Awareness Through Art & Music That Matters
Music matters. The lyrics that connect us are more meaningful than ever. Not just music, but all creative and artistic avenues - writing, paintings, fashion, it all is a form of expression that brings us together even when we are apart. A lot of the quarantine art is being used as a platform to raise awareness and money in support of various COVID-19 relief efforts. I am going to highlight a few of my favorite Quarantine related songs and projects that deserve mentioning for the action they inspire, the comfort they provide, and the sense of community they foster when we all connect and support each other in these new ways.
You can’t get more timely of a song than the JP Saxe and Julia Michaels collaboration If The World Was Ending. The main sentiment summed up in one line: if the world was ending you’d come over right? During these isolating times who is the important person you would want to be stuck with? Since so many of us can only be together virtually in a zoom call, JP and Julia actually asked their artist friends to do a massive zoom cover of the song in support of Doctors without Borders.
It is amazing the technology artists are able to use to still produce high quality art even when they can’t be in the same room with their whole crew and producers, and for some bands can’t even be in the same room with one another! Normal Instagram lives and Facetimes have lags that add technical difficulties to recording a song in real time. If you are going to be quarantined with someone, such as a girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse and kids, no better time to recruit them for home production projects. This is what Twenty One Pilots did for their recent video for Level of Concern. The opening line- panic on the brain/the world has gone insane should be the tagline for the COVID-19 pandemic. The band-mates each filmed their individual parts of the song and put a flash-drive in the mailboxes as if they were physically mailing their parts to each other. Their quarantine partners, girlfriends, wives, and kids assisted in setting up backdrops and the lighting for the video segments. You wouldn’t have known there wasn’t a whole production crew behind the green screen if they didn’t show the family collaboration in the video. Anyway, the song is a bop and you need to watch the video and think who you would ask to be your little quarantine? After seeing this video I personally would pick my most creative and technically inclined friends!
Another song deemed the theme song of quarantine is Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber’s collaboration Stuck with U. The track is doing more than just filling our quarantine playlists because all sales and streams of the song support the First Responders Children’s foundation. The foundation funds grants and scholarships for kids of healthcare workers, EMTs, paramedics, police officers, and firefighters. Another home production video was made for this song where Ari, Bieber, and others are at home with the one they are stuck with. It is a cute tribute to the people we love and a great cause to say thank you to our heroes on the front lines.
Lady Antebellum dedicated their Global Citizen One World: Together At Home performance of What I’m Leaving For to our front-line heroes and all the essential workers risking their lives and leaving their families everyday to keep us safe. One World Together was put together by Lady Gaga and broadcast on all major networks and digitally to support our front-line healthcare workers who are working tirelessly on our behalf and the WHO. It kills me that I gotta go/couldn’t do it if I didn’t know/that every time I’m walking out that door/you know what I’m leaving for. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to all the courageous essential workers who leave their houses each day to fight COVID-19, the least we can do is stay home and while we are home use music to raise awareness, financial support, and let you know that our community stands together with you.
The music industry is one of the strongest communities I know. I’m always reminded of this fact during any natural disaster or national emergency. When artists and fans band together as the family we truly are there is no stopping our power to change and stand up for what needs to be done. We go all in. Even our challenges raise awareness and money, like the current All In challenge. The All In Challenge actually originated from Philidelphia’s 76ers co-owner Michael Rubin, offering experiences in exchange for donations that go to five charities that fight hunger for children, the elderly, and front-line workers during the corona virus. The five charities are: Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, America’s Food Fund, World Central Kitchen, and Feeding America. Lady Antebellum went all in by offering a chance for a lucky fan to be the ultimate vip roadie for a show of their choice (when touring resumes) and even assist Dave Haywood with guitar changes on stage during the show. Camila Cabello went all in by offering a fan a day on the set of a future music video (not produced at home during the quarantine obviously).
The most recent natural disaster that I remember feeling really proud of the artistic community was the tornadoes that touched down in Nashville right before COVID-19 lock downs were taking root. The Nashville community responded in full force to the unanticipated destruction. The next day musicians, neighbors, and anybody that could were out in the streets going through the debris and providing supplies. Matthew Ramsey, the front runner of the Nashville based country band Old Dominion isn’t just an amazing songwriter and performer who, with his Nashville community and band, puts out meaningful and comforting music like their song No Such Thing as a Broken Heart; he also has an illustration degree. In interviews he has mentioned that since the band isn’t touring their normal 200 shows a year he has had more time to get back to his other passion, which is painting. In response to the Nashville tornadoes Matt painted about 100 original 'No Such Thing As A Broken Nashville' paintings. He made them available for fans to purchase and the proceeds went to tornado relief. The fan response was overwhelming and Matt sold out of the first hundred original paintings in minutes. There really is no such thing as a broken Nashville, or a broken music community. It is the art and the ability to be creative for the greater good that unites us. There wouldn’t be such a power behind these music communities, in any genre, without the fans. The support and even bigger sense of community is all tied together by the actions of the fans, participating in a challenge, sharing a song that is raising money, or buying a painting. I know every time I look at my painting on my wall I feel proud to be a part of that community, a community that knows that through art we are all in this together. And when concerts really brought thousands of fans together, singing the same lyrics, supporting the same heroes, that is when you truly feel the impact and power of the music that matters. I still get goosebumps when I watch No Such Thing As A Broken Heart performed live. Watch below their performance at Steel Stacks in PA back in August 2017 when the good vibes were being sent out to Texas at the time because they were dealing with Hurricane Harvey.
There’s a third pillar to the music community. First we have the artists, then we have the fans. The foundation would fall without companies and advertisers. Media companies, radio stations, television networks, who provide the real financial backing to support any music event, pre-covid events and post-covid virtual broadcasts. The support and collaboration of all three are necessities to keep the machine running. As Maren Morris says in her #1 song on country airplay AND adult pop songs Billboard charts The Bones- the house don’t fall if the bones are good. She was talking about a relationship, but the music community is a relationship, and through every storm we stay put because there isn’t a crack in this 3 pillar foundation. Maren collaborated with Hozier and released the song as a duet and both performed the song together for Global Citizen One World: Together At Home broadcast.
CMT will be honoring our front-line heroes on June 3rd with their special CMT Celebrates Our Heroes. Last Saturday MusiCares, charitable foundation affiliated with The Recording Academy and BMI hosted A Salute to the Songwriters benefitting their COVID-19 Relief Fund. Bud Light is supporting American Red Cross and local bars restaurants through their new virtual series Bud Light Seltzer Sessions: Your Flavor. Your Show. Bud Light encourages people to use its Open for Take Out platform as an easy way to find out which local restaurants are open for takeout. Along with their posters displayed at some places you can search zip codes and the hashtag #OpenforTakeout. The Seltzer Sessions are following social distancing guidelines as well. It was Lady Antebellum’s first performance in months under the same roof, playing to an empty room, but at least their band was able to safely play together in real time, something the band has been itching to do! Check Bud Light social media for upcoming Friday Seltzer Session lineups (Facebook.com/BudLight, Twitter/Instagram @Budlight, and youtube.com/officialbudlight). While Bud Light has you covered on Fridays, Verizon and Live Nation teamed up to provide you with live from home content Tuesday and Thursday nights with their Pay it Forward performances by the biggest names in entertainment supporting small businesses during the pandemic. You can catch the streams on Verizon’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages.
Just like Matthew from Old Dominion tapping into his passion for painting celebrities and other industries tap into their own niche in their unique ways. Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, who need no introduction, started an initiative called Quarantine Wine which has already raised a million dollars, according to their interview with Jimmy Fallon. They partnered with Nocking Point Wines to create a quarantine Pinot Noir where 100% of the proceeds go to four charities of Mila and Ashtun’s careful choosing. The four charities are: Giving Directly which gives grants directly to families hit by COVID-19, Direct Relief providing medical equipment and PPE to frontline and EMS workers, Front-line Responders Fund which buys and directly delivers PPE and ventilators to medical facilities, and America’s Food Fund which is a food relief collaboration between Feeding America and World Central Kitchen. In addition to the donations the label of the bottle is blank, meant to be filled out by YOU during your virtual quarantine happy hours. In the corner it says toasting to and you fill out the rest, you decide who you are toasting too with each bottle. It is a very cute initiative that has already provided so much support and supplies to these charities.
A street wear company Vincere Wears is also fighting hunger caused by COVID-19, but they are doing it through their passion for street fashion. Rockin Rox Promo has partnered with Vincere Wears because whether it is music or fashion our passions and brands are our strongest tool to make an impact on the world in a time of need. We might not be able to be on the front lines, but by staying home we are saving lives, and while we are home there is ample time to put our creativity and passions to their best uses. 15% of Vincere Wears go to Action Against Hunger in response to COVID-19. If you use the code ROX15 at checkout you will get 15% off these cool street styles https://vincerewears.com/ . Express yourself while making an impact on people who really need your assistance. Follow on Instagram @vincerewears.
Street wear for a better world, a painting that raises money for natural disaster relief, a music video that raises money for Doctors without Borders or Red Cross, a wine that funds 4 different charities to defend families and front line workers, or a song that makes you feel less alone and part of a stronger community, it is all art that matters. It is the best use of our passion and creativity. My wish for you is that you either find a song that brings you comfort or you learn about one of these fundraisers that you didn’t know before. Remember the pillars of the art community that make all these initiatives possible: the artist (creator), the fan (the supporter), and the business company (advertising awareness) that keep the house standing. The foundation of our art and its ability to help is achievable through the cooperation of all three of these entities. Art and music have a voice, it is all of our responsibility to turn the volume up and shine a spotlight on them. Stay home, stay healthy, and stay connected together and we will be stronger on the other side of this.
With Love,
Rox
