My favorite professor Michael Dahlén just got me a new word “happychondira”. More and more studies show that people are working harder and want to be the best in whatever they do. The problem is that it doesn’t make them happy. This is one of the reasons why they think millennials have so many more psychological problems than other generations. The explanation is that everything around us is perfect. You don’t want to eat mediocre ice cream, not when the perfect or the elite or the best ice cream in the world is there in the commercial around you.

This reflects you in all things. Suddenly you should have made the best choice for where you live, and what you study, and you need to have a perfect life that you can show off on Instagram. Of course, it’s impossible to give 100% on anything. Sorry, not even on music. You can’t play the whole day you have to eat, go to the bathroom, and pay your taxes. In reality, it’s just plain stupid to try to do anything 100% even more stupid than we do today to do it 200%. In our pursuit to be perfect and have a perfect life, we suffer from happychondira. It’s actually better to do something mediocre, doing something on a 70% level.

The truth is that we are heading there in the music industry. Today cheating of the streaming numbers means that you are competing with bots listening. Doesn’t matter how good songs you write or how good you work on your instrument. It will always be someone that not even mediocre will get their songs into the algorithm. The top chart is just dead, it doesn’t show what people really listen to. This reality we have known for a long time in the music industry. Now though it leaks out to the masses in a different way. People that are not so into it will know that the top chart is not there. Suddenly it will be more cool to the music that their friends listen to. We will get artists to be big in bubbles.

That will reflect how we consume music in the live industry. Suddenly Dead Kennedy was right in the song “Pull My Strings”. We won’t see those gigantic shows since each artist is just big in their own bubble. Like another professor said, Talyor Swift is the last mega artist.

The new shows will be more mediocre, instead, the songs and the music have to have a meaning. The new rule of music materialism is probably on its way out. If you wonder what music materialism is check out this clip with Bill Maher. In reality all the songs today reflect happychondiria, to be honest, no one cares where you bought your sweater.

I get this also around the showcase. I got a call from one of our interns who was almost crying because of all the things the artists demanded of their stage riders. Some of them were written like they were Kiss on a tour of mega stadiums, six bottles of wine, dressing rooms, and three hours of soundcheck. Sorry, this is a showcase festival. Here we want to see if you can handle a mediocre stage. If you can do that then you might be able to handle the big stages. If you need six bottles of wine and a six feet high stage to drool over your payola, you might think again. You are not ready to be an artist. Get back to flip burgers on Mickey D.

My new advice is to try to master the mediocre. Playing on Eurovision is not hard. Everything is so put together that even a person who has zero talent can be on. That you can’t do on a mediocre stage. That stage will show the cracks. You need to be a master of that to be able to build your fan base. That your name spreads into different bubbles and you get a loyal fanbase. You might not be Taylor Swift but you will be able to live on your music and have a voice to tell your mind.

No one mourns when you die

No one should miss what you do

No one wants to know where you bought your sweatshirt.