Disheartening insights into the future

Re: “Pump up the volume,” March 14 feature story and “‘They’re getting bigger, faster,’ ” news story

As a professional, touring, and — by many accounts — successful musician for over 40 years, the story on music-streaming revenues revealed, frankly, nothing new for me.

For every Nathaniel Rateliff or Tennis, hundreds of lesser-known musicians in Colorado like me need concerts to happen to make a living. COVID-19 struck down a great year planned and has laid low 2021, as the new year doesn’t seem to want to get off the ground. Spotify’s success reiterates to me streaming’s perpetuation of the notion that people don’t need to pay for the recorded music that artists take great care and expense to write, arrange, produce and record. Why buy the cow when you have the milk for free?

As well, it’s disheartening to note that some people think they can bypass years of dues-paying that make for a great performance with streaming instead.

More than anything, I want live music to come back — with a vengeance.

Meanwhile, back on the front page, Bruce Finley’s impeccable and stone-cold look at what our future here in the West looks like this coming fire season is even more disturbing. Every story he reports on should be required reading for anyone who cares about our planet in general and our state in particular. Thank you, Finley.

I fear these articles tell the story of how extinct I’ll be in a few years. But it’s Finley’s reporting on climate change that keeps me feeling guarded about the future and awake at night.

Mollie O’Brien, Denver Editor’s note: O’Brien is a Grammywinning singer and Colorado Music Hall of Fame Inductee.