2. YOU FEEL IT: DEEP DIVE

A record should be smooth. A surface designed to carry sound without interruption, without rupture. Here, it’s not. Nails rise from beneath, pushing the vinyl into swollen ridges. It bends but will not break. It carries its wounds in silence.

 

This is the truth the industry hides: the surface shines, the reports promise stability, the illusion of thriving repeats like a hook. But underneath, pressure builds. Contracts squeeze. Algorithms dictate. Investors distort. The song struggles to remain whole.

 

And still, the script must be followed. On the centre label it reads: if they ask you say you feel it. The nails are not just pressure — they are command. Smile for the camera. Speak the party line. Pretend the distortion is growth, the exhaustion is joy. Convince the consumer that everything is as it should be.

 

The nails do not shatter — they warp. They turn the clean circle into something unstable, unpredictable. That is how power works here: not through destruction, but through distortion. Enough to keep the machine alive, just not intact. Enough to bend the music, but not silence it.

 

And still, the record remains. Still, the grooves spiral on. But you can sense the stress written into them — sound as survival, carved under pressure.

 

You don’t always see it. But you feel it.

The exhaustion.

The sameness.

The sound bent to fit the mould.

 

YOU FEEL IT becomes less a reflection than a performance. It is not how the artist feels, but what they are told to say. A borrowed script, repeated until it becomes truth. Pressure doesn’t only distort the music — it distorts the story around it, bending perception until cracks pass for polish.

 

The record still exists, but warped, scarred, compromised. This is what survival looks like under constant pressure. The groove remains, but the music can never play the same way again.

 

If they ask, you say you feel it.