[cosecant]

This guy is SO out of touch with independent music it's not even funny. How many people know amazing, talented bands that get no where? Good music within itself does not promote itself. You have to advertise, whether it's engaging in fans online or offline, or making friends with other musicians to split the bill. Do not have a backup plan? Is he insane? For every insanely lucky guy like him there's thousands of other guys working off their blood, sweat, and tears only to end up extremely poor or with nothing. What he's saying is like every startup is going to be Facebook or Google... I'm sorry that's not going to happen. But at least even in a startup you tend to make decent money, not near poverty wages like touring musicians have to endure for years before any "break" ...

[timr]

To be fair, John Mayer started as an independent. His first album was self-published. He did a tour where he drove from gig to gig in his own car. Even after getting a contract, he played unglamorous gigs second-fiddle to guys like Glen Phillips (the lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket) at dinky clubs in Seattle.

Sure, he's hit the mainstream, but the guy knows something about being independent.

[cyanbane]

I second this. I haven't been too big of a fan of his latest work, but I bought my first John Mayer album physically from John Mayer. To say he doesn't understand independents isn't true.

[timr]

Me too. I have a signed copy of his second album that I bought from him directly, by handing him cash, in a club. That's about as independent as it gets.

[astrofinch]

I agree. If you look on jamendo.com you can find lots of great music that people have released for free that no one is talking about. Here are some of my favorites (I tend to like instrumental, progressive music):

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/76891

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/88639

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/34267

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/56244

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/27332

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/3492

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/1472

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/17100

[andreaja]

Not once does he say anything about independence or labels. He just says that the focus needs to be on shipping, everything else is secondary.

There's nothing "out of touch" about that. It's completely, and trivially, true. If you want to ship, ship. Don't tweet that you're half-finished writing a lyric for a song you have the opening riff to. Ship it.