Love Will Pay the Bills

In 2009 I heard a song called "Summer Cat" by a band called Billie the Vision and the Dancers. It was used in a commercial for a Spanish beer that someone posted on Facebook and I thought it was pretty catchy. So I looked up the band and listened to more of their songs. Though a bit silly at times, with some literal lyrics I couldn’t relate to, I found them entertaining and made it to the website of their record label which I borrowed to title this post: Love Will Pay the Bills. I was surprised to find that it was also the record company’s motto. Each of the band’s four albums were available to download for free, in their entirety, for me to keep and play on any device with no licensing restrictions. In return they asked only for donations and did so without annoying popups or adding me to a mailing list where they would continually ask for more. They gave no recommended contribution amount and there was no impression they would try to make me feel guilty if I never paid them anything. I thought it was incredible that they would so naively trust their fans, and the public at large, to provide the financial support required to continue to pursue lives as musicians without any requirement for them to do so. So I took a minute, thought about how much value the music had brought to my life, and how much it would continue to bring now that I had four albums downloaded, and gave them $20. I felt very happy about the exchange.