I had a discussion with an old friend. Making even simple good music isn't enough, and no one listens to good music just like that, because there's simply too much of it. Btw, I'm pretty sure that the real quality of music can only be determined over time. And one of the most important metrics is relistenability. Not how hard the bass hits, how cool the piano part is, lofi/hifi, all of this is only artistic characteristics, but that's a topic for another time.

My initial hypothesis was that without some sort of "bait", no one will appreciate or listen to a track in 2025. Even your acquaintances and friends don't care about it. No matter how good it is, how much soul you put into it, etc.

You know, I'm something of a scientist myself, and I prefer to test hypotheses with numbers, not just "that's how I feel", so I decided to either confirm or disprove it.

I love posting demos on Instagram (this is still the main social media, right?). I've long noticed that people just don't listen to them. Nobody cares, even though you worked so hard. That can even make you feel sad, honestly!

At this point someone will say "бля, Калян зноў крынжа наваліў" or "well, your music is shit, that's why no one listens to it". You can't really argue with that. At some point you might even start to believe it. I probably would too, if I didn't have the numbers.

So, to test the hypothesis that music itself is secondary to whether people even give it a first listen, I decided to do something unethical. I simply took a track by a successful producer with a million plays in a similar style, and... posted it as my demo. I specifically chose a track that they most likely hadn't heard before.

What happened next? Nothing. (Honestly, I was hoping there'd be some kind of reaction). If we take the Instagram Stories "like" slider as a metric, it was a complete failure. The track got fewer reactions than my own demos. By that metric, this demo shouldn't have gone anywhere.

So what's the conclusion? Nobody cares that you wrote a "hit". Basically, making good music (or a product in a broader sense) means nothing. Presentation and marketing are just as important, if not more so. If you're starting something new, always keep this in mind. In 2025, nothing takes off on its own. Either you’re very lucky (statistically, your chances are slim, sorry).