The video that ruined my music career 🥸

Keep it between us.

I’m about to share a video with you that ruined my music career forever.

I shot this video in Nashville, TN in 2023 to promote a single called “Untitled” (how creative…) for my now defunct solo project, “telco”.

Shortly after filming this video, "telco” ceased to exist…

I’ll explain in a moment.

Check it out:

You’re confused, I know.

How did this painfully gentle/boring video ruin my music career?

Well, exactly 45 seconds after filming this video, I was struck by an oncoming freight train and flung from my douchey loafers onto the side of the train tracks, never to play music again.

I’m kidding. That’s a horrible joke, but I’m kidding.

Now I feel bad…

This video ruined my music career because I immediately realized after filming it that I no longer enjoyed being an artist.

For the love of God, look in my eyes…. You can see the pain and the discomfort as I lip-sync a song about my OCD dressed like a waiter on a yacht.

Anyone who knows me personally (hi Mom) knows that I’m incredibly uncomfortable on camera.

I’m like Chandler from Friends…. and being on video is even worse.

At the time I convinced myself that this was just “part of the process”…. something I just needed to suck up if I wanted a career in music. I thought that doing things I disliked meant that I was “paying my dues”.

I really believed in the song…. it was an incredibly personal track about my deep struggles with OCD and spiritual abandonment.

But filming this video sucked all of the passion/authenticity out of my art.

Not to mention… it didn’t even perform well on my socials, which made the embarrassment even worse lol.

And to be honest, I’m not surprised… why would a video that I didn’t even believe in inspire others to listen to my music?

So why did I do it?

Well… I was told I “had to” if I wanted to make it as an artist.

Social media is where music gets discovered, for better or for worse, and I was told that “playing the game” is just one of the many sacrifices I need to make to have a career in music.

But what no one ever bothered to tell me…. is that pretending to be someone I’m clearly not will never work in the long-term.

In fact, I’m beyond thankful that this video didn’t work… because I’d still be standing on train tracks across America whispering sad-boi lyrics into an (unplugged) Shure SM7B.

So shortly after I released this single, I shut down “telco” completely.

I decided that “making it in music” wasn’t worth it if I have to sacrifice who I really am every single day.

At the time, I was pretty upset…. It felt like I was giving up.

But I focused on the things that truly made me happy: my marriage, my family, and my career at an up-and-coming online music school (long live Mastering.com 🫡⚔️) .

I stopped gaslighting myself into believing that lip-syncing my music on train tracks was “my passion”, and gave myself permission to re-examine my relationship with music completely, even if that meant giving up telco forever.

I used this time off to dive head-first into a new project that actually aligned with my values and reignited my passion for music: building Mastering.com’s education-funded record label, MAD Records.

Maybe this was what I was meant to do in music all along…

But I knew I was going to have to promote the new label, which likely meant utilizing social media again.

So this time, I made a promise to myself.

I vowed to be myself completely. No compromises this time.

I didn’t want to be the focus of the video…. I didn’t want to show my face…… and I DIDN’T WANT TO COMB MY HAIR.

So I posted this video shortly after creating the MAD Records Instagram:

The video got 300,000+ views on Instagram, and we immediately had a few thousand new followers for the label (@madrecordslabel).

And because I created a video that aligned with my true self, it was super easy to replicate.

I posted several similar videos, and within 30 days my personal account (@michael__gilbride) grew ~4,000 followers after several Reels popped off.

So what’s my stupid point of this stupid article?

“Fake it till you make it” is terrible advice. No one is going to enjoy your music/content if you don’t even enjoy it yourself.

Not only will people sniff out that you’re faking it (just look at my eyes in the first video…), but even IF it works, you’ve created an entire career out of something that you don’t enjoy.

If you feel like you’re faking it, then stop whining about it (like I did for years) and find another solution that allows you to be authentic in your art (and your promotion of it).

Give yourself permission to admit that you don’t enjoy your current strategy, and focus on creating an alternate path, even if the “experts” advise you against it.

If you’re standing on the tracks and a train is barreling towards you… don’t try and outrun it.

Just step aside and let it pass.

Lest you lose your loafers (and your career) like I did.

Long live MAD Records 🫡⚔️🫡⚔️🫡⚔️

Michael