How do you like them apples?
Another Milestone
Yesterday; August 20, 2018, was my dad Hagop Hagopian’s 75th birthday. Also yesterday, I achieved another major milestone in my musical career, with the release of the second full length studio album of the Semantic Saturation musical project that I independently founded back in 2010; of course this was no coincidence. Allow me to take a moment here to acknowledge the support and encouragement I have received from my father and mother Vartoug Hagopian all these years, since my childhood; without whom I wouldn’t be doing what I do today.
I’m Armenian, but I grew up and spent 25 years of my life in a community and a country (Syria) where the style of music I play isn’t well perceived, regarded as disgraceful, outrageous and revolting, and mostly neglected by the majority. A society, in which growing your hair as a man or wearing piercings are considered offensive, and a violation against their archaic beliefs.
People fear what they cannot understand.
I’ve been harassed, I’ve been mocked and ridiculed for what I wear, asked to cut my hair, to “behave” and “grow up”, the music I make has been disrespected, ignored and disregarded by a lot of people right in front of me, including some who were very close to me, but never ever by my parents; they were always supportive, backing and guiding me to overcome and conquer the storm, to weed through the noise and rise high on top.
Today is another day, where once again I smash my hammer (and balls) of steel in the faces of all those who belong to the inferior group of people mentioned above, and add another nail to their coffin. All thanks go to my lovely fans who keep supporting and motivating me throughout this journey. I’ve been receiving so many touching and beautiful messages from a lot of you and I am ever grateful to learn that my music has changed your lives and inspired so many of you.
Love you all
-Shant
Official Paradigms Teaser #2
Carousel of Death
Where’s the album already?
… You might ask, as I do myself every single day. Turns out making records is not as easy as it sounds, who knew? In the last update I mentioned Alex (sound engineer) who started mixing the album in October. Things dragged in December and January and Alex left to tour with his band in the last month or so. Musicians go on tour, who knew? Alex is now back and will commence working on the mix WHEN his new computer arrives. Kill me 🙂
Meanwhile, my dear friend Richard is (still) editing the majestic new music video for one of the tracks from the new album. Obviously, we won’t be able to release the music video if the song is not mixed and mastered yet. Having said that, I still haven’t seen a single second from the edits, but Richard is being optimistic and said “it’s really worth the wait” (his words).
The music video should be done by the end of March. <– See what I did there Richard? …. Richard? …. Wake up Richard.
This post is totally not a distraction to make you forget that I still have to finish working on the album cover and artwork. What’s with 2018? Did the government spray some laziness chemicals in the air or something?
Illuminati Confirmed!
Crap, I almost forgot!
My music is now on a new platform called Musicoin. Yes, it’s one of those crypto-currency (digital currency, Bitcoin) thingies; and if you don’t know what Bitcoin is, make sure you include the location of the rock you live under in your mailing address, at least you’ll get the new CD when it’s out; not sure what you’ll do with it though. 🙂
So, why Musicoin?
Unlike Spotify, or other similar industry giants who are destroying the music industry, Musicoin actually pays the artist 1 $MUSIC by a Pay-Per-Play (PPP) smart contract, and the best part is, you (the listener) don’t pay anything out of your pocket. So, who pays the artist? Miners (Mind you, they’re not human miners). And who pays the miners? Miners solve computational work to mine $MUSIC and they get paid for their work by the Musicoin ecosystem. Pretty smart, eh?
The numbers, what do they mean?
1 $MUSIC is currently worth 2.5 cents, Spotify claims that their average pay per stream is $0.007 which is a flat out lie, the real number is around $0.004 (that’s less than a cent, not even half a cent) which is also the average pay per play for other streaming platforms like Apple or Amazon etc… HINT: If you’re listening on Spotify, you’re not paying the artist, you’re paying the millionaires.
But what do I know?
Here’s my Musicoin page https://musicoin.org/nav/artist/0x89a42ed7a1367…
Go listen to some music and support artists directly.
I hope I’ll be back with better news next time
-Shant
Controversial Quote From Steven Wilson
In a recent interview Steven Wilson said:
I’d rather hear Dave Gilmour playing one note and break my heart, than hearing Joe Satriani playing 300 notes and not touch me in any way at all.
I agree with that, but not fully. The only part I disagree with is “Joe Satriani”. I think he just picked the wrong guitarist.
And to those wondering if he really said that. Yep, he actually did…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uZ46EJMQ0U&t=102
I’ve said it before, I’m going to say it again, Music is art, not a competition.
New album out now, loaded with lots of prog.
Click here to listen on Bandcamp
