I’ve worked my entire life trying to break into this industry. Several years as a violinist, a stint with indie rock, and a regrettable six months spent at Shaffer Conservatory. Seven albums, fifteen singles, and a pirate radio station later, and I hadn’t seen a drop of success. Until earlier today, when I “uploaded” a “Lofi” track.
Half a million downloads for pleasant_beats_v12_final(2).mp3. Yes, that is the name of the Bandcamp listing. You’d think that’d shoot the SEO in the foot, but I’ve already gotten comments praising the originality of the name.
The problem? I didn’t even mean to do this.
I don’t know if it was a misclick or a solar flare flipping a bit on my motherboard, but I only exported three of the audio tracks. Some humming, a gentle knock on the table, and the sounds of me chopping up the vinyl of Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department. Looped over an hour, and uploaded to Bandcamp purely by accident.
At first, I was horrified. I’d torn apart a creation I’d spent hundreds of hours on! Apparently, that was a waste of time. All I needed to do was loop three tracks, crackle the audio like some microwave popcorn, and stick an anime girl on the cover. Instant success. I left a recording of me kicking my desk in there, and someone commented how nostalgic it made them for their old office.
I haven’t had so much as a dozen downloads of my previous music. The only review I ever received was someone calling me a ‘tonal plebeian’ and bragging about how they were making $5,000 working from home, every single hour. But now I’m receiving praise for my “dedication to Schafer’s original definition” and “ensuring good grades for Gen Z”?
I don’t even like the genre.
Why would you intentionally make your music sound worse? It’s 2025. Your computer has the power to transform some muffled gas-station bathroom conversation into the cleanest, highest-fidelity track you’ve ever heard. And yet there are some twisted people who think that popping speakers makes for a sick beat.
Oh well. No getting around it now. Especially since my music is now being featured in YouTube Lofi compilations. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go and scratch up some vinyl for my next big hit.