Contributors features 20 tracks by the projects of Tone Madison authors.
As Tone Madison launches its spring 2021 fundraising campaign, we’ll be celebrating different aspects of the site in ways we hope are entertaining and effective. Speaking from a personal standpoint, one of the things that drove me to Tone Madison’s coverage in the first place was the strength of the site’s music writing. Before I’d so much as considered writing a piece, and well before I took over as the music editor, editor-in-chief Scott Gordon wrote up A Step Forward, a fundraising compilation I’d put together for my website Heartbreaking Bravery. While I’d admired Tone Madison pieces that had run previously, that became my gateway to following the site’s coverage more intensively. Roughly a year later, I was approached about writing for Tone Madison and the decision to do so was an easy one.
During the formative course of my role within Tone Madison, a number of ideas for the direction of Tone’s music coverage were discussed. While the COVID pandemic has relegated a few of those ideas to standby, I’m happy to be using this space to announce the culmination of one of those initial concepts: Contributors. A compilation where every track from every project features someone who has contributed their time, talents, and efforts to writing Tone Madison pieces, past and present, or helping out the website in other ways, including through illustrations and back-end technical help.
One of the things that has become integral to Tone Madison is the extremely active nature of our writers’ relationships to the areas they cover. Encouraging this trait has allowed us to build a strong roster of contributors who have direct insight and expertise about the functionality of their chosen topics. While this has, inevitably, led to some cross-pollination over time, Tone Madison has made every effort to make appropriate disclosures. In this instance, we’re allowing ourselves to openly celebrate the music made by our authors. Consider this entire piece a disclosure if you must.
All of these songs come from a range of different time periods. A few of them are being released for the first time via this compilation. In the “info” section on Bandcamp, a number of the contributing artists have expanded in small ways on the significance of their submitted track(s). Every last one means something to us as an organization and we hope it means something to you, as listeners and supporters of Tone Madison.
Contributors will be on sale for a name-your-price figure for today only, May 7, 2021. It’s a Bandcamp Friday, which means all the proceeds will go directly into supporting our journalism. Following that, the compilation will be available for $5. Every cent made from the purchase of Contributors will be directed to our ongoing fundraising efforts, allowing us to grow and maintain our operation and to increase the compensation rates for our team of dedicated freelancers. While every last bit of effort helps on this front and every type of supportive effort is appreciated, a purchase of Contributors will directly fund Tone Madison’s independent journalism. Becoming a sustainer will help us secure the resources to pursue more projects like this in the future.
So, whether you donate, subscribe, sustain, or support in any other way, we’re offering this as a soundtrack. Enjoy Contributors.
