Direct address

to my audience

Basically, I’m supposed to come here and tell you to listen to my record which came out last Friday. I would very much like for you to listen to it if you think you would like it (or if you think you wouldn’t. To be honest the hardest response for me to grapple with is of those who weren’t moved to form an opinion either way). I’m really happy with it, so happy in fact that I feel satisfied promoting it as a complete work. Everything I wanted to say is already there, and I can’t explain it all to you like this. That’s why it’s a record and not an essay. It’s rare that I ever reach a place where I feel no need to extrapolate. It’s something like peace.

Though, of course, it is in my interest to extrapolate about the work. It’s in my interest to not only extrapolate about the work, but to break it down into smaller pieces and turn those pieces into marketing materials. It’s in my interest to help you apply my work to your life, maybe even to make you believe that I’ve understood something crucial that you haven’t yet. It’s in my interest to say that I will teach you. It’s in my interest to be a little less cynical about algorithmic content, enough so that I could stomach making the kinds of videos that would do well. If, of course, “my interest” is to be a financially successful musician.

It’s a big question. What is my interest? For a while I did think it was money and fame. Then I got a bit of that and saw how I compromised in other areas. Eventually I decided that the other areas were worth more. Before I left my last job I thought, will I stand by this decision if I never make money from anything else again? Will I stand by this decision if I have to go back to waiting tables? I decided I would. Though, I haven’t started waiting tables yet.

I enjoy spending months or years on projects that consume my life, make me obsessed with their quality, and are imbued with the full integrity of my creative spirit. I find that work valuable and necessary. I decided that I find it more necessary than money that could buy me a house. In just the few months that I have ceased being a weekly fixture on a public platform, I have experienced unimaginable ease and relief. And now, my job is supposed to be reminding you that I exist, enough so that you might engage with my record (though any short-form content about the record has better metrics than the record itself), and of course I must beg for your attention, your precious time.

The long and short of it is that I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to record a front-facing video of myself mouthing the lyrics to my own song like Ms. Rachel, with key words bolded at the bottom for audience retention. I don’t want to sum it up for you. I’d rather you just hear the song. And if you were never going to listen to the song, there’s nothing in this world that would make me want to trick you into consuming the stupider, smaller, shorter version of it. I hear artists say that they resent this kind of marketing, though they know they have to do it. I am familiar with the pressures. And yet, I don’t think we have to do it this way. There are things more important than measuring by the yardsticks we were handed.

If anything, I think my career may be a bit of a testament to that. I am constantly amazed and humbled by how much of my audience understands my resistance to such flattening structures and embraces my art within a more liberating framework. This is another reason why I buck against the attention economy’s stranglehold on art: I respect you as a person, and I believe in your capacity to digest something greater. I do not want to exploit your parasocial attention. I want more than just your attention. I want to create something worth engaging with, disagreeing with, poring over, responding to, contemplating.

I still care about stability. I still want things. I don’t think that one needs to go broke to be pure. I’m not interested in being pure either, by the way. I will try to sell you CDs and vinyl and concert tickets and paid subscriptions to this newsletter which keeps wet food in my cats’ bowls. But I will not sell you a smaller version of what I really want to say. At risk of sounding like Hillary Clinton, the history of women sees that pattern repeated to detrimental results.

Above all, I am so grateful to have a community of such smart, thoughtful people engaging with my work. It is the kind of thing I wouldn’t sacrifice, trade, or be bribed away from. My life is more meaningful because of it. From the bottom of my heart, I really do thank you.

Good Story the album is out now. You can buy a CD or vinyl here. Tickets for my 2026 North American headlining tour are here.

xo

Eliza