Scott Cooley Records Announces Availability of New Album "Lockdown Leftovers" from Solo Artist Scott Cooley

The 11th studio record from recording artist Scott Cooley features 13 new original songs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Contact: Scott Cooley (810) 820-0953 scottcooley@scottcooley.com

Grand Blanc, Michigan - June 21st, 2022 - Today at the album release party event, Scott Cooley Records announced the immediate availability of "Lockdown Leftovers," enabling owners of Scott Cooley's back catalog of 10 previously-released studio albums to immediately upgrade their collections with the latest release.

"This is a well-deserved bonus album for my patient and loyal fanbase" said the artist himself, CEO at Scott Cooley Records.  Scott is best known in the midwest for songs that contain lyrical subject matter about the region as well as several songs about two of his favorite pastimes, sailing and skiing.

As with his past records, this one includes a baker's dozen new original songs Scott wrote and recorded himself at Scott Cooley Music Productions (his home studio) in Grand Blanc, Michigan.  The shortest song is 2 minutes 26 seconds long, the longest is over 6 minutes in duration, while most fall in-between the 3 and 4 minute range.

The subject matter includes relatable things most of us have experienced:  a renewed focus on what's important in life, realization of our time being fragile and fleeting, the simple pleasures in life, enjoyment of increased togetherness while locked down or working remotely, the struggles of communication and maintaining relationships, money challenges, cancelled events, nostalgia, history, addiction, and of course, a Scott Cooley album wouldn't be complete without covering the topics of love found and love lost.

Many fans have already benefited from pre-release music and video streaming, a clear indicator of their readiness for new material.

"Lockdown Leftovers" is a welcome surprise addition, particularly since it is the first new release in over 2 years and another album wasn't previously planned to be released until 2024.  Due to a distribution mistake, Scott's last album, Bluebird Days II had been scheduled for release this year, but was released early.  

Fans had come to expect the consistency of an every-two-years release in even-numbered years, but Scott experienced periods of unemployment between 2019-2020 that allowed him to write and record more songs than usual, which allowed for this "extra" unexpected release.  

The title of the album describes the motivation behind the album in that the songs were left over from writing and recording them during lockdown due to the Coronavirus, which is referenced in one of the song's lyrics.  Another of its songs expresses the positive aspects of extra togetherness experienced with his immediate family during this time, and as with his past releases, love and relationships are a prominent theme throughout.  

Scott's method of writing, playing and recording didn't change from his last album project to this one, so the "signature" sound and song quality fans have come to expect is there for fulfillment.  In fact some songs he might normally have weeded out, did in fact make the cut this time.  

Part of the easing of standards is due to the pandemic making people realize their mortality, which has made him just want people to be able to hear his songs, whether they're carefully curated or not, since our remaining time is more precious than ever.

"Even though I had more time for this album, I still followed my typical process of just getting a song as close to how I originally envisioned it when writing it as possible, then not wasting too much time trying to make each song perfect during the recording process.  It stays more fresh and sounds less labored this way, even if a few imperfections remain.  

If anything, I actually lowered the bar for what I considered release-worthy this time around.  If it was close to sounding like an actual song, and there weren't too many glaring errors or major mistakes, I called it good and moved on. I'm reminded of a t-shirt I saw that said 'don't die with the music in you' or in other words, don't be afraid to release away, whether it's your best ever batch of new songs or not."

More of a non-performing songwriter than a gigging or touring solo artist, there is little press coverage of Scott's music, aside from his own press releases such as this one.  As such, there are not many quotable reviews of his new or past music available online, but Scott likes it that way.  Preferring to stay out of any sort of public spotlight, Scott merely announces that his new music is available, then hopes for the best.  

Without a desire for celebrity or fame of any kind, he still has a hope that his steadily-increasing fanbase will continue to grow on its own without promotion, marketing or advertising of any kind.  Although unusual for a recording artist, Scott is satisfied just knowing the songs he writes and records are available to be discovered.  How much discovery will happen, and how much organic recommendation will happen, remains to be seen.  

At a time when live music performances are few and far between, and when people stay home more than ever, people are increasingly finding new music and new artists they like online in their homes and sharing it with each other online, so the chances are better than ever for an artist like Scott to enjoy increasing streaming activity.

Perhaps best described as Americana, it features the acoustic rock Scott is known for, with norteno, holiday, country, pop, folk, and even a bluegrass song that marks Scott's first foray into playing mandolin.  The ever-present acoustic guitar is still Scott's main instrument, but piano, electric piano and organ can also be heard, with most songs also including acoustic bass guitar and light, sparse drums and percussion.  

Also notable is that it contains Scott's first Christmas song he wrote as an entry into a holiday songwriting contest, and another written in association with the Sing Me A Story Foundation in which Scott turned a child's written story into a song for the benefit of Gilda's Club- a charity for children with cancer started in Detroit by Gilda Radner of Saturday Nigh Live fame.  

Likely one of the most intriguing things about this album to fans is the fact that it includes a song on which Scott's lovely wife Lenore is a guest accordion player because the previously-released songs she has played accordion on are fan favorites.

This album is being distributed internationally to more countries and outlets than ever before.  There are no CDs available to purchase this time due to a lack of demand, and Scott has yet to venture into vinyl (maybe someday), but the links are in, and are now active in your favorite places to get music on the world wide web.

This album is available on Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, and Pandora, to name of few of the many music services that offer it.  Accompanying the release are several music videos created and produced by Scott as well that you can find on his official YouTube channel.  Happy streaming!

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/album/6Tp515a1vnkPNcIYT9nB5w

Apple Music:  https://music.apple.com/us/album/lockdown-leftovers/1630698580

Amazon Music:  https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0B3Z1BL2L

Pandora:  https://www.pandora.com/artist/scott-cooley/lockdown-leftovers/ALK9b4lmwqkrh7m

YouTube Music:  https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mvJHkwdXzy_XgcNJNb6zChSYhyPHEb9QQ

For more details, visit https://www.scottcooley.com/albums/lockdown-leftovers.

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My New Album "Lockdown Leftovers" Will Be Available Soon

 

Here's to hoping you're like me:  you somehow start getting into an artist, and you're excited when you hear they have new music coming out.

It takes a lot to make the leap into trying out something new, and particularly the older you get, because you tend to like what you like, and don't feel like you have room in your life to start getting into music you're not already familiar with somehow.

Sometimes people recommending music to you makes you want to check it out even less.  Sometimes you need something more to push you over the edge.  You have to like their image, or what they're all about.

For example, someone suggested Ryan Adams to me long ago, and I couldn't get past my first impression that he was "that jean jacket guy with the hair in his face."  I also heard he was one of those #metoo hashtag guys who had supposedly mistreated a girlfriend or wife.  

The combination of those made me way less likely to try out his music, but I finally got around to it, and I can confirm, the guy is a good artist, good songwriter, has a lot of good music out there to discover.

I don't have much of an image, but I don't have any bad press either.  I'm a good person, doggone it, and people like me.  ...and I have some good music out there, and I hope you've discovered it, and hope you'll be interested to hear there's more on the way.

It's even more elusive to get someone interested in a musician they know nothing about, haven't ever even heard of, and then with nothing to go on, mention they have a new release, and then by the way, the musician himself says it's not his best stuff, but you should check it out anyway.  Great sales pitch, I know, but such is the case.  Chances are you're not one of the imaginary readers, you're real, and you already know something about me already or you wouldn't be here reading this, so that should help.

June 21st, my birthday, is when you can listen to it on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, and well, let's face it, you will only be using one of those services, not the millions of others out there, although my new album will be there too.  No links to share yet, just a "be on the lookout for it" heads up at this point.

I can tell you it will contain 13 new original songs I wrote and recorded in my home studio.  I also made an album cover:

You might like some of it, you might not.  Probably not.  If you even get to the point of finding it three days from now, you'll probably hit play on track #1, then tell yourself "nope" and then out of impatience, go listen to Ryan Adams or The Beatles or Journey or whatever instead.  Patience is hard.

Another album release announcement means needing to do more than just tell the world I'm putting more music into it.  I'm faced with telling people why they should be interested in such news.  Putting lipstick on a pig, as they say.

It's not very enticing to caution or warn people you're about to release some substandard music they might want to listen to.  Not very smart either, one might argue.  On the other hand, it is what it is, and at least I'm being honest.  When you write and record new songs, you think they're all better than they end up being, in your own opinion, after a cooling off period.

The real me would announce it the way I just did to my friend via email, which I've now deleted, but it went something like this:

"During periods of unemployment between 2019-2021, I wrote and recorded more songs than usual because of the extra free time, so I'm releasing a new album.  They wouldn't normally make the cut of my weeding out process, but the criteria this time was just that they sound close to being actual songs, without too many glaring errors or major mistakes.  I'm at the age, and we're in an age, when you never know if you might get the Corona and die, and you just want to know you got the songs out so people could potentially find them, maybe listen to them, and possibly enjoy them, whether any of that happens or not.  Both the song quality and sound quality are not up to my usual standards, but I'm doing it anyway."

In other words, just being brutally honest, no sugar-coating.  The more fake me needs to put on a marketing hat and make it compelling somehow.  It just so happens that I'm now used to the fact that there are no gatekeepers anymore in the music industry.  I forget how lucky I am that my hobby is one in which people who really have no business ever trying to sell what they create can try to anyway.  So much music in the world, how to get people to try mine, what does it all mean?

To me, it means I know I'm not good at music, but I do it anyway, and I can choose to keep it to myself, or share it with the world, and I choose the latter.  Does that make me brave or stupid?  I've wondered about that, and am unsure.  I've googled this kind of thing for reassurance, and here's some things I've found I should probably quote people on, but won't.

Heard it said:

• If you can do it for joy, you can do it forever
• Happiness lies in the thrill of creative effort
• A man is a success if he does what he wants to do
• Do what you love, and you will find the way to get it out to the world
• The judgment of music, like the inspiration for it, must come slow and measured, if it comes with truth
• The road of life is rocky and you may stumble too, so while you judge me, someone else is judging you
• It's good to be bad at things you enjoy
• You don't need to master something to enjoy it
• It's perfectly fine to suck at something and keep doing it anyway
• Being good at things is not the point of doing them
• Being bad at something makes you an interesting person
• To not excel at something helps shatter the notion that any pursuit must be a means to achievement
• We are intimidated by the expectation that we must actually be skilled at what we do in our free time
• Creating for the sake of creation, writing for the sake of writing, and trying for the sake of trying, is all invaluable grist for the spiritual mill
• It's good to be mediocre at something you care about because it shows your commitment to enjoyment, and an understanding that you deserve the flexibility to go easy on yourself
• The motivation underlying anyone's pursuit of a hobby is curiosity and the possibility of gleaning pleasure
• If you truly derive pleasure from something, being good at it won't make a difference either way
• If you enjoy doing something, it shouldn't matter what people think
• There's a lot of joy to be found in doing things just for kicks
• You'll find joy in embracing your willingness to be bad
• The recipe for success is curiosity, kindness, stamina, and a willingness to look stupid
• People will be inspired by you even if you don't crush it
• Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly
• Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm

There there self, I feel better now.  It's about building momentum, creating a buzz.  I dread this aspect of it, but at the very least, one must let people know the music exists, or will soon exist, and therefore, this post.  About all I can muster is a post like this for now.  Alright, so the next post I have planned will be the "official" version of this informal announcement, in which I will represent myself and my new album in the most favorable light in more of a press release format.  Until then, you've been warned.

New album "Bluebird Days" is now available

GRAND BLANC, MICHIGAN - The follow-up to 2018's Missing The Boat is out in web music services as of June 21st, 2020.  It has garnered praise from my innermost circle already, it features no guest stars, and already a few of the songs with videos have recieved play on YouTube.  

This is a true solo effort, with me doing all the work alone at home to make this album exist.  My loyal audience should not be disappointed, as this, like many before, is an album that includes the same great quality of songwriting and the same acoustic lo-fi sound they've come to expect.

As is always the case with any album, I’m excited once again to announce the release of my latest, Bluebird Days. It’s the 9^th official studio album I’ve released since 2004, so it marks 16 years of me releasing albums on my pretend record label Scott Cooley Records.  I wrote my first song in about 1990, so this year marks 30 years of songwriting, one of my favorite hobbies.  

Bluebird Days contains 13 new original songs that I wrote and recorded.  As usual, I performed all of the vocal singing and instrument playing, which includes acoustic guitar, acoustic bass guitar, ukulele, piano, marimba, harmonica, drums, percussion and whistling.  I also did the production, arrangement, engineering, mixing, mastering, packaging design, etc.  

The cover photo was taken by my dad, Richard E. Cooley.  It was one of the first he ever took with a digital camera, many decades after he had let his family photography hobby lapse as my sister and I had grown up and moved away.  He was particularly pleased with and proud of this one, which I think reminded him that he had a particular artistic knack for taking a good picture.  

It is of a special place to my family, a ski chalet formerly owned by my sister that served as a getaway and an extended family gathering place associated with skiing, good times and fond memories.  As one might surmise, another favorite hobby of mine is skiing, one my immediate family have all had a passion for, and this album includes a few songs about skiing.  

When you release albums, you’re always excited that it includes the best you had available at the time, and this one is no exception.  As I look back on all of my releases, there are maybe one or two songs on each album I would now leave off, and there are maybe one or two little things that I could’ve improved about the ones I did include, but overall I am still pleased, and I have no reason to believe this one would be any different.  

An interesting fact about this one is that completing it got me on a roll of sorts to keep on with a similar theme, and I later came up with another album that also has songs about skiing.  I thought of releasing them as a double album, but then decided to do them separately, the first (this one) to be released now, and the other to be released two years later in June of 2022 in keeping with my every-two-years album release schedule.  

Due to a mistake by the distributor, Bluebird Days II actually came out before this one in 2019 when I submitted them both, so the sequel became a prequel.  It’s all good, so if you liked one, you will no doubt like the other.  

I officially described it as “bold, acoustic ski bum garage rock songs with traces of folk, blues, funk, punk, psychedelic, reggae, art rock, soft rock and Americana mostly about wanting to fly high and ski on sunny powder days in the mountains to escape the blues”.  

Several of these songs I started writing back when I was a ski bum living in Vail, Colorado, and I both revisited and revised them for this album.  Songs about skiing, songs about having the blues, songs with the word ‘blue’ in the title, the fresh powder and blue sky in the photo, all added up to a title that is used to describe a great day of skiing.  

Anyway, if all goes well and according to plan, this one should be available as a CD on Amazon and as a download or streaming album on Amazon Unlimited, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, etc. on June 21^st, 2020.  As of this blog post, I’ve checked the main places to get music online, and it seems that the distribution went off without a hitch this time.  

In addition to those “big 5” web music services, there are some others carrying this new album of mine as well, including Tidal, Deezer, 7 Digital, Napster, iHeartRadio, Anghami, and Yandex.  Also you should know I’ve uploaded 5 videos for 5 of the songs on the album that are on my YouTube channel.  

There is a related news post where you can get all of the links here:  http://www.scottcooley.com/news/newalbumbluebirddaysavailablenow, but you can also get them from the album page here: www.scottcooley.com/albums/bluebird-days.

Old is new, future is now: new album out early !!!

A while back I decided I would do a songwriting/recording project that included revisiting/rewriting old previously-unreleased songs from my early days of songwriting back in the early 90s when I lived in Vail, Colorado.  As the project work progressed, an unintentional theme revealed itself:  I had several songs about skiing; several that were either about the blues or the color blue or had blue or blues in the title and/or lyrics; and several that were about birds or flight or at least included that subject matter in the lyrics somewhere.  A logical album title emerged:  Bluebird Days -which seemed to cover all three aspects of this unifying common denominator and tie it all together neatly. As work on the project progressed even further, I realized I not only had bird and blue and ski songs, but that work on old ones sparked the creative muse to write some new ones as well, and next thing I knew I had enough for not one but two albums. 

So, the old songs got refreshed to become new, and then I thought why not name the second one with a roman numeral two after it, since both followed the same overall concept?  I could even re-purpose the same cover photo that my dad proudly took of my sister's old ski chalet on a sunny day after a bunch of fresh snow had fallen the night before:

It all made great sense to me, it was all coming together, and before too long I had 26 "new" original songs recorded, two albums done, ready to upload to my digital distributor aggregator CD Baby, who deliver to their partner site online music stores for purchasing, downloading, streaming and whatnot.

I thought it was cool that CD Baby delivers your digital album (not CD) to stores like iTunes, Spotify, etc. at "future" release dates you specify in a calendar picker widget thingy on their website.  So, as an artist, I sent them two albums a while back - one to be released in 2020, the other in 2022.  That way, I figured, if I die skiing or something, I'd have two more albums that would automatically be released in the future, and the massive royalties would sustain my heirs for generations to come.  Ha ha.  It's a nice feeling to have two whole albums "in the can."  This feature also allowed me to continue with my predictable, consistent release schedule commitment I made to my fans decades ago:  which was to release a new full-length album of self-written, self-recorded songs every two years in even-numbered years on my birthday, June 21st. 

I had just released "Missing The Boat" album in 2018, so with 2020 and 2022 all set, I wouldn't need to have another album's worth of material again until 2024, which would give me five glorious years of being able to really take my time to bring fans my best stuff.  All was going according to plan and life was good.

Then all of a sudden I noticed one of them was already in stores!  What?  And not even the first one, but the second!  Made no sense.  When I inquired with CD Baby, a series of email exchanges and even a phone call resulted in trouble tickets, research, vague and inconsistent answers from multiple employees, the last communication of which attempted to summarize the problem as follows:
"Both "Bluebird Days" and "Bluebird Days II" have correct metadata in our database and have not been released on the CD Baby store. However, it seemed that the more than three year timeline was too long to wait for activation on the partner sites.  Because this is an unfamiliar problem there are no fail-safes that would help to avoid a submission going live upon delivery despite having a release date in the distant future.  It's unclear what the specifics are for an acceptable timeline for future releases at partner sites."

Blah, blah, blah...

They gave me a free "future" album release credit after I complained nicely yet firmly.  Maybe I'll use it for a "best of" package, who knows.

Now you can see the remaining issue - you get a follow-up, sequel album before you get the original or what I'm now calling the prequel.  The II before the I.  The first Bluebird Days (which has no roman numeral I) apparently was somehow not affected by the same snafu, so is still scheduled to be released on June 21st, 2020 as planned, so you'll have to wait a year and a half for that one, but the second one from the future 2022 release year you can have way early (3 1/2 years early) and it's available now (in stores as of Jan. 29th, 2019 actually).

Similar things have been done before.  Guns N'Roses had a couple of albums called Use Your Illusion, but their first one actually had a roman numeral one in the title, whereas mine does not.  Later they combined the two into a compilation without the I or the II, or something like that.  But they intentionally used an "N" instead of the word "and" in the name of their band.  Lots of greatest hits albums have a volume I, II, or even III, which sometimes have songs on subsequent ones that were from the time period of previous ones if that makes sense, so that's a thing.

What's really weird is that Neil Young released a Chrome Dreams II album before the original, which wasn't released at all I don't think, which just happened to have as its first song a song titled "Beautiful Bluebird," and although I'm a fairly big Neil fan, I don't have that album, and I only learned this after reading about it on wikipedia a couple days ago.  Yet another example of the many strange coincidences surrounding this album of mine, such as the fact that it got mistakenly released on one of the coldest harshest winter days on record in Michigan during a polar vortex.

Sometimes things don't go according to plan, and sometimes it's good to break from tradition, shake things up.  Things happen for a reason.  It's best to go with the flow.

Some links for your listening pleasure:

• YouTube Music
• Amazon
• Apple Music
• Spotify
• Deezer

Also, here's a page with more info:  http://www.scottcooley.com/albums/bluebird-days-ii

For good measure, here's the page for the one you can't hear yet:  http://www.scottcooley.com/albums/bluebird-days

A link to a last-minute press release I scrambled to put together to embrace this mistake:

https://www.pressparty.com/pg/newsdesk/scottcooley/view/185278/

UTBGL Press Release - New Scott Cooley Studio Album

For immediate release from Scott Cooley Records in East Lansing, Michigan:

Scott Cooley’s latest record, Used To Be Good Looking, is the 6^th studio album he’s self-released on his independent label.  Available in CD format from Amazon, and download from iTunes, Google Play, Bandcamp, and Spotify on June 21^st, 2014, it contains 14 new original songs.  The first half of the record is a little more mainstream, poppy, and commercial with shorter rock songs, whereas the last half finds Scott venturing into longer and more serious songs with hints of jazz, bluegrass, folk, and blues.   Fans of the all-acoustic instrumentation, catchy melodies, and outstanding lyrics on his past releases will not be disappointed.

As far as live public performances go, he entertained attendees at Lamb’s Retreat for Songwriters in 2012 at the Birchwood Inn in Harbor Springs as a solo act, and also headlined the annual Schmoopiepalooza Festival in 2013 at Pickerel Lake in northern Michigan as a duo with his lovely and talented wife Lenore on accordion.  Scott’s recent experiences leading up to this release have included a few get-togethers with family and friends, a few days spent sailing, a few days spent skiing, walking the new golden retriever, Levi, and regular date nights with Lenore.  Essentially a non-performing songwriter and recording artist, Scott wrote and recorded these songs over the course of a few weekends, and an hour or two on a few different weeknights sporadically in his basement “man cave” spare bedroom studio since his last release.

The Scott Cooley band has in the past included wife Lenore as guest studio musician (accordion, keyboard, marimba, flute, background vocals) and spiritual producer Lucky Cooley (sadly, he’s now in dog heaven).  This album is different in that on the first 13 songs, there’s no one else on it, but Scott finally convinced Lenore to play right-hand-only accordion on the final track, “Smitten with the Mitten,” and thanks to her contribution, it’s a strong candidate for consideration of being designated as a state song for the state of Michigan.  Levi wasn’t quite up to speed yet on production advice, so as a solo artist, one-man band, and do-it-all-yourselfer, Scott wore all hats involved this time, recording himself playing guitar, bass, marimba, harmonica, drums, percussion, and singing the vocals in East Lansing. 

Scott’s fan interactions, aside from the aforementioned live performances, have been limited to only one or two announcements on his website, and several posts to his blog about his experiences with songwriting and music recording.  One fan chimed in with excitement upon discovering the song Mackinac Island from the 2006 Lakeside Landing album, and her intention to share with her college friends and family members in Michigan, and sure enough, the online MP3 downloads increased for that song again.  Another fan reached out to Scott to note that he loved the last album, Cherchez La Femme, and having been on hiatus from being a musician himself, felt inspired to get back into it. 

For complete details, see:

http://www.scottcooley.com/albums/used-to-be-good-looking