In a sea of superficial gear reviews, Benn Jordan cuts through the noise at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show with a radical pivot: the most important story isn't the new synthesizer, but the economic reality facing the people who make music. Jordan reframes the annual industry spectacle not as a consumer fair, but as a pressure cooker where the tension between creative passion and financial survival is laid bare.
The Myth of the Grind
Jordan's commentary begins by dismantling the romanticized narrative of the struggling artist. While the show floor is filled with shiny new hardware, Jordan zeroes in on the human cost of the "hustle culture" that pervades the industry. As Benn Jordan puts it, "the general like you gotta you gotta appeal to this person to to move further up or like acting like there's this linear path to take like there's this ladder you have to climb." This observation strikes at the heart of a predatory ecosystem where aspiring musicians are sold a false promise of upward mobility through expensive services.
The author identifies specific industry mechanisms that exploit this desperation, noting that "pay to pitch and pay to play and all that crap... is really just a massive business scheme that rips off musicians." Jordan goes so far as to describe one such service, TAXI, as "very cultish," highlighting the psychological grip these organizations hold on creatives. This framing is effective because it shifts the blame from the individual's lack of success to the structural barriers erected by gatekeepers. Critics might argue that networking services have legitimate value for some, but Jordan's experience of needing to "consult a lawyer" to avoid defamation lawsuits suggests a power imbalance that goes far beyond standard business friction.
"The myth of grind culture or hustle culture as it applies to music... just that mere act of working hard makes you a better musician and human."
Jordan argues that the industry's obsession with volume over strategy is dangerous. The core of the argument is that "you don't want to burn out you want to practice smart." This distinction is crucial for a generation of creators told that suffering is a prerequisite for art. By challenging the idea that "working hard makes you like just that mere act of working hard makes you a better musician," Jordan offers a necessary corrective to the toxic productivity that often plagues creative fields.
Reclaiming Value in a Streaming Economy
The conversation shifts from the dangers of exploitation to the necessity of self-valuation. Jordan tackles the devaluation of music in the digital age, specifically pointing to the stark reality of streaming payouts. "Spotify dropped the payment per stream by about 60 and if that happened at mcdonald's you'd walk out of mcdonald's," Jordan writes, using a relatable analogy to illustrate the absurdity of current compensation models. This comparison is powerful because it strips away the artistic mystique and forces a purely economic comparison that the industry cannot easily dismiss.
The author's advice for emerging artists is blunt and uncompromising: "don't work without getting paid." Jordan elaborates that "your value you set your own value yourself," warning against the competitive trap where musicians devalue their own work to gain an edge. The logic here is sound: "if you value yourself higher you usually get chosen and you get paid just in general." This challenges the pervasive belief that exposure is a valid currency, a notion that Jordan rightly identifies as a mechanism that keeps artists in a state of financial precarity.
Beyond the Gear: Community and Failure
While the show floor is obsessed with the latest technology, Jordan's most poignant moments come from discussing the human elements of music-making. When asked for advice in five words or less, Jordan suggests, "fear nothing try everything," and later expands on the idea that "a lot of the most successful people i've met in this just fail upwards." This perspective reframes failure not as a dead end, but as an essential part of the creative process. The author notes that "most of it will be garbage but every once in a while there's like the good garbage piece," a charmingly honest assessment of the creative output required to find something truly original.
Perhaps the most significant shift in Jordan's commentary is the move from individual achievement to communal connection. The advice to "make music with and for people" serves as a counter-narrative to the isolation often felt in the digital age. Jordan argues that "music is the most meaningful if we're making it with people and for other people," suggesting that the purpose of art is service rather than self-aggrandizement. This is a vital reminder in an industry often driven by vanity metrics and personal branding.
"You can still make music if it's just yourself but if it's really truly in service of other people a community even if it's just for other musicians i think that's very important."
Bottom Line
Benn Jordan's coverage succeeds by ignoring the shiny objects on the NAMM floor to focus on the structural inequities facing musicians. The strongest part of this argument is its unflinching critique of the "hustle culture" that exploits artists' passion, offering a clear path toward self-advocacy and community building. The biggest vulnerability lies in the difficulty of executing this advice in a market that has been conditioned to expect free content, but the clarity of Jordan's vision provides a necessary roadmap for the future of the industry.