Jason Collett tired of 'silly things' musicians must do to survive

Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett's new album Song and Dance Man is, in part, a comment on how artists have to hawk their wares in the age of social media. 

"It's embarrassing and undignified the amount that we're expected to be used-car salesmen for our thing," he told Shad in studio q today.

The promise of the internet was that it would democratize the music scene but, Collett says, the industry's back to its old ways. He cites the lack of transparency in agreements between labels and streaming services.

Collett also expresses his ambivalence about crowd-sourced promotions. "The amount of energy that's needed to hustle your thing — there's more artifice than art," he says. "I'm not afraid of doing hard work but I don't want to do silly things."

The Toronto-based singer-songwriter performed three songs from the record — Provincial Blues, Song and Dance Man and Love You Babe.