Poll of the Day > The term "recording artist" bugs me

(+) Yeah! (+)

What, like somebody is not a real musician? You can be a musician without trying to sell records or even recording your music at all.

I mostly see it used by the pop music industry to describe itself, so I'm not really sure why it bugs me, since it's more apropos in that case. I guess because it's like a tacit admission of their commercialism, but they don't lean into that fully and at other times act like misguided music elitists.

I think the term is used to describe people that perform songs that are written and produced by other people

Which is most mainstream music nowadays
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Mead posted...

I think the term is used to describe people that perform songs that are written and produced by other people

Which is most mainstream music nowadays

This. For example, I write and record my own material, but calling myself a recording artist seems a little demeaning. I mainly just say I'm.a musician, or sometimes an artist. But even calling myself an artist feels a little pretentious... I don't hardly do any drawing or anything.
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