Shai Linne "Lyrical Theology Part 3: Sociology"

A Message From Shai Linne

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that LT3 has been a long time coming. LT2 was released in 2014 and my desire was to release LT3 the next year. However, the Lord had other plans. After taking a hiatus and planting a church, we released Still Jesus in 2017, when I returned to music and writing full time. After releasing a children’s album and a few books, I finally began working on LT3. It was ready to be released in 2024. But among a number of things that came up unexpectedly, I wrestled a lot with how to release it. One of the things that has really bothered me over the years is the way that streaming services (Apple Music, Spotify, etc.) stick it to independent artists. Don't get me wrong, I have Apple Music and love it. It's great for the listeners. But in terms of supporting independent artists, they are terrible.

Let’s Talk About Streaming 

When we subscribe to Apple Music, Spotify or other streaming services, there's a transaction that happens. We say, "Spotify, I'm going to pay you around $10-$15 per month. In return, you'll give me access to all the music of my favorite artists" So far so good. But here's what that transaction looks like on my end. Spotify says to me, "Hi Shai Linne. We’re so glad you've chosen to release your music via Spotify. Your listeners pay us $10-$15 per month for access to your catalogue. And we're pleased to let you know that we're going to pay you (and your record company) a whopping $0.004 every time a song of yours is streamed. Congrats!" That's four tenths of a penny, y'all.  Let's put it in concrete terms.

It has cost us about $32,000 to make LT3. This includes studio time, paying producers and features, mixing and mastering, making videos, artwork/ design, travel costs, etc. At $0.004 per stream, in order for us to just break even and make $0, songs from LT3 would have to be streamed 8 MILLION TIMES. To put that in perspective, my highest streaming album on Spotify is Still Jesus, which came out in 2017. Over 8 years later, Still Jesus only recently passed 7 million streams. So if LT3 were released on Spotify and matched Still Jesus, we would break even sometime around 2034! It's pretty wild, when you think about it.

How You Can Help

We would like to put LT3 on streaming services. You can help us do that by purchasing the album. We’re selling it for $20 and up. (I think it’s worth significantly more than that. You can see a long form explanation of that here.) At the $20 price point, it would take 1,400 people purchasing it in order for us to break even. We’re hoping that won’t take as long as it would take to get 8,000,000 streams. Once we reach that goal of breaking even, we’ll release it on streaming services. It’s a challenging environment for independent artists. We’re trying to figure out how to make the music that we love without taking a massive financial hit to do so. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into making LT3. (Well, maybe not blood, but definitely sweat and tears.) It’s a challenging, thought-provoking work- which is why we’ll be releasing supplemental materials along the way to help you digest it. Thanks for your support over the years and we hope you enjoy the album.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Shai

Track Listing: 
1. Elder Statesman
2. Sleepy Chris (2014-2023)
3. Political vs. Biblical (Interlude)
4. The Wedding Song
5. Happy Father's Day
6. Farm Talk (a modern parable)
7. Farm Talk Parable Explained
8. What Could Have Been? featuring Chrys Jones, Believin Stephen, Nathan Joseph, Zae Da Blacksmith, Jezerey & Braille
9. Private Prisons Pt. 1
10. Private Prisons Pt. 2 featuring Danni Baylor
11. Dear Bob (Jones)
12. The Oldest Man Alive (JPTG)
13. Hands and Feet featuring Blair Linne
14. Micah Six Eight featuring Leah Smith
15. Old Rugged

All Songs Produced and Mixed by Elvin Shahbazian, except where noted
All lyrics by Shai Linne, except where noted
*Track 1 produced by Braille
**Track 5 produced by Alex Hitchens
***Track 11 produced by The Apologist 
****Track 14 produced by Steven Alexander Chen and Steven Martinez, mixed by Steven Alexander Chen and Elvin Shahbazian
Voiceovers on Track 12 by Crawford Roberts and Rachel Skytta Davis
Acoustic guitar on Track 14 by Steven Martinez
Track 15 contains an interpolation of “Past, Present, Future” by King’s Kaleidoscope. Used with permission

Be sure to check out this 16 part video series where Shai shares about the album, and an in-depth analysis about each song.