Golden Shoals (Amy Alvey and Mark Kilianski) have continually proven their ability to craft compelling narratives through their music, and “Bitter” is no exception. Written from the perspective of a struggling musician finally throwing in the towel, it projects the career-pivot ideation that
fiddler/songwriter Amy Alvey was experiencing in July 2020. The song’s
emotive depth is further heightened by the collaboration between Alvey and Nashville’s own Rachel Baiman, a rising star in the folk music scene known for her evocative lyrics and captivating melodies.
Its genesis was a direct response to an article published by “Music Ally” who conducted an interview with Daniel Eck, the founder and CEO of Spotify. Eck shared his thoughts about the future of music and streaming, which he said: “You can’t record music once every three to four years and think that’s going to be enough. The artists today that are making it realize it’s about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in ...”
“This attitude of treating songs like a monthly ‘content creation’ for online
engagement is at odds for those of us that practice songwriting as a craft,” asserts Alvey. “Having the CEO tell me I have to play by his rules to ‘make it big’...ensuring he gets rich off of the algorithmic hamster wheel...well, I resent that.”
Verse 2 of “Bitter” explicitly acknowledges Daniel Eck:
“ I had a vision, a kind of religion/What makes life worth living should pay/But I found no reason, nothing to believe in/Just men getting rich in my shade”. Honest jabs at other aspects of the music industry also appear in the song, including the unpredictable and costly investment of PR campaigns mentioned in Verse 3: “Once it was written, the machine had grown smitten/Rolling Stone said that I would go far/But the dog still needs feeding and with ends hardly meeting/I stopped counting on my lucky stars”.
“Bitter” captures the complexities of artistry, hinting all the while at the
vicious cycle of a music star rising to burning out. “People assume that if you play music for a living, then you’re doing what you love, and you should be happy with that. Spotify only pays artists $0.004 per stream, which is hardly sustainable to make a living. If artists don’t feel valued then they’ll stop creating. I highly recommend everyone check out the organization UMAW (United Musicians and Allied Workers,
weareumaw.org ) and follow their advocacy work for compensating artists more fairly.
from
Bitter,
released September 13, 2023
Amy Alvey - guitar, fiddle, vocals
Mark Kilianski - banjo, vocals
Miss Tess - bass
Jamie Dick - drums, percussion
Thomas Bryan Eaton - pedal steel, piano, vocals
Produced by Thomas Bryan Eaton, Amy Alvey, Mark Kilianski
Written by Amy Alvey and Rachel Baiman (ASCAP)
Photo by Kaitlyn Raitz, design by Amy Alvey
