The beauty of today’s music business is that you can pay a monthly subscription fee for a streaming service and get all music by all artists – including “amateurs” like me who have no pressure except that which we place upon ourselves, and as a result, there’s a ton of interesting, important music out there to be discovered.
Success in music can be defined as being counted among some people’s favorite artists, regardless of any potential for mainstream popularity that artist has. It can easily justify an artist’s existence, and the need for their music to remain available.
Your favorite artists have released albums that are worse than others, and songs that are worse than others. Sometimes your favorites are the ones few people would agree with, and you’re glad they exist.
Your favorite band sucks. That’s a funny t-shirt. People get defensive. You like what you like, and you don’t care what others think. They may not appear on anyone else’s fave lists, they may not be the best singers, instrumentalists, or songwriters. You discovered them somehow, and it’s cool to find things you like about their deep album cuts and lesser-known songs.
Record companies used to decide which artists people got to listen to, and now it’s a bit more democratic. You get access to more choices now, and you have the freedom to choose what to listen to regardless of their influence.
In defense of independent musicians everywhere, isn’t it awesome they have a low barrier to entry into the business? They have platforms for people to find their music, even their mediocre stuff, and it doesn’t have to be popular to stay there, and it doesn’t have to be expensive for it to stay there.
Sometimes I feel like an endangered species. I notice signs that artists like me will be increasingly marginalized in the future. Makes me want to get my music out to people now while I still can, warts and all!
Welcome to my post in which I think and type my way through to possibly convincing myself to release an album earlier than I usually do, and with more songs on it than usual, even though those songs won’t be up to my usual quality level (not that the level was very high to begin with).
I have a bunch of songs written and recorded that aren’t that great, but they are not so bad that I would not want anyone to hear them. So, I’m thinking about releasing them all on one big album, choosing a track order, making an album cover, paying a few bucks to distribute it, etc.
I’m not under any illusion that lots of people want to hear all of the music I make, and yet there are so many songs I’ve written and recorded that no one has ever heard. They just “collect digital dust,” as they say, and exist as wave files in folders on my computer hard drive.
Even for a lot of the songs I have already released, hardly anyone has ever heard them, so it’s not as if I have anything to lose. It’s not like I’m in danger of wrecking a stellar reputation. The streaming counts are publicly visible, so there’s no hiding from the lack of popularity. Some songs have been available for a couple decades and only have a couple streams each on some platforms.
This cold harsh reality could be a reflection of a lot of things that are totally my fault, but it is of course not uncommon at all. Other artists in a similar boat toiled for way longer than me and spent way more money than me to have the same result.
Fortunately, I’ve never paid for anything – studio time, session musicians, producers, engineers, co-writers, lessons, rehearsal space, etc. I have always used a cheap audio interface and a cheap microphone on a cheap computer I would have anyway, with a few cheap instruments I would have anyway.
For most of my songs, I probably average about a half hour to write them, and about an hour and a half to record them, so approximately 2 hrs. per song. That’s my labor in my free time. Then when I have a dozen or so, I pay to distribute them, which when I started was around 5 bucks per album, and is now around 10 bucks per album.
Depending on how you add it all up, maybe I’ve come close to breaking even on the overall investment in the hobby. I have never paid to get press, and have never paid for any promotion, advertising, or marketing of any kind. I just announce releases on social media, my web site, and this blog, and that’s about it.
If you’re a returning regular reader of this blog, you know that I consider myself lucky to have gotten on a roll with a songwriting/recording hobby right when they started allowing anyone to be able to pay a few bucks to release their music on the iTunes Store for downloads and Amazon for CDs. Rapidly, this expanded to other MP3 sites and music streaming apps like Spotify.
These digital music aggregator distribution services started popping up that allowed independent music acts to upload their songs and get them distributed to all of the online music stores and streaming platforms worldwide. It essentially allowed amateurs to go public and commercial and feel like pros without needing to be signed to a record label.
When you are completely self-taught, feeling like a pro can be a good thing. Just as I was starting to write decent songs and experiment with some cheap home recording equipment, it became possible and I took advantage of the opportunity. The timing of the changes in the music business and technology were ideal for a solo artist like me, because getting any interest in my music with verifiable stats was exciting and gave me confidence.
Creative quality is subjective, but CD/download sales figures that transitioned to streaming counts, along with online presence interest, became indicators of fan engagement. Since I’m not an attention seeker by nature, I haven’t been proactive about getting my name out there, but I did create a website, blog, and social media profiles that I use to market myself occasionally.
I don’t do anything at all to try to get more followers, likes, shares, subscribes, streams, playlist adds, or email list signups. I like knowing that whatever amount of any of those I do get is totally organic, without any manipulation by me or anyone else.
A lot of people do what I do now. They write and record songs and release them to Amazon Music, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, etc., and maybe recoup the digital distribution fee eventually. For most of us, we never really know for sure how good the songs are. All I know is that some are a little better than others.
The right thing to do is to wait until you have enough of those to release an album. All the other songs that were worse than the others are still fairly good though, at least in your own mind. You never know what other people will like, and you sort of don’t care one way or another, if you think about it the way I do.
The problem if you’ve released albums before like I have, then write and record more, is that you think way too much about these types of little decisions. You toil over what to include, what to leave out, what order to put them in. None of it really matters, but I guess because I spend way too much time thinking about it, maybe I do care a little.
Anyone who creates things for fun usually finds it fun to share those creations with others in some way or another. We all want to do well with any pursuit. In my case, I distribute to music streaming services so people can find and listen to them, and I’m always excited to see that some do.
You always hope there are some people out there in the world who like what you created. It can’t be helped. I am content with my life, and if I didn’t have a songwriting/recording hobby, I’d still be content. Sometimes when I check out the streaming stats and see that some of my songs don’t get streamed hardly at all, it’s disappointing.
Then I quickly cheer myself up by noting the stats of my most-streamed songs and realize I’m not as terrible as I sometimes think of myself as being. When you’re realistic about your limitations, and know your style isn’t anywhere close to the mainstream, you don’t worry about whether your hobby is a waste of time.
You wouldn’t mind some popularity, of course, but you’re not out to write hits necessarily. You just do what you do because you like doing it. It’s unusual to do something where there’s not a concrete way to know how to do well. Trying harder doesn’t usually help. It’s not like most activities in which hard work is rewarded with success. In fact, sometimes it turns out that the songs people like the best are the ones that required the least amount of effort.
I have a bunch of finished songs no one has ever heard. I wrote them and recorded them, and they’ve just been in a folder on my computer. They are not that great, but not that bad either. Who knows? I’m sometimes surprised about people’s favorites, and find it hard to believe others didn’t get more streams, but none in the currently available batch seem to be standout hits in any way. I’m not the best judge. The window of opportunity to publicly release my music in the same places where you can stream the GOATS of music seems to be closing, and I’m not getting any younger.
If you’re a self-releasing indie solo artist like me, you can just release them any time you want. It’s a good situation to find yourself in. If I was signed to a label, I’d need to weed out a bunch of them. In fact, many were previously weeded out from consideration for past album releases. I haven’t written a really “good-for-me” song in a long time. It happens. You just continue on with the hobby, and eventually a few good ones materialize again.
I typically wait two years between album releases. I also typically put 13 songs on an album. I have no idea why I’ve established this pattern. I’m tempted to release another album early – only one year since my last – and with more songs than usual. The problem is there just aren’t any really good-for-me songs yet. Can I release a long album with all mediocre songs? Sure, why not? I could do that.
Then when I think about it more, I realize that for most of the artists and bands I’m a fan of, when I peruse their back catalog discography, they all only have about 2-3 songs I like on most of their albums. Some artists I’m a fan of only have one good song per album, but I like them anyway. I make a playlist of those, and I have my own personal favorite mix tape of what I think are their best songs.
So, as an artist myself, I can safely say I’m no different. There are maybe on average two good songs on each of my albums, some more, some less. A couple of my albums don’t really have any outstanding songs at all. A couple other albums have a higher quality with several good songs on each. Good for me, that is. Of course, I thought they were the best available at the time of release, and now I’m not crazy about some I previously thought were good.
Got an unreleased material stockpile? Some say put it out, don’t hold back. What to do with all that music no one has heard yet? Your release approach options are limitless, and anything is better than nothing. Or so I have read (obscure Spinal Tap reference alert). You can go for it and maybe get accused of gaming the system somehow.
A huge triple album, three albums spread out, a half-dozen EPs spread out even further, more than one release per year, a couple singles per month for a whole year, etc. Bruce Springsteen just released 7 whole previously-unreleased albums from his vault with a marketing gimmick that they had been “lost”. Albums are better for artists like me who don’t promote anything because all my songs are deep cuts anyway, and I usually have some cohesive vision, narrative, or theme that ties them all together and gives listeners a more immersive experience.
Waiting makes it easier to group songs together that complement each other. If you release songs too quickly, fans might feel like you’re hitting them with too much at once. Rushing puts you at risk of the perception of watering down the back catalog. A part of every creator is excited upon completion of a work to share it with others. Sometimes it’s better to live with the creation for a while, give yourself some time to change your mind.
If you wait, you might get hit by a bus before anyone gets to hear those songs. When not signed to a label that would certainly posthumously milk the back catalog for all it’s worth, all my unreleased songs would just stay on the computer indefinitely until it breaks and is thrown away. On the other hand, releasing more songs more often can water down that back catalog. Mine isn’t worth much, but the bottom line is you have a bunch of songs that aren’t bad, and you wouldn’t mind if people got to hear them. The few die-hard fans I have would love the increased output, regardless of overall quality.
I’m not out for popularity, but releasing more songs, more frequently is a thing one can do. In the old days, you’d never hear an artist like me in the first place, but now you can get more Scott Cooley, more often, if I make that choice. I just may be able to make that happen, since I do in fact have some recorded songs I’m just sitting on, instead of waiting another year. You always want to weed some out, of course. I have a personal system for self-rating my own songs, and there are always some I know are not going to make the cut, but I could lower my standards a bit.
It's a good problem to have if you’re a recording artist. Weed out for quality, they say. You don’t want to let the fanbase down, but if you wait too long for better songs to show up, you’ll risk losing some fans. My digital aggregator distributor who sends my songs to the digital service providers advise “In general for an album, you should aim for a maximum of 80 minutes total.” So, if you divide that by an average of 4 minutes per song, that would be 20 songs to max it out.
There are more solo artists than bands now. Another trend is that those solo artists are releasing music more often than they used to. Yet another is that they are releasing albums with more songs on them than they used to. All of this is done to keep the fans interested and satiated. It’s about not losing momentum.
You might be wondering if or when I might release more music again. I’ve been wondering the same thing. Fortunately, there seems to be a slowly-increasing interest in this type of information. More people have been discovering me lately, and from what I can tell, my body of work is catching on, and getting recommended more often, I guess. I know personally when I’m a fan of an artist, I do like it when they release new stuff more frequently, and I don’t mind really long albums at all. I like them. But then again, as an artist myself, I’m prone to long albums already (and long blog posts for that matter).
I’ll try to keep the paragraphs a little shorter for you on this post, since another trend and reason for the aforementioned trends I’ve read about recently is that supposedly everyone in the world now can’t handle long reads anymore, and they can’t help it that their attention spans keep getting shorter. I find it hard to believe.
I’m inclined to consider those trends as advice to go for it with more music, more often since my audience has been slowly growing, especially lately. They say you need to drop hints to build a buzz, so this might contain some. If the quality dips a little, so be it. I don’t want my fans to forget about me while I’m on a roll, because if they haven’t already, they will eventually.
I’m glad my standards are not so high that they’ve prevented me from releasing any of music at all. Some people toil (there’s that word again) for years perfecting a few songs before they put them out. I decided long ago to just dive in, not worry too much about quality control, and live with my decisions. The regrets have been few. Other people don’t care as much as you think, so you shouldn’t either – that’s what I need to keep in mind.
It’s probably not a bad idea to get feedback from live audiences and get the opinions of music experts first, but I don’t play live, and bad critiques can devastate your confidence and stifle your spirit, so I find it’s better to avoid reviews of any kind. You’re better off not knowing. Going public with your hobby requires bravery.
It’s tempting to worry about what other people think, or at least wonder, but the reality is that no one thinks anything. Nobody notices, nobody wonders what ever happened to you. It’s comforting to remind yourself that no one talks about you behind your back, no one cares what you’ve been up to or how successful you’ve become in anything. Yes, I’m brave to think people will find and enjoy my music.
When people I’ve known have found out that I’m one of those people who writes and records and releases music, they might also hear I’m not popular or awesome or famous. I don’t really care. I just like doing what I do. I don’t over-think it (except in posts like this), don’t over-edit, don’t over-produce. I prefer to keep it fresh, move on to new songs instead of perfecting existing ones. I want to write a great song someday, but I want it to happen naturally as if by accident.
I guess that I’m here to tease that I’m considering release approach options due to having some new (and previously-unreleased older) songs recorded – more than enough for an album already, despite the expectation that the next one won’t arrive until 2026 at earliest, taking into account my typical “thirteen-new-originals-every-two-years-in-even-numbered-years-on-my-birthday” schedule.
There’s nothing wrong with having morbid curiosity about something or someone. You know how to delete your browser history, right? No one has to know that you like to read random therapeutic ramblings in the online personal journal of someone who is not a professional author. (Technically, I am a professional writer, but more on that later.)
This is, after all, THE authoritative source of newsworthy information about Scott Cooley music. Some of you like some of what I’ve already released, and are therefore naturally interested in knowing when there might be more. Just as with my music, I dabble in various styles of blogging, and the last ultra-long post was probably a chore due to the length. I appreciate knowing people read what I write (about myself).
Were you the type who snuck into a sibling’s room when they were gone to read their diary when you were growing up? It’s not uncommon. Whatever the motivation to read this blog, it’s probably not much different than the motivation to listen to the songs of an unpopular amateur singer-songwriter like me in the first place. What you listen to in your free time is your business, and you probably have a set of headphones for when other people are around.
I’m not ruling out that you are proud to tell anyone anytime that you like the music Scott Cooley creates, and further, that you like reading the web log of his thoughts about being someone who creates music. There are much worse things to spend your time doing.
Enjoy it while you can, especially the music, because it probably won’t be around forever. The labels and streaming services seemingly can’t wait to justify an excuse to take my songs down, as they keep trying to establish new reasons to weed out those who are not popular enough.
Long after I’m dead, maybe this blog will still be here though. I’m sure there’s a process survivors can follow to request the takedown of dead relative’s blog, as with social media profiles, but some choose to leave them up. It’s weird to think about.
Most people have really short attention spans, shorter than in years past, and they are likely to get even shorter in the future. Less people read, and if they do, they prefer the short character limits of social media over novels. Length-wise, the posts herein are somewhere in between.
Yet, I’m able to access some stats that a surprising number of people out there in the world actually seem to have both the required patience and desire to read my ultra-long posts. I assume they are interested in reading about some old guy writing about pretending to be a songwriter and recording artist, while almost actually (and arguably) becoming one.
In the future though, what kind of person would be interested in the struggles and very small wins of someone who wrote songs on an acoustic guitar, recorded them in his house, and then released them online for worldwide streaming for a couple of decades, starting in the early 2000s?
There would have to be some curiosity about what life was like for such a person during these times in addition to the recorded material. I suppose for posterity’s sake, I should include more about my reaction to major news events or something along those lines. From what I can tell, my audience is intelligent and tolerant – of both long blog reads and long albums – with much longer attention spans than average. Congratulate yourselves.
Historically speaking, it has been unique that what I’ve done was even possible. Big changes occurred in the music and tech industries during my peak creative years. People in earlier generations were not able to buy affordable home recording equipment, nor were they able to just release their recordings so that anyone in the world could find them and listen to them.
When I hear about some dead musician supposedly having a ton of recorded music that they never released that I’ll never get to hear, assuming I’ve discovered and become a fan of what they did release, I kind of wish I could hear it. I know estates and lawyers likely prevent it, which is too bad.
On the other hand, sometimes there’s a seemingly endless amount of exploitative repackaging and remastering and re-releasing by labels that seems excessively greedy and definitely overkill. Sometimes posthumous releases are disappointing, and you understand the decisions why certain songs were not released in the first place.
Other times, you hear it and think they were really on to something, and that if they hadn’t died, they would’ve gone off in a new direction that would’ve been even better, etc. You can put out your best available now, have subsequent albums decline in quality. You can save the best for last and die without it being released.
Increasingly, the current trend is that artists are coming out with albums that have way more songs on them than what would fit on two sides of an actual vinyl record. I guess they do it because they can, the digital streaming technology doesn’t have the physical limits, and the consumer demand doesn’t really matter.
Arguably, it is a way to make more money by gaming the system, but I’m not sure how that works exactly. I don’t have the issue of needing to make money from my music. Well, I need to, but I should say, I don’t expect to. If you’re not popular enough these days, they give you the space for your songs, but don’t pay you at all for them. If I count in any way, I exist as a solo artist, theoretically in the public eye, only because they allow this.
Pre-internet, no one could just type whatever they wanted about any topic (or just about themselves) and publish it so anyone could potentially find it and read it. So, if I were born a few decades earlier, I wouldn’t be a blogger or a prolific solo artist.
I know I’m not super talented or skilled in what I do, but I do it anyway because I can. Lately, I’m thinking I could be even more prolific, likely at the expense of quality, and hardly anyone would notice or care, so why not?
12 studio albums in 20 years is significant to me, a milestone of sorts. One every two years is what I decided to shoot for. Mine always have at least 13 songs. If they each had 7 or something, I'd have released way more albums, but it's just what works for me.
This also puts me over the 150 released original songs mark. 154 is now the number of songs I've written (that I've made public). Arguably, I could've done more weeding out along the way. The volume isn’t really something to be proud of, I guess. If they all suck, who cares? You know what I mean. The quantity matters not.
How often you release music says something about you as an artist. The main obvious thing is how much free time you have available for a creative hobby. I’m a part-timer at most when it comes to writing songs and recording music. I’ve always worked a full-time job, and have had a career working primarily as a Technical Writer for almost 30 years.
Back in the 60s, bands like the Beatles would release 2 new albums per year. If you don't have day jobs and that's all you do, and you have George Martin and others doing a lot of the work for you, why not?
When you’re someone who has a lot of other interests, like earning money from a regular job to pay the bills, and you’re also married, there’s only so much available space in your life for a hobby. My main one happens to be song writing and recording.
Factor in vacations and travel, hiking, going out to dinner, concerts, parties, family get togethers, reading, watching movies, listening to music, other forms of entertainment, etc. I’ve also been a dog owner for years, I’ve been an avid skier, a tennis player, and someone who occasionally likes to go sailing.
Increasingly as I get older, and especially since Covid, my outside activities have been winding down, becoming less frequent. The financial constraints are real, but I’d like to think I’ve become a little wiser, planning for a future that will hopefully include a retirement.
Most people don’t like their jobs that much, and I count myself among them. I’ve worked as a technical communications professional for most of my adult life now, and I’ve often found myself saying that I hate it, despite it paying fairly well. I’m really good at it if I do say so myself, but there’s nothing about it I enjoy, except the lower-middle class income. The one good thing I guess is that it’s so boring that it makes me crave creativity, thus the blogging and song writing.
When you work full time, you have a few hours in the evenings, and weekends. Then you have to consider that I’m a totally self-contained solo artist who does not ever farm anything out. I blog about my hobby in the form of very long reads (like this will probably be), so that takes a certain amount of time too.
It’s a lot when you’re totally independent and DIY. Time is one thing, but my energy levels have been winding down as I’ve gotten older too. It happens. Quite often, I find myself just being happy reading instead of picking up a guitar and hoping ideas come to me for songs.
Then I also maintain my web site that I created for myself and my hobby. I do a few social media posts per year as well. All in support of engaging with you, my fans, while in the mode of my alter ego of pretending to be a solo artist, faking it ‘till I make it, as they say.
I talk about "they" a lot. They are the music business establishment insiders and self-proclaimed experts who share advice online. I occasionally read some of it. One thing they say is an important trend, that perhaps I should try to get onboard with, is that artists should release music more frequently these days.
Why? I wondered, and they said it's due to "today's fast-paced streaming culture where attention spans are short and listeners expect new content regularly."
I've thought about the one-song-at-a-time strategy. As a huge fan of solo artist Ultimate Rick Jones, for example, I subscribe because every couple months, he releases a new single. It's satisfying, so I understand the benefits completely.
I'm not what you'd call a singles artist to begin with, and I have an established tradition of one full-length album every two years. I bought a few 45s back in the day, but I really like albums. I grew up with them. I have a bunch of CDs too, but now I’ve moved on to paying for YouTube Music with every song ever available, which is really great for music fans.
I know every artist should have an EP, a double album, a live album, a compilation album, etc., and a bunch of singles in their catalog, but I like to stick with what works for me.
I suppose I could decrease the time between album releases. The risk is of course less weeding out for quality control. Realistically, I'm not known for high quality to begin with, so this shouldn't be an issue.
The only other issue is not being able to keep up the pace, creating an expectation I can't live up to. I've somewhat promised one album every two years, and I've kept it for twenty.
They say there are a bunch of other benefits:
• keeps you in the public eye
• engages your audience more consistently
• maximizes streaming revenue
• builds momentum through a larger catalog
• increases visibility
• keeps you on listener's radar
• fosters a stronger fan connection
• appeases the algorithms for a wider audience
• allows for more experimentation
I need to do what works best for me. Although I've never really "broken" as an artist, I am at the same time a fairly "established" artist, which makes the right approach challenging to determine. They say nowadays you should start as a singles artist, and later on become an albums artist, not sure why exactly, but maybe it makes some sense. I’m already an albums artist, so it would be weird to switch to becoming a singles artist.
There are a lot of previously weeded out songs that didn't make the cut on my albums that I could make available, but they didn't make the cut for reasons that made sense at the time.
That said, I'm always surprised that what I thought were some of my weakest songs have been among other people's favorites. So, this is a factor to take into consideration for sure.
I keep thinking that if I can ever afford to be truly retired from a day job, I'll have more time for this hobby of mine. On the other hand, it could be that having limited free time has been an advantage.
Since that's not likely to happen any time soon, and since I do have quite a bit of unreleased material, I may shift my thinking about this.
They say don't die with the music in you. Don't die without letting people hear it all. I've attempted to exhaust the backlog of songs before, but I keep writing more. If I die tomorrow, at least I released as many as I did, though there are quite a few I wish I hadn’t. There’s always that risk that you look back in retrospect decide you could’ve kept a few to yourself that other didn’t really ever need to hear.
There's always the risk of death, too, premature or otherwise. Accidents happen. Some posthumous releases are excellent. Not sure if any surviving members of my family could figure out how to release my unreleased stuff. Probably not. It wouldn’t be lucrative in any way, that’s for sure.
Hence, I guess I can ramp it up a little. Why not? Put out the bad and the ugly, interspersed with some good. I've sort of always done that anyway! There are ebbs and flows in even the best artist’s careers, as we all know. Except maybe the Beatles.
I'm sure there are solo artists and bands who ended on a good note, and their last album was their best-ever. Most of the time though, their best album came earlier in their careers. It's just the way it is, I suspect.
I am certainly impressed when I check out the discographies of artists I like and see that they were incredibly prolific. Neil Young comes to mind as a guy who releases a new album every single year. As a streaming fan, there are several on each album I impatiently skip, but possibly return to and learn to appreciate after subsequent listens.
So, this is all to say, I’m thinking about releasing music more often. There’s a part of me that of course wants to keep waiting until I have better material first, but then there’s another part of me that wants to get it out there before I die. You want people to hear your best.
If I were to select songs for a Best Of Scott Cooley album, there are maybe an average of two songs per album I’d choose, some more, some less, and with a dozen albums, it would have to be a double or a 2-disc box set or something.
On the other hand, I could easily name a few songs from each album I’ve released that I could’ve left off in hindsight. I’m sure that’s true for the famous popular artists too. Surprisingly, however, people have occasionally told me they really like some of the songs that are on my personal cringe/regret list.
As 2025 rolls on, I’m thinking about my music-related plans. I find myself in a situation where I have some unreleased material written and recorded, which presents the inevitable dilemma of deciding what to release and when and in what order. No one can just keep out-doing themselves indefinitely, despite any self-imposed pressure, and of course we all want to end on a good note, but it’s easier said than done.
No one wants to be like Boston or Violent Femmes to name a couple whose debuts were awesome and then all subsequent follow-ups never measured up. One needs to stay in the game. Another motivating factor is to get the music out there before the music business powers that be close the gate on letting me in entirely. There are indications this not out of the realm of possibility.
If I lead with my absolute best available first, there’s less risk the record corporation / streaming corporation powers will employ their “artist-centric” (translation: not streamed enough) rationale to delete my stuff, but if I lead with the worst to eventually end with my best, they may just find a reason to speed up their not-popular-enough platform removal process.
What I haven’t yet just come out and said is that I might release a new album this year, and it might not be as great as my last one. You’ve now been warned, but the good news is you have something to look forward to that you don’t have to wait until 2026 for. I think I’ll go for it. I’m gearing up.
I may have blogged my way into deciding to release an album that has more songs on it than usual, with an overall song quality level that is below the bar I’ve set for myself, which admittedly isn’t all that high. The only thing I have to lose is the $9.99 to release it.
As usual, I feel weird blogging about myself as if I’m some serious solo artist. People can sort of pretend they are celebrities in this day and age online. I want more streams, yes, but don’t want to be a famous person. But I contemplate these things, via blogging, to you few readers I know I have, in order to make sense of my thoughts on matters like these, knowing full well that they are extremely inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
I listen back to this unreleased stockpile of songs I wrote and have recorded, and sometimes I think none of them are really release-worthy, but other times I think they’re not bad and wouldn’t be too embarrassing if other people heard them. I built a tiny bit of momentum with my last album, 2024’s “Sunrise,” and I think I might be wise to keep it going, while able to, lest people forget about me.
This blog is my preferred way to engage with you. I guess I do it to keep you interested, to literally keep you posted. I want you to know I’ve got a few “in the can” as they say, and I guess I’m in the process of deciding if you and the rest of the world should have them available to potentially find and listen to or not. I do it to give you a hint that I may release more music in the future, more frequently, and hopefully thereby reduce the risk of losing you as fans. None of us want to be forgotten, but most of us will be eventually. That’s life, my friends.
Song forms are described by listing the sections in an order, usually vertically top-to-bottom, with each part or section on its own line. I was confused as to whether this meant to simply repeat the chorus again, or write a separate “Out Chorus” as the final lyrical part before some type of instrumental outro ending. So, I started writing unique variations of the chorus after the last repetition of the regular chorus. Further complicating this is that section labels will be marked as Chorus 1, Chorus 2, etc. instead of just Repeat – which made me wonder does the 2 just mean the second time the same chorus appears in the song? 
