My Novel Has a Personal Backstory

I didn't recognize it at first, but my novel about a woman navigating the music industry has allowed me to exorcise some of the issues I have with music.

Music and I have a long history together. I might have even been in love with music in the womb, because some of my very first memories involve music in some way, either hearing a song on my mother's kitchen radio or listening to my dad whistling or singing a favorite tune. I'm not going to detail how much of my childhood was consumed by music, because it permeated my pores in every way imaginable, and that obsession carried on for decades.

When my preferred genre of music irrevocably changed, it felt like my best friend had betrayed me. (And I also had that happen to me.) Having been immersed in music for so long, I lived through its downturns, and I even had the mantra that the wheel always eventually comes full circle. Until it didn't.

So, I stopped listening. Banishing music from my life was akin to any other habit a person finally gives up; you don't think you can live without it, but in time you don't even think about it anymore.

I do have a Spotify subscription, but that, too, rarely gets used. I created a bunch of playlists of songs I really like, and they're all from past times. New music? I wouldn't begin to know where to look. It's not that I haven't given new music a halfhearted try, but everything I sampled was dull. There is an independent website I still visit every day (another habit, I guess) that promotes new music and generally accompanies its articles with the artist's music video. While the owner of the site raves about New Person, I scratch my head. Is he actually familiar with the good stuff? Because there's no comparison.

A variety of things went wrong in my industry's genre, and I touch on some of those things in the course of my novel, from the main character's perspective. It's fun to unburden myself that way. The main character gets signed to a record label (she didn't seek them out; they came to her) because the A&R guy is impressed with her originality. Once she moves to Nashville, though, the label proceeds to try to change her. They glam up her image, and they arrange for her to collaborate with the hot songwriting team in town, whose songs are putrid pop, but wildly successful. There is a scene in which she gets slotted in at the last minute for a big New Year's celebration, and she watches from the wings as the worst, least talented "singers", who rely on autotune and who have choreographed routines, receive raucous applause. The superstar she meets at that event even remarks that these entertainers are discovered on TikTok.

Yes, I got it all out of my system. Better than writing essays about it. 

The unexpected turns I wrote, though, surprised me. Call it wishful thinking. The MC somehow talks her label into letting her record the song she wrote her way, as opposed to the mishmash the songwriting duo had turned it into. And her track becomes moderately successful. The superstar who (it's later revealed) her record label of thirty years quietly lets go, is still a wildly successful concert draw, even while the label people denigrate her as old-fashioned behind her back. 

I guess there's a part of me that still wants people to understand what good music is, even though I'm not going to kid myself. Maybe this novel has allowed me to put the period on my musical sentence. 

I'm too old to lash out at personal betrayals; I'm more nuanced now. But this story is my tiny modicum of revenge.