Should Music Artists Compare Themselves in the Music Industry?

“Comparison is the thief of joy.”

That’s what I used to tell myself as I listened to my favourite music and immediately felt worse about my own.

Maybe there was a little toxic positivity happening there, but for a long time I genuinely tried not to compare myself too much when it came to music.

On reflection, I think I was trying to protect my own craft and growth as an artist and producer.

I was afraid to look too closely at the successes of my peers. I didn’t want to pay too much attention to what other producers were doing. I was even hesitant to compare my own sound to the artists and music I loved.

Because comparison didn’t always make me want to create.

Sometimes it made me want to stop.

Why musicians are told to stop comparing themselves

I’ve always recognised the danger of quitting something difficult just because it doesn’t feel good or isn’t going perfectly.

Making the best music you can in your lifetime is a long game.

Whether you’re an artist, songwriter or producer, developing your taste and craft takes years of persistence, experimentation, failure and grace.

So when comparison consistently left me feeling dejected about my own writing and production, the obvious solution seemed to be:

Stop comparing. Focus on your own journey.

And there’s definitely some truth in that.

But I don’t think it tells the whole story.

What if comparison isn’t actually the problem?

I had a bit of a revelation recently.

How I respond to comparison isn’t fixed.

I can hear an incredible song and use the gap between that artist and me as evidence that my own music isn’t good enough.

Or I can hear exactly the same song and think:

That is incredible. What can I learn from this?

I can watch another producer do something I never would have thought of and feel threatened by it.

Or I can get excited because I’ve just discovered another possibility.

I can see one of my peers achieve something significant and use their success as evidence that I’m falling behind.

Or I can just be genuinely happy for them.

Their success doesn’t always have to say something about mine.

The comparison hasn’t changed.

What I’ve done with it has.

You can’t make music in a silo

I also realised that completely avoiding comparison probably isn’t particularly useful if you want to grow as an artist.

We don’t make music in isolation.

We listen to other artists. We collaborate with musicians, producers and engineers. We use references. We play unfinished songs to people we trust. We release music for other human beings to experience.

Other people’s work inevitably becomes part of our creative vocabulary.

In my own work producing and mixing indie, folk and alternative pop artists, references can be incredibly useful. Not because the goal is to copy another artist’s sound, but because comparison can help us understand what we’re actually responding to.

Maybe it’s how exposed the vocal feels.

Maybe it’s the amount of space in the arrangement.

Maybe it’s an unusual instrumental choice.

Maybe it’s how little the production is actually doing.

You can compare your music to something you love without concluding that yours needs to become the same thing.

Sometimes comparison simply helps you articulate your taste.

Comparison can show you the gap

I actually think there are situations where comparing yourself more can help you get where you want to go faster.

Not obsessively. And not as a way of deciding your worth.

But as information.

If there’s an artist, songwriter or producer whose work you admire, there is value in asking:

What specifically are they doing that I respond to?

Then go deeper.

Is it their songwriting?

Their performances?

Their sonic choices?

Their consistency?

The people they’re collaborating with?

The way they’ve built a world around their music?

The more specific you become, the less comparison has to be about “they’re better than me.”

It can become:

“There’s something here I can learn from.”

And that’s a much more useful place to create from.

The goal isn’t to close every gap

There’s another side to this that I think matters.

Sometimes the thing you admire in someone else’s music shouldn’t become part of yours.

Your favourite artist might make incredibly dense productions while your own music feels strongest when it’s sparse.

Someone else’s voice might thrive with a completely different production style.

Another artist might be further ahead professionally because they’ve been releasing music for ten years longer than you have.

Comparison can reveal differences without requiring you to eliminate them.

Part of developing your identity as an artist is learning which gaps you want to close and which ones are simply evidence that you’re different people making different music.

Let this be your permission slip to compare yourself

So maybe “comparison is the thief of joy” isn’t the whole story.

Comparison can absolutely steal the joy from making music.

But it can also give you perspective.

It can sharpen your taste.

It can expose you to ideas you hadn’t considered.

It can remind you what’s possible.

And sometimes hearing something incredible simply makes you want to go back into the studio and try again.

So let this be your permission slip to compare yourself today.

Notice the gap without immediately turning it into a judgement about yourself.

Be genuinely excited when somebody makes something brilliant.

Ask what you can learn from it.

And when you see the distance between where you are and where you want to be, try to see the good in the gap.

There might be something there worth chasing.