It’s easy to evangelize about how great the system is when you hold all of its gears in your pocket. Such is the case for ubiquitous producer and collector of pop stars Jack Antonoff, who, in addition to performing with his band Bleachers, has produced hits for Taylor Swift, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, The 1975, and many others. Put another way, Antonoff has created—or at least had a hand in—much of what we consider to be “the modern music scene” nowadays (at least for pop-heads). So, even if he’s kind of right, it’s still a bit of a bummer to hear him talk about how awesome it is—especially when so many others who aren’t so lucky have voiced extremely valid concerns over exploitation, safety and the TikTok of it all.
In a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon, the host praised Antonoff for getting “Cruel Summer” (which he co-wrote with Taylor Swift) to the top of the Billboard chart four whole years after its release. “I’m loving where the music business has gone,” he responded. “It’s just melted down into nothing but what people like. And you can talk your crap about this or that, but the fans are god. What they say goes.”
If the fans are god, then Antonoff is the chosen one. While we could debate whether or not this has rendered the industry an actual meritocracy, as Antonoff seems to be implying, he does go on to lend some important context. It used be that the process of choosing singles was a constant back and forth with record companies between that song that, for the artist, “if you cracked me open is my soul” and whatever the business side thought would resonate with people, he explained. This led to a constant tension for artists between wanting to stand by their vision for their own art, while also not breaking their contract or losing out on future opportunities.
“But [in] the new world, it’s just sort of over. It’s cooked,” he continued. “The idea of a single is just what’s the song that if you could get your friends in a room you’d play?” What happened with “Cruel Summer” is a “testament to that” because “with no one on the business side doing anything, kids started playing it more and more.” This is where this writer loses him a little bit. Sure, no one at the Swift’s label pushed the song but a gargantuan tour and multiple recordings for purchase sure did. It’s also hard to believe in the utopic vision of a truly fan-driven industry when multiple artists have come forward with stories of their labels pushing them into fabricating a viral moment on TikTok in order to boost a new release. While Antonoff insists that the industry is “in a fun place for just the work,” it’s clear that for most people not named Jack Antonoff, there’s still some ways to go. It is a pretty vision though.