those songs and albums are going to come out. It makes sense because it was a part of the deal and the label does still need to go off of that deal. But can somebody tell me what the hell is up with the features? There are many, many features that are going to be on Bad Vibes Forever. But who's idea was this? I can understand some of them but not all. Blink-182 is going to be on a track and that makes sense because XXXTentacion loved that band, so, I don't see that as disrespectful. But Lil Nas X, an artist who didn't even get popular until long after X died, is going to be on the album! That's stupid and it's obvious that they just want more minutes on the song as well as bigger names on the album to get more attention and more money. That, I think is sick and ridiculous.

But that's not all of it. Earlier this year the label released a deluxe version of X's album; ? which made no sense. The whole thing was made up of; the original songs, the instrumentals of those songs, songs from 2017 and voice memos to the original songs! This deluxe album did not need to exist. If it was released around the same time as the original album as a small bonus, that would've been fine. But to release it over a year later and to make it seem like a big deal was just idiotic and disrespectful. ? was easily X's biggest album and they just wanted to earn some extra money before Bad Vibes Forever came out. To me, it's just evil.

I have one final point to make but I'm gonna keep it brief. On June 18, 2019, a video was released on the official XXXTentacion YouTube channel. This was the big announcement for the one year since his death. A trailer for an XXXTentacion documentary was released. And the full film has not come out yet but I'm gonna bet that it's gonna suck. With everything that has already been done to his name, I refuse to believe that this project will be treated with any care. It's probably just another way to get money off of this artist's name. Which sucks so fucking much!

Obviously the music industry is massive and there is so much light in it but there is definitely a lot of problems and darkness inside of it. This was just my opinion on a few artists and problems that obviously don't affect everyone but it does exist. So, I just wanna say "rest in peace" to XXXTentacion, Lil Peep and many more brilliant artists.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to give me your thoughts you can comment (using FaceBook) or tweet me @TheDark1saac!