After going viral, Annabelle Dinda has released her newest single, “The Hand,” to middling applause.
Annabelle Dinda, an up-and-coming artist known for her recent singles “Logging Field” and “Good Things,” has again gone viral for her song “The Hand.” Released on Nov. 7, the track had begun its life on Dinda’s TikTok, “annabellesays,” where it was initially posted just a month earlier.
“This song is called ‘The Hand,’” Dinda wrote in the caption of the original viral post, which at the time of writing has accrued 13.8 million views. “Yes, I’m putting it on streaming. This is a run-through of the whole thing, and it proves that I have to practice like 80 times before I find the breath control.”
In the caption, Dinda refers to the inevitable line of questioning all musicians face when a piece of music they post online blows up: “When will this song be released?” Dinda herself had faced this infamous question just a month earlier when another piece, called “Logging Field,” had gone viral on the app.
While the success of “Logging Field” continued after its eventual release on streaming services, with many fans enjoying the final production of the track, the same cannot be said about “The Hand.”
Upon its release, listeners complained that the track was poorly produced, with the instrumental being too loud and covering up Dinda’s vocals.
“No, it was mixed badly,” one commenter said under a video that defends the final product. “Vocals should definitely be louder and more forward.”
“[I don’t know] technical stuff [and I am] not going to pretend to,” another commenter said. “But as a listener, the vocals are weirdly quiet and the drum track is distracting. I totally can see the vision, but [I don’t know] how I feel about the execution. It doesn’t move me the way the [original] does.”
Others have come to Dinda’s defence. One poster argued that “aside from the fact that the vision for this production is completely flying over some of y’all’s heads, this girl produced the song ON HER OWN. You’re judging the quality of the production as if she had a whole team behind her or a record label backing her up.”
Another poster, a smaller artist called Miki Ratsula, stated that the reaction to “The Hand” has made them feel nervous about posting their own music on the platform.
“Seeing this artist play this song and it goes viral and watching how ruthless people are about the production — it makes me so upset for this artist and it also just kind of highlights what I’m really scared about on the internet as a producer and an artist and a songwriter,” Ratsula said.
In their post, Ratsula went on to say that people don’t always have to like the final production of a piece, but it is the “entitlement that really stresses [them] out and makes [them] really upset.”
While listeners are obviously allowed to form their own opinions about music and enjoy one version more than another, they also have to acknowledge that their opinion doesn’t always have to be expressed online.
If you loved the demo of “The Hand” but found that the final production wasn’t your cup of tea, that is okay. Flooding into comment sections and making posts sharing your opinion in a rude and entitled way is different.
Criticism isn’t a bad thing, but it’s how you share it with the artist that determines whether or not you are being a jerk.