It's easy to get depressed about the record business. Be you songwriter or product manager, record producer or company chairman, an already tough gig is proving more daunting with every spin, every cycle. You've heard it before, but frankly I need to remind myself. Whether it was for fortune, fame or love of the game, we are here because a song, a singer, a band or an ideal within moved our souls and changed our lives. It's at times hard to recognize, but music still matters.
I learned this personally watching the Who at Madison Square Garden. It was the Concert for New York. In an arena of emergency workers and grieving family members, a screaming vocal, a cranked guitar and a brilliant song triggered the release of buried emotion among an audience who had spent a month digging through the wreckage of our country's heart.
Music does that. It transcends in a way unique to itself.
I've continued to be educated to such fact by a unique group of Americans whose job skills don't engender meet-and-greets. They are members of the United States military. In e-mails from soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq during the last few years, personal exchanges would often center on music. I learned of songs soldiers listened to before going on missions or upon return. Songs that inspired, motivated, provided avenues of reflection or simply distracted from a reality few of us could ever imagine. At times it was the same song that provided such varying emotional necessity, as songs can do.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center I noticed one thing soldiers had in common: an iPod.
This experience is why I'm proud of the 12 artists, labels and publishers who have joined me in producing the CD "For the Troops." This project is a collection of songs exclusively for our military. There were 200,000 hard copies pressed, and the individual downloads, many major copyrights, are available for free to more than 1.5 million active service members at aafes.com.
It could not have happened without our sponsors, the RIAA and the good will and efforts of hundreds in our industry. In its simplest form the compilation is a thank you to our troops, veterans and their families. It is also an example of artists from across the political spectrum coming together to make a gesture of appreciation. Trust me, they are thankful for it.
One recent e-mail ended, "I can say without doubt that this will be appreciated far and wide. I can think of little worse than being so far from loved ones at special times like these, not knowing if you will ever see them again. Tomorrow is never guaranteed no matter where you are, but in times of war, tomorrow seems but a dream."
Some of us are fortunate to have lived our dreams. Some of us continue to struggle just to be heard. Others fight for our freedom to do both. Even the cynic must admit that there would be no songs of consequence without soldiers. And as it is the time of year for reflection, well aware of the trials that confront our business, music still matters, especially where it counts. ••••
John Ondrasik is singer for the band Five for Fighting. He spearheaded the "For the Troops" project, which includes music from Billy Joel, Brooks & Dunn, the Goo Goo Dolls, Jewel, Josh Groban, Los Lonely Boys, Melissa Etheridge, the Neville Brothers, Sarah McLachlan, the Lt. Dan Band, Montgomery Gentry, the Fray and his own band.
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