Just Jaded Weekly

04/23/2021

Written By: Jade Zalevsky

Artist Rec Friday: Alexa Cappelli 

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Artist Rec Friday from Jaded Productions! Do you like artists such as Lennon Stella, Maggie Rogers, and Julia Michaels? Then you would love Alexa Cappelli! 

Alexa was a contestant on The Voice for their 14th season. While on the show, she performed “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Pray”, “It Hurt So Bad”, and my personal favorite cover of hers, “I’ve Got the Music in Me” (listen to this if you want to hear some insanely good runs). She received chair turns from Kelly Clarkson and Adam Levine, and chose Team Kelly. She was unfortunately eliminated in the Live Playoffs, but that did not stop Alexa Cappelli from continuing to chase her dream. 

Alexa has written and released a bunch of songs since her time on The Voice, and she has gained a lot of well deserved recognition. Some of her discography includes “Just Tell Me”, which is a slower song that you can definitely find me swaying to, “Forbidden”, which makes me want to roll down my car windows and scream sing it at midnight, and “I’ll Be Okay”. 

“I’ll Be Okay” really resonated with me because I also have an older sibling who had moved out before me, and it made me so nervous to do it myself, because I had the same fear of leaving the familiar life that I knew so well for something totally new. It was scary, and I think that message resonates with a lot of people, because mostly everyone is scared of change and leaving their home for the first time, but Alexa asks the question “what if I’ll be okay?”, which fuels the hopeful message. I wish I had known of this song when I graduated high school and left for college, so if that’s you, please go listen to it. Or if you’re leaving a familiar place or situation for something new, go listen as well. 

Her most recent song, “Can I Come Over?”, which came out on January 15th, 2021, is proof that this singer is not only amazingly talented vocally, but also has an ear for knowing when a song will be a hit! Her music video for “Can I Come Over?” (which has a super cute 80s vibe to it) has accumulated over 31,000 views! 

We’re so excited to hear what’s next from her! Hooray for Team Alexa Cappelli! 

New Music Monday: Sam Pearce

Our New Music Monday this week is Sam Pearce; an indie rock multi-instrumentalist from Boston who just released an album called Bay State. It has been one of my favorite albums since it dropped on April 16th, 2021. And even more impressive than this album is Sam himself.

Sam knew that he had caught the music bug at a very young age. He was making up songs about animals on the spot when he was 4 years old, and started writing structured songs when he was about 11 years old. The first album that Sam Pearce released was Swim Toward the Sun in 2008 by his high school/college band, Elephantom. His talents did not stop there, because on that album, he wrote, sang, and played guitar on one song, and played the trumpet on the rest! 

Bay State consists of 9 incredibly well-crafted songs, and all were written and recorded by Pearce himself. “Pangea”, “Happy Good Night”, “Only Kids In The Theater” were written in Brooklyn, NY, so if you love New York, you’ll love to know that this album has some NY influence! My favorite song on the album, “Dad’s New ‘92 Acura”, as well as three other songs on this album, were written in Milton, MA. “South Station” was written in Germany! 

If you love indie rock, or just amazing works of music, I would definitely recommend that you listen to Bay State, and all songs by Sam Pearce!

Music in the Streaming Age

Jade Zalevsky wrote about “Music in the Streaming Age” around October 2020. Check it out below!

Something often heard by the younger generation, such as myself, is "it's so cool that you all can listen to any music you want to hear, with the click of a button! In my day, we had to go to the record store", and then they proceed to ask you if you know what a record store is, and so on. Streaming has changed the way music is delivered to the consumer. It removed the record stores and physical copies from the equation and became a completely streamlined producer to consumer experience, especially in the social media world. Beside the obvious, which is that CDs and vinyls are virtually unneeded, how has streaming changed the music industry into what it is today, and the more important question, where is it going?

I've read a couple of interesting books and articles about streaming in 2020, most of which state that streaming was the best thing to happen in the music industry. However, there are some that fight back, saying that music was meant to be heard from a vinyl, not through headphones on your smart phone. I would have to agree with the streaming supporters (although the pops and scratches of a record are unmatched), from a business perspective, it makes more sense. When calculating how one CD sale equates to one stream, it would seem that CDs make more sense to sell, because one album CD sale equates to roughly 1,250 premium streams. However, the sheer volume of people that could be reached by social media promotion to stream an album, compared to advertising to a small amount of people without social media and trying to get them into the physical store to buy the album, is astronomical. It would allow for many more streams by each person, and if a single listener did enough streaming, would profit more than a one time purchase of a CD or vinyl. The potential to profit is bigger than ever before.

Along with reaching more listeners and profiting more, streaming has allowed for independent artists to be heard louder than ever before. Streaming services such as Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple Music enable a small, just starting artist to grow a fanbase and release music before a record label even steps into the equation. It has never been easier to start an account on Youtube or put music out on the aforementioned platforms, and grab the attention of a label. With streaming, finding a plethora of talented artists with potential just became as easy as logging into your phone and tapping the play button.

We've seen how streaming plays a role in the artists' lives from the business perspective, but what about the fans who do all of the listening? Speaking as an avid fan of many talented people, I cannot fathom what life would be like without streaming. I grew up with CDs and MP3 players, but right around the middle of my teenage years is when streaming blew up, and now I stream music every single day. With streaming, listeners gain access to music, not just when a CD player is available to them, but wherever their smartphone is (which from my experience, everyone has their smartphone on them all the time). This means ten times the listening, which means possibly more profit for the artists, which means more content from the artist, which inevitably means a stronger fanbase than ever before.

The combination of social media, allowing artists to connect to their fans at all times, streaming platforms being accessible to everyone, and that a stream never scratches or skips like a CD, has made streaming the most powerful tool in the music industry today. It will continue to influence the way that music is listened to by fans and released by labels and artists.

Thanks so much for reading! Follow @jaded.productions on instagram for more content!