Nathan Evans on the edge of glory

The music industry has been hit hard by the global pandemic, but it appears there’s still hope for emerging artists. And this time, we’re not talking about YouTube. This is 2021: everything new happens on TikTok.

Just a few days ago, the young Nathan Evans was still a struggling (or starving) artist, like millions (billions?) of others. He was already doing music, but had to post letters in order to… well, survive. Isn’t it common, especially for all our Californian readers?

Ed Sheeran has not (yet) joined Evans on his TikTok sea shanties series, but his future could look bright, actually. Since the postman has signed a deal with Polydor records, everything seems possible. But will it last?

The music industry is not doing well, and that was already the case before COVID-19. Streaming revenues are thin for most artists, and aside from super-big players, entertainers often need to create ventures to genuinely “live their dreams” in the long run. And for the smaller talents, having a regular job is most of the time absolutely essential, unless their family can fund recording sessions and video productions during several years, before a possible success.

On the edge of glory… for how long?

So we should be careful about the new Nathan Evans effect, which makes young people think they can become a superstar overnight, without too much effort. That could happen, in fact, when labels and music stores had their pocket full of money. Nowadays, even if streaming is driving music’s growth -which is great-, live music has suffered terribly and no one really knows when tours will be back.

Moreover, quick or immediate success is not always a good sign. Hundreds of musicians like Evans emerged the last ten or twenty years, and only a few survived after a couple of albums. Even when they were undoubtedly talented.

Still, it does bring hope, and a bit of joy, in our extremely troubled world. For this, we can thank Nathan.

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