In the daily interactions we have with people, a nod hello to a passing stranger could seem like nothing more than a nice gesture. But without even knowing it, that gesture may be the human connection someone really needed. Naturally, human interaction is something we strive to obtain. For musician Amanda Palmer, human connections inspired her to play a different role in life and eventually led her to flip the music industry upside down.

After graduating from an upstanding liberal arts university, she spent five years as a self-employed street performer in what she titled the “Eight-foot Bride.” From those days on, she never stopped creating relationships or making connections. Former lead singer of the Dresden Dolls and now a solo artist, Amanda based her music career around sharing the spotlight with her supporters.

Whether that meant literally having them on stage or hosting street performers outside of venues to showcase and support their talent, her band “created an art” out of asking fans to help and join them along their travels — a result of not wanting to lose the direct human encounters she once had standing on her crate.

As society began to take a turn for the digital via social media and all-things internet, she never saw the shift as a hindrance to human connections but rather it provided a larger platform to directly contact her network of fans. As she toured the world, the connections never stopped. After selling 25,000 copies, her label classified her album a failure, sparking the force behind endorsing free music and her decision to drop off the major record label. Eventually leading her to the idea of releasing her next album through a crowd sourcing project.

In doing so, her latest work with her band the Grand Theft Orchestra, Theatre is Evil, fell to the hands of the hundreds of thousands of interactions, conversations, and encounters she had over the years. Setting a standard for how the music industry could look like in the future, Amanda’s project which asked for $25,000 was fully funded at $1.2 million.

As major music supporters and lovers, we understand the connection between an artist and a fan. Seeing that genuine connection actualized through the creation of something tangible (like an album), makes us optimistic of what the future of the music industry holds.

(Photo credit: Here and Now)