How The Music Industry Is Finally Working Toward The Mental Health Of Its Artists
Believe it or not, the music industry is stressful: not the stress you feel before your final exams but the stress you feel when your entire life depends on an opinion that fluctuates more than the cryptocurrency market. Along with this, the constant exertion of touring country after country to sing into the early hours of the morning, combined with uncomfortable sleep inside a moving van for less than 5 hours, would cause anyone’s health, both mental and physical, to deteriorate.
In April 2018, the entirety of the music world was shaken by the death of one of the pioneers of electronic music, Avicii. Reports said that his mental health had degraded to the point where he considered suicide to be more attractive than living the burdened life of an artist. Two years before he committed suicide, he had chosen to take a break from music to focus on his mental health and other personal problems, such as alcoholism, which arose mainly from pressure by his management label and fans.
Despite everything going on in his head and his life, no one could have guessed that he would commit suicide, primarily because of how well he masked it – this is true for many artists that could be experiencing absolute rock bottom or problems in their own life, family, or relationships. Still, they hide it so well that no one in the world knows what is going through their head, until they decide that they’ve had enough problems and take their own life.
However, there is some progress in this area now. Management companies and record labels are beginning to fund rehab and therapy for their artists and are actively trying to prevent reoccurrences of past experiences of artists like Avicii, Lil Peep, Kurt Cobain, and many more. For artists to better manage their mental and physical health while on and off the tour, counselling services are also being arranged. Inspired by the music industry, other industries have also been inspired to increase their focus on these problems in the lives of their professionals and employees.
