Moods After Five Years
A reflection from the founder on where Moods came from—and where it's going.
Barring my father’s fusion, my mother’s Phil Collins, and brother’s Europop, I grew up on the 30-second free clips of the iTunes Electronic and Dance music charts from 2007 onward. Without consistent radio stations or friends who wanted more than LMFAO, the only accessible avenue of discovery in Grand Rapids, Michigan was often an ethernet connection on Windows 98—that or Target’s CD listening stations. I could go into our basement and blast progressive house, deep house, UK techno, and the occasional charting Detroit track. AKA: my peak SMD-fueled American Apparel era that I will never be ashamed of (sorry Mike).
What this means is: since I was 13, I enveloped nearly my entire existence in electronic music. After my brother drove me to Detroit at age 14 (or something) for Movement, the more that narrowed to Techno. I learned to DJ, ran the 75+ member Michigan Electronic Music Collective, or MEMCO (formerly MEDMA), and spent four years in Ann Arbor and Detroit DJing, booking my friends, and throwing parties at now-shuttered venues.
So when I moved to New York in my early 20s, I realized I had skipped generations of influential music that many of my peers found their ground on. I remember a friend laughing when I didn’t know who Debbie Harry was (sorry Deb); on my birthday, she printed out photos of Debbie, Joni, and other essential female artists and taped them across my work desk. I witnessed how jazz clubs, ambient shows, and rock halls also got people to dance and let loose to a funk I was just learning to understand. Pop music gave others a sense of solidarity I rejected out of judgment—and failed to understand.
Those first two months in New York made me think. I needed a tool for my friends—and the techno community—to talk about their roots and origins outside of Techno. Which led to: “Could a mix and event series do that? What would it look like?”
The set of values, or guidelines, would be simple:
We don’t play techno.
That means: yes to music choices with pride. Nothing is below the audience. Throw “embarrassing” out the window. Every choice and every selection is sacred.
That also means: no to calculated flatter hour sessions for those with perceived clout power.
We pay everyone.
Contributors get paid $35 a mix—increased over time to $50 in 2023.
Guest curators get $40 for the work they do thinking, pitching, editing, and publishing each mix.
DJs performing at events get a minimum $100, and now upwards of $500 per set.
Additional workers—like door people, bar people, venue hosts, and merchandise artists—get paid their market rate.
We prioritize the story being told.
Whatever we release should read like an autobiographical short story or artwork; it’s about lasting power, re-listenability, and releasing work with a singular voice.
Let anyone who participates take their own time. If people need a year, give them a year. If that means we don’t have someone to release on time, that’s OK—we’ll take a month off.
We can be a corrective narrative force, ensuring Detroit, Black, Femme, Queer, Disabled, and more underrepresented voices have space to speak on our mic.
We let it live beyond ego.
More people can curate, and even run, the project without me, ensuring its sustainability lives beyond just one of my own side projects.
Merch is made to feel like you’re a part of a team when you wear it—something larger than a tote bag, something familial.
If we can build a platform with the power to tell compelling stories and introduce others to music they might not have heard before, our job is done.
Fast forward to today…
What began as an idea for a system grew in a community of over 50 contributors, curators, friends, and supporters. And as we enter our sixth year of releasing non-techno mixes, merchandise, and events, we’ve hit most of our marks.
When I look back at the work Moods has done—mixes, events, and merchandise that tell compelling stories outside of Techno—I see:
Sustained support: we’ve platformed over 50 artists’ sonic origin stories since 2018, totaling 72+ hours of music, 750+ songs, and nearly 500 musicians.
Global reach: we’ve hit well over 22,000+ listeners across six continents. That’s around 25,000 hours of music played through Moods—or 2.8 years of nonstop music around the globe.
Economic sustainability: we’ve distributed $8,926.13 to 55+ artists, event organizers, venue hosts, contributors, and curators. And through merchandise sales, monthly subscriptions through Drip (2018-2020), and Paypal subscriptions (2020-present), we’ve brought in $14,994 in revenue to pay for mixes, curators, events, merchandise, and online hosting fees.
Season one: $670 disbursed
Season two: $360 disbursed
Season three: $870 disbursed
Season four: $2497 disbursed
Season five: $4529.13 disbursed
You can join our intention to continue to be a site of financial support and stability for music workers by joining our $5/mo donation on Substack, or by supporting us through a monthly Paypal of $1/mo, $4/mo, or $20/mo. This letter, and our music, will always be free, but your support will expand our impact to new geographies, more stories, higher fees, and stronger communities:
Parting Thoughts
Moods was founded as a reaction against secularism, purity, or ego that drove me (and possibly others) to think techno, and club music, was somehow better and beyond other forms of sonic expression. And the more techno gentrifies right in front of our eyes—the “MFA-ification” of a subculture, as the Post-Subcultures Reader or Sarah Schulman may suggest—the less satisfaction we get from participating in our own culture. Diminishing returns, diminishing vibes.
The systems we’ve allowed to be built around our community aren’t properly equipping us to explore, discover, and connect. They’re here to sell ads and capitalize off of our time and creativity, and we’re #falling-for-it.
To make a platform that lets us slow down, look around, and ask questions is, I believe, one step in a more intentional direction. And as we reflect and grow Moods into its sixth year, I hope a newsletter like this can continue to hold that intention closer to our heart. Let’s see what happens.
xx
Daniel Sharp, Founder, Moods