Scott Cooley: The Raygun of Singer-Songwriters?

New year, same thoughts about my situation as a “worldwide” recording artist.  How to reach a larger audience when I’m not a “hey, look at me!” type of person.  Getting noticed and discovered and recommended by more people is what we want.  There are a lot of us with this predicament.  I don’t play live, don’t have a manager, promoter, or a record company staff doing any marketing for me or otherwise helping me get attention online or in publications or whatever.  And I can’t bring myself to seek out such opportunities or do any of that type of work in my free time.  I’m not a hustler, I’m a creator.  I am always self-deprecating, and I balance the desire to create new music and share it with the world with wondering if the music business is telling me the streams just aren’t there to justify continuing.  Should I drop myself from my own label?  One problem is I can't afford any marketing, but another is I sort of despise self-promotion.  What else could I be doing?  Some say the cream rises to the top naturally, and since I'm still a bottom-dweller after 20+ years, maybe I need to get a clue and either get better or get out.  Better songs is one thing to focus on in the new year, which I certainly have control over, but I’m ruling out better recording quality and better performance quality by not being able to afford pro engineers and session musicians that pro studios (whether brick/mortar or cloud service) could provide.  I honestly believe some of my songs are worthy and deserving of the pro treatment, and I know that forking out over two grand for a premium Martin guitar about 15 years ago that I didn’t think I was good enough to deserve, did indeed turn out to be worth it for my favorite hobby.  Should I invest more in myself and take it more seriously, or should I be ashamed that I’ve taken it as seriously as I already have been for all these years?  Such are my thoughts as I begin a new year, and I know I’m not alone.  

It takes great patience and the right frame of mind to read my long-winded posts that help me figure these things out, and yet I know from my analytics that quite a few of you do, so I’ll type on.

The underground music scene, which has been increasingly marginalized on streaming platforms by power-hungry and control-hungry major record labels under the guise of their "artist-centric" rhetoric, is as strong and fresh as it has ever been.  Self-releasing independent DIY lo-fi artists like me seem to thrive on platforms like Bandcamp.  Such music sounds very real/genuine/authentic/etc. compared to the trend-chasing, digitally-polished and artificially-perfect fake-sounding music the major labels release.  Unlike the signed artists who are expected to sound perfectly fake and market the heck out of themselves on social media and elsewhere, artists like me have no expectations (or budget) for such nonsensical pursuits.  Most of us don't really seek publicity, don't buy fake streams, and don't buy fake playlist adds.  We love being totally independent so we can focus on the important stuff like writing good songs without any expectation of recouping recording or marketing loans.  We don't stoop low enough to drum up controversy or “sensationalization” for attention.

Music Marketing for “Emerging” or “Aspiring” or “Developing” Artists

All that being swept aside, it is necessary to market yourself as an artist, and to do that, you must first have some understanding of what genre of music you make, what other artists you sound like, and who your audience is.  If you are not able to describe it, categorize it, explain your style, etc., then it's a tough row to hoe.  The major labels / streaming platforms are now ramping up their gatekeeping so that if you don't get a certain number of streams for each song (1,000 per year each to be more precise), you stand no chance of getting paid.  This allows them to make more money, and that's why they exist.  For a couple of decades now, however, due to it becoming increasingly inexpensive to buy simple home recording equipment and pay for aggregator digital distribution services, they claim something needs to be done about the "oversaturation" of music that simply isn't popular enough.  When the fans decide what they like best, as opposed to what the major labels decide to market to them, it is theoretically better for everyone, but with so much competition, you can't get over a thousand streams per year of each song you release, year after year, without scrambling to get online attention somehow.

Past Mid-Career Already, Yet Not Easy To Market

I have more than two decades and twelve albums under my belt, so I must have a story capable of capturing attention if I want to take things to a higher level of public awareness, right?  If I only knew how to describe myself as a musical artist, I might then be able to formulate a marketing strategy, plan and execute a publicity campaign of some kind.  I guess that would mean reaching out to music bloggers and ask them to write about me, or paying for actual advertising to get that fan base past the streaming threshold.  As a non-performing solo artist seeking a larger audience online, I suppose doing a lot of frequent social media posts might help, as would getting the music reviewed or being interviewed.  Before thinking about what my “brand” is, or how to make my story more interesting, I need to at least be willing to seek attention, and it goes against my grain, but I think about it from time to time.  The fact is that platforms like Bandcamp are full of really interesting artists who you would never imagine being appropriate to be promoted for radio airplay, but nonetheless are so much fun to discover and listen to.  So, although I’m not an attention-seeking personality type, I give it some thought.

A New Approach – Maybe Brutal Honesty Would Work?

Last year, someone asked me what kind of a solo artist I am.  Once again, as always, I struggled to provide a quick, easy answer for such a question.  My music does not fit neatly into a popular genre people are familiar with.  I wish there was a simple way to explain it, but I have trouble with it.  People really want a categorization or at least some sort of explanation, and they find it hard to believe I can't describe myself to them.  The right thing to do is to have a short answer that makes them want to listen to decide for themselves.  It should include who you get compared to.  I remain unprepared, and wish I could be ready with the perfect elevator pitch answer.  Sometimes I say something like “you know how there’s people who aren’t very good who just release their music on the streaming platforms anyway?  I’m one of them.”  They usually don’t understand, because they only listen to their favorite famous artists anyway.

Looney Tunes

It seriously took a lot out of me to even tell people about my last album “Sunrise” when I released it last June.  Social media makes people get crazy, so I generally like to avoid it.  I got a little Looney Tunes near the end of 2024, what with the holiday stress and all here where I live near Goodrich, Michigan, home of the Martians, and like Marvin the Martian, there were a few times when I wanted to shoot a ray gun at my music “career” and make it go away, find a different hobby, but then I came back to my senses.

Also last year, I finally thought of another self-deprecating way to describe myself:  

I'm the Raygun of solo artists, the Rachael Gunn of music streaming.  

Translation:  So bad I make people laugh hysterically.

Becoming Aware of Raygun, the Dr. of Breakin', the OG Australian B-Girl

Let me explain.  Somehow, last year I was made aware of a video on YouTube showing a losing performance by this Raygun person in the summer Olympics breakdancing competition.  First of all, I didn't even know breakdancing was technically a sport, let alone an Olympic sport, but apparently, it is now.  That, by itself, was hilarious to me.  Also, the name Raygun sounded hilarious, especially after seeing what she looked like, but I did initially think it could be a good breaker's name.  Then before clicking the link to play the video, I expected it to look like the breakdancing I'd seen on TV or in those bad movies of the 1980s when it was new.  It didn't.  I expected a black person in 80s style urban street attire.  Instead, it was a white Australian woman wearing what looked like a uniform of track pants and a baseball hat.  Her moves didn't look like the breakdancing I'd seen before, and I started thinking to myself as I watched it that maybe it had evolved a lot since I'd seen it back in the day.  Trying to keep an open mind, I found myself laughing out loud a little bit as I watched it.  I wasn't sure what I'd just seen, and thought it was not out of the realm of possibility that it was a joke of some kind.

Then I decided to google her, and learned that a lot of other people had the same reaction.  Unsurprisingly, she got a score of zero, meaning no points awarded by judges at all.  People shared theories online that she had somehow scammed the system to get into the competition so that she could use her Olympics experience as a free vacation while representing her country and getting them to foot the bill.  Further research revealed this was not the case at all, and she took the "sport" so seriously that she actually had a PhD degree in breakdancing.  The world changed a lot since Krush Groove and Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo, when no one could have ever fathomed that it would not only become an Olympic sport, but something you could get a doctorate degree in.  Obviously, she took it very seriously, was trying hard to be creative with her own style, flair, technique, and choreography, and wanted to win.  Then I learned that she had some legitimate qualifications at the national level, which made me think break dancing must have evolved to something way different in Australia.  Even more funny are the online comments on the video footage of her.  People have named her various moves and created memes.  Lastly, I was sad to learn she was not able to laugh along with others' reactions and instead felt so bad about the cyberbullying that she quit.

Not Like Raygun in Some Ways

Fortunately, I have not experienced any bullying about my music career.  Unlike Raygun, I don't have any formal music education at all.  I'm completely self taught.  Also unlike Raygun, I am able to make fun of myself and maintain a sense of humor about trying to go for it in the music business.  If songwriting became an Olympic sport, there'd be a ton of Americans who would qualify before me.  I'm cracking myself up as I type this.

Zero Scores, Zero Streams

But like Raygun's zero scores, I have written, recorded and released many songs that have zero plays on some some streaming platforms.  No points scored at all.  One could argue it's due to a lack of any marketing whatsoever on my part, and although there is truth in that, I can admit, those songs are not my best.  I am a terrible singer and weak guitar player and even worse at the other instruments and recording and production and all that other stuff I attempt.  

Similar Reactions?

I know people must have a similar reaction when they do stream my music.  They must think to themselves, "okay, what's this?"...and then after hitting play on a couple more, they must think to themselves "why is this guy even on Spotify in the first place?"  Things along those lines, I imagine.  So, that's how I'm like Raygun.  The Raygun of singer-songwriters who makes people wonder "how did he get here?" or "why is this even allowed?"

No Joke

Also, like Raygun, my art is not a joke.  I seriously love writing songs and recording them, and actually think many of them are pretty damned good songs.  I'm serious about the passion I have for the craft.  I'm still laughing as I type this, realizing how it must sound to those who have heard the quality of my recordings (or lack thereof).  On the one hand, I don't take it that seriously, and I think of it as a fun hobby.  I don't work very hard on it at all – a fact that should be evident to all who listen.  On the other hand, I'm enthusiastic about it as a creative outlet in my life.  Some of my songs are intentionally humorous, almost like novelty songs, but not quite.  I know many must laugh at the ones I didn't intend to be funny too.  I can laugh along with them.  Some of my acoustic guitar solos are the music equivalent of Raygun’s Kangaroo pose.  I know I'm not awesome, but I do have some ill moves in my arsenal.  😊  I’d put my shredding technique up there with former 80s child actor Corey Feldman – another person who went viral last year.

Sneaking In and the Inevitable Increased Gatekeeping

Raygun sort of snuck in when the sport was new, and they may not let in others like her in future competitions.  The powers that be might get a little stricter with their gatekeeping.  Similarly, I sort of snuck in to the music business when they started allowing self-releasing DIY independent artists like me about twenty years ago now.  In the last couple years, the music business has been getting more stringent with their gatekeeping so there will be fewer like me allowed into the music streaming services in the future.

I haven't given up yet, and the “artist-centric” greedy major record labels and music streaming service gatekeepers haven't totally shut me out yet, so I'm going to keep going for it and releasing new music.  A lot of people don't realize it's dirt-cheap to put out an album these days yourself without needing to be signed to a record label deal.  So, they’re surprised when they learn my music is available alongside the greats of the industry.  

The Eye of the Beholder Thing

Streams happen, or don't.  Stats happen.  Judgement is going to happen.  Beauty in any creation is different for each individual person who experiences it.  Opinions about the value and merit of different types of art, including breakdancing or music, are personal.  Emotional reactions are subjective, appreciation depends on people's tastes.  You be the judge.  I don't seek outside opinions about my music at all.  Just my wife and a couple friends.  I'm not competitive in any way.  No one ever reviews my music.  I'm in a bubble, yes, but I don't have a skewed perception of reality.  I'm fairly certain more than one person in the world has thought I was embarrassing myself by releasing music, or that I should be embarrassed about doing it.  I am a little embarrassed, for some of the songs, but I keep trying, and I actually notice little ways I might be getting better over the years.  Maybe not at all though, come to think of it, and at least I can laugh about that.

No Guts No Glory

I am someone who has had the courage to be vulnerable and offer up my creativity for judgement by releasing my music on a worldwide stage, just like Raygun.  She and I each had the guts to give it a try, thinking it was worthy and that some people would like it.  We were right.  It's not so much that we had confidence despite lacking talent.  I'm not ultra-confident, but I just do it anyway.  I am afraid to have people hear my music, but at the same time, I want it to be available because I know some people will like it.  I'm not delusional.

Raygun has stated that she is only going to dance for personal enjoyment for the rest of her life.  I think it would be better if she came back strong in Los Angeles in 2028.  It would also be great if she could learn to laugh at herself, laugh along with people laughing at her.  I have respect for her.  For real.  I also can’t help but laugh – both at her routine and the world’s reaction to her.

The Inevitable Humble-Bragging

At least Raygun can say she competed in an Olympic sport.  Whatever level of accomplishment anyone has in anything, there are some who are better and some who are worse off.  You need the people who fail.  Someone has to lose.  I make other solo artists look good, and solo artists like me must exist if you think about it in a certain way.  We can’t all be tied.  This is ridiculous because writing songs is not a sport, but if it were, at least I’d be able to say I got a certain number of streams, and that number would be higher than some other artists.

I really do like to think of myself as a modest person, and yet, I like to occasionally humble-blog about myself.  It’s the equivalent of the nauseating holiday letters that boast accomplishments you get along with Christmas cards from large wealthy successful families you sort of envy/hate/make fun of.  But it’s also a form of me, the Raygun of solo artists, engaging with you, my superfans, which “they” say is extremely important.

I was fortunate last year that a really good singer and solo artist named Ultimate Rick Jones recorded and released an outstanding professional and commercial-sounding cover version of one of my songs, “Used To Be Good Looking.”  He was one of the few out there in the world to recognize it was a good song, which admittedly wasn’t easy to spot from hearing my own version, but if you listen to his, you might start thinking I am not a terrible songwriter, at least.  

This gave me some additional confidence, but I'm definitely not overconfident.  This blog is full of posts where I basically admit I know I'm not great, but the stats don't lie.  Last I checked, my not quitting has resulted in my song "Mackinac Island" (admittedly a novelty song) racking up over 26,000 streams on Spotify alone.  

Not to brag, but I might be laughing all the way to a whole penny someday soon.  But yeah, in some ways, as Raygun is to breakdancing, Scott Cooley is to music making.  We’re both out to express ourselves creatively and entertain.  

Happy New Year!  As always, I’ll be working on the next batch of tunes for you, as free time allows, while wisely not giving up the day job, and will be planning another release, possibly even later this year.  Also as always, I’ll be blogging about myself as I continue to pretend I’m a solo artist.  It’s a little insane, I know, but people need hobbies.

How I Became A Songwriter/Recording Artist & My Subsequent Half-Hearted Attempts At Self-Promotion

A Songwriter Is Born

Elsewhere on this blog and in scottcooley.com I’ve covered this, but I’ll quickly reiterate my start.  I took Intro To Guitar and Intro To Poetry as “blow off” classes my senior year in college in 1989.  I learned more about guitar from my friends than in the class, but these gave me a foundation.  A year or so later, after learning covers of blues and classic rock songs, I wrote my first song.  

Don’t know why, but I just decided to try writing a song, and I liked doing it.  Friends heard some of my early songs and said they indeed sounded somewhat like real songs.  Hot babes hanging out in the living room at my 20-somethings ski bum parties as I played them were impressed.  It’s possible they liked other things about me and were just humoring me, but it no doubt helped spur me on to continue.

I did solo open mic nights in bars, a few paid gigs as part of an acoustic duo doing covers in an apres-ski setting, getting even more attention from hot babes as a result. Lots of fun acoustic living-room jam band situations with impromptu groups of crazy characters as well.  However, I quickly realized I wasn’t a great singer, didn’t want to just be a lead guitarist in a cover band, so I slowly phased out of live performance situations, decided I wasn’t cut out for it, but kept up with the songwriting hobby.  

My friend’s band got really popular, and they learned and performed a couple of my originals, which people loved, and the lead singer announced me as the songwriter and pointed me out in the audience, and this also got me attention from hot babes.  Hot babes, that’s what it was always about for everyone, wasn’t it?  ☺

So the songwriting has continued, and that hobby evolved into being a recorded songwriter and solo artist with released music you can get on the web.  In between, there was an interesting progression of related things I got into learning about that led to this, and a lot of significant, rapid change in the music industry that all happened at a good time for me.  Since about 2005, when it first became possible for regular people to distribute their independent, home-recorded music online to music streaming services like iTunes, I’ve been one of them.  

The years leading up to that were a fascinating time for someone with a songwriting hobby, when I experienced first-hand what it was like in a perfect storm of the combination of affordable personal computers, home recording software and hardware, and the internet.  Things evolved quickly.  Keep in mind that when I got my college degree in 1989, the world wide web didn’t exist yet, and no one had their own computers. 

How I Started As A Recording Artist 

In the late 90s, I pawned my portastudio 4-track cassette recorder for a USB audio interface to use with my windows 95 laptop. Then I bought an AKG condenser microphone.  Then I bought an acoustic bass guitar and a djembe, a snare drum, and a high-hat cymbal.  I already had an acoustic guitar, a few harmonicas, a tambourine and a shaker.  The audio interface came with a free trial light version of Cubase digital audio workstation software, but I quickly found another software application I liked better called Cool Edit Pro, which was later bought by Adobe and renamed Audition.  I still use Adobe Audition 3.1 today.  Later I added a CD burner – one of the first external ones that was gigantic and heavy.  

With a computer, an audio interface, a microphone, recording software, and a few instruments, it was all relatively affordable.  Over the course of a few years, by the time Y2K came around I could multi-track record rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, drums, percussion, lead vocals and backing vocals, then mix them all down to a stereo song.  It was a lot of fun being able to write a song, and then record it as if a full rock band played it.  

I could also master it and burn it to CD, share with friends & family.  I could also save songs as MP3s and share electronically.  This was all really cool.  This all happened after I taught myself to play guitar a few years earlier in the early 90s, and then for some reason, thought I could make up my own songs.  I found the songwriting part to be a lot of fun, but also the ability to multi-track.  

Just when I started to get fairly good at making my own music this way for a few years, in the mid-2000s, mp3s were a thing, Napster piracy happened, the iPod and iTunes all happened.  Web sites for amateur musicians popped up where you could send your song and make it available for free web streaming.  MySpace was one of them.  I uploaded my MP3s of my original songs to various places online (most of which don’t exist anymore), and some of which I still have links to on my website here:  https://www.scottcooley.com/links.  

This was kind of cool, you could make your songs be available for people to stream for free online.  Then I heard about the idea of a digital “aggregator” serving as a way unknown amateurs could get their music onto iTunes so people could download it on their iPods, and around the same time, make your CDs available on Amazon.  I decided to go for it.  After a while, they would send your albums and songs to a bunch of music download stores, and I signed up for them all.  Some folded, got bought out, got renamed, etc., but I’ve preserved the old links to a lot of them as well here:  https://www.scottcooley.com/mp3s.  

A few years ago, Amazon stopped offering their burn-a-CD-on-demand service, but it was cool while it lasted.  I actually made enough money for several years to cover the cost of the distribution service!  Just having your album available in the same places people go to buy a Led Zeppelin or Beatles album or whomever, was very awesome.  

The downloads thing has slowly been phased out as well, but all this is still possible today with web streaming.  Last year, my royalty check from the distributor CD Baby was about the amount it cost for distributing the last album (which admittedly wasn’t one of my best), so I pretty much broke even (minus my sweat equity, instrument & home studio equipment upgrade costs over the years).  

Albums Available, Now What?

So, now, fast forward to present day, and with a large and growing catalog of studio albums available, how can I make the next one make more money?  If my next batch of songs gets more popular, it would also make the back catalog more popular, and then maybe I could reach some level of profitability someday soon.  

Free Record Industry Expert Advice On The Internet, That’s What

At this point, one looks up advice about what an independent DIY solo artist with no money can do to make their music more well-known.  

Be Better

They tell you – of course – first and foremost, write and practice more, have better songs, be a better player, singer.  Again, voice or instrument lessons are not something I’m willing to pay for.  I know I could get better at guitar if I shelled out for lessons, but there’s probably not much a vocal coach could do to help me improve.  Just guessing, but I know I’m not naturally gifted.  So, those are out.  

Pay For Someone Who Is Better – Session Players, Studio Pros

The next thing would be to get better players to play on your records.  I’m not going to pay session musicians to play on my albums because they cost money I don’t have, but also, it wouldn’t be me, and I wouldn’t be the DIY solo artist I am today.  I love doing it all myself.  The end results of my songwriting and recording are all me, like it or not, and I prefer it that way.  Some artists just sing and dance, and have pros literally do everything else for them.  Then the final thing would be to pay for studio time in a real professional recording studio with a pro engineer, maybe even a producer, and then also pay for pro mixing and mastering.  Once again, these are out due to my nonexistent budget for such things, but also because I don’t have the desire.  

I truly love doing it all myself and enjoying the results that I know were the best I could do at the time.  A part of my appeal is that I’m obviously not an expert in any of these things, with zero formal training in any of them, and yet somehow, I find a way to figure out how to do it all by myself anyway.  I get a big kick out of that, knowing the finished product was all me without any outside assistance from anyone for any of it.  

Play Shows, Duh

Getting that out the way, what else?  If you don’t play live shows like me, that’s automatically ruled out as well.  Experts always advise you to go out and ask venue owners to let you play, then play, then build a following that way – the old-school approach.  Then you make enough to hire a manager to do the asking for you and get you more gigs, take it from there.  The approach I take to a music “career” does not involve any of that.  Not about “getting discovered” by a record label rep at a live performance venue at all.  Recording artist only, no marketing budget – that’s me.  I need my recorded music to get discovered more on streaming services.  What now?  What else can I figure out how to do on my own, that is free, and that I don’t mind doing?  

The Dreaded Self-Promotion Thing

Now you’re talking about self-promotion, having a website, a blog, photos, videos, social media, branding, getting on playlists, getting people to write about you, etc.  Creating a buzz, asking others to help create a buzz, paying others to create a buzz.  I have so far refused to ever pay for anything, have refused to ever ask for anyone’s help, preferring the joy of knowing I did it all myself, and just hoping it somehow magically gets popular through word-of-mouth recommendation alone.  This is obviously not the best strategy.  

The Stuff Record Labels Do For Artists

Marketing, promotion, advertising, publicity, creating buzz.  This is what record labels do for music artists, but now that they let you in the record store without a label, you’re on your own to figure out the rest.  It’s a blessing and a curse that cheap DIY distribution is possible.  Great, your album is available for people to find and stream in Apple Music or Spotify, right there where you can find and stream Bob Dylan.  Now what?  You’ve got to do all these other things to get noticed.  You ask Google what you could be doing, and the results from supposed experts all say the same stuff, and most of it requires a budget for such things.  

Focus On The Free Stuff – My Motto So Far

Some marketing-related things they say solo recording artists should have or do I’ve found can be done yourself at no cost other than your own effort.  I’ve tried some of it, but it doesn’t come naturally to try to get attention and sell yourself, for me anyway.  This blog is free, for example, and my website was free for about 10 years, but now I pay a little bit, but it’s nominal.  Making my own music videos I figured out how to do only because they say you should have some.  They’re not professional, they don’t feature videos of me, but at least they do feature my studio songs, and I used free tools.  I’m not into having a bunch of photos of myself, but there are a few, mostly because I don’t like my overweight, elderly appearance.  I’ve never asked any tastemakers or music journalists to write about my music, probably because I’m scared of negative reviews, not so much because it would not attract new listeners, but mostly because of the anticipated ego bruise.  It also seems like a Soup Nazi situation as far as the hassle goes for following the ultra-strict submission policies of these music bloggers.  Asking friends to spread the word about how awesome my music is goes against my grain.  I don’t have it in me.  Asking for fans, plays, likes, follows, subscribes, shares, etc. is just weird.  It’s hard enough for me to get up the courage to post a simple release announcement on social media when I have a new album available.  There isn’t any free online music advertising I’m aware of, and I’m not willing to pay.

Going Viral Sounds Great To Everyone

There’s always a chance.  You can’t win if you don’t play.  The Great One said you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take and I agree.  At least I’ve continuously taken my shots and put the music out there.  You need a perfect storm of stuff happening for something to catch on.  In my case, I’m in it for the long haul.  It actually took years before I built up over a thousand annual streams for my “hit” Mackinac Island, so it was a slow-building appreciation for my most popular song.  Nothing went viral.  Just uploaded the music video for it a few years ago, even though I first released the song in 2006 I think.  

Long-Tail?  Not So Fast

I’m maybe more of a slowly-growing, back-catalog type of artist.  There was this theory I read about a few years ago called The Long Tail – a concept that 80% of all digital music listened to would be from established artist’s existing back catalogs vs. new, current popular artists.  This contributed to a bunch of speculation and investment in music publishing rights.  We all read in recent years about famous artists selling their publishing rights for millions of dollars.  The trend tapered off.  Now they’re realizing most people listen to the hits of the day, and the hits of older artists, but not so much the “deep tracks” of any of them, after all.  Not sure if any of it is true or not.

Fan Engagement and Other Stuff They Say You Should Have

So you have recorded songs, you tell a few people they exist for streaming, and that’s it.  Then you wonder why they didn’t just start getting popular.  Without anyone telling you how bad you are, you just keep doing it because it doesn’t cost much.  A cheap, fun hobby you can do on your own.  You hear music on the radio that is wildly popular and you don’t understand why.  You think your own songs are better than theirs.  What do they have that you don’t?  Way better singing voices, better session musicians, better recording engineers, and a whole lot of marketing dollars.  Supposedly their record labels do a lot for them.  They also make their artists do a lot to get more popular.  Getting in the public eye, having interactions with fans in person and online.  Those types of activities they call “fan engagement” nowadays.

What’s The Deal With Fan Engagement?  Why Is It So Important?

There’s this theory that if you have a fan, and then make some sort of personal contact with that fan, they think it’s so awesome that they tell more people about you, and that gets you even more fans.  Something like that, but I don’t really know.

As a recording artist, I might be described as “emerging” or “developing” or “undiscovered,” although some people have discovered me.  I had one song last year with more than 1,000 streams, the perennial favorite “Mackinac Island”.  

Otherwise, I don’t stand to make much money with my music being available for streaming, particularly the other 143 songs I’ve released on my 11 albums.  There’s a ton of music out there.  Too much probably.  I would love to have more interest in my music, and there’s just so much competition for your attention.

When I first heard there was a way to get my music in iTunes and on Amazon, and decided to try it out, I did have the thought that maybe there was a slight chance some of it would catch on.  “Going viral” was a new thing at the time, and I thought to myself “you never know”.  Now there are 100 billion new songs every day – I’m exaggerating, I know – but I was among the first to go for it.

How to make yourself stand out – without record label support – is a gigantic challenge.  “They” say “fan engagement” is crucial to getting more listeners.  Reaching out, interacting somehow, exchanging messages with people I guess, letting them get involved somehow.  It’s confusing.  I’m a fan of a lot of music and bands and solo artists, but I don’t have some yearning to connect with them in any way or become pen pals.

I had a KISS poster on my wall when I was about 10 years old, but that was 1977.  Otherwise, I’ve not ever been a merch purchaser, never wanted backstage passes, never been to any band convention, let alone join any mailing list or fan club.  I subscribed to someone’s YouTube channel once, then got bombarded with stuff, and then quickly unsubscribed.  Did I mention my channel is https://www.youtube.com/scottcooley?  Ha ha.  Wink wink.  So, I understand how the notifications you get from subscribing to anything can be annoying.

I followed the Grateful Dead around for a few shows one summer while in college – 1986 I think – the memories are a bit foggy.  To this day, I still love and listen to their studio albums  Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, Reckoning, and Almost Acoustic by the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band is one of my top 3 favorite albums of all time.  Yes, I’ve checked out some of the billions of live recordings that are out there, totally understand the appeal, but still like the studio albums more.  The scene was fascinating, but not for me.  I’m not a joiner by nature.

So, you can tell I’m not fanatical about any musical act enough to go beyond enjoying their albums and attending a concert once in a great while.  I’ve bought a concert t-shirt or two over the years, maybe a baseball hat, but I have a huge body and head, and their largest sizes never fit me.  Nothing wrong with showing your favorites with pride, but I’m just not into it myself.  I like a wide variety of different kinds of music.  The point is I’ll never be a super fan of anyone, but I understand it.  I’m not an engager, but I guess if you want to be with me, you can.

I put together some potential “street team” resources on my website once a long time ago, because I read advice that it was something an “aspiring” artist should do.  You can check it out if you want to here:  https://www.scottcooley.com/volunteer.  I’m not going to do much to turn any of you into super fans, and you’re probably like me:  you just like the music part, and not all the other hoopla.  

You don’t hop on a bandwagon and become a cheerleader for your favorite band or solo artist.  Realistically, you might tell some people you know that you’ve found and enjoyed some of my music, tell them it’s on all the streaming platforms, and that’s about it.

It's not a situation where I play in your favorite local bar and you come to watch me play a lot, and you want to help me get famous because you’re 21 years old and having fun and drinking and are excited and passionate about it all.  My fans are older and less enthusiastic, I suspect.  People in general are less likely to volunteer now than back in the late 80s when I was that age.  

Gone are the days of needing to be discovered and signed by a record label to make your music available to people, but “breaking” yourself with zero budget is tough.  You’d like to think the cream rises to the top naturally, but major labels have no doubt always manufactured successful artists through their machinery that might not have risen on their own.

Why should you listen to my music?  I don’t know.  Wish I could entice you somehow.  I’ve tried, but it feels wrong.  I don’t even know how to describe what I do, but “acoustic guitar” needs to be in the description, “quality songwriting” should be in there, with “amateur-quality performance and production” thrown in.  I’m being boastful about the songwriting, and honest about everything else, I guess.  You have to like that kind of thing.  

You either like some of it, or you don’t.  Chances are you won’t like all of it, if any.  I’m in the latter stages of a music journey that has advanced slowly, but I think it’s possible my best is yet to come!  According to my own definition, I consider what I’ve done so far to be successful.  People who have interacted with me socially might think otherwise, but I’m not an outgoing person, and I have some humility.  In lieu of marketing, I blog about how great I am a few times per year.  Not the best strategy, I know, but it’s all I can do besides writing songs, recording songs, and making a few music videos.

Constantly trying to figure out what to do to make it catch on with more people, and then constantly doing whatever those things are, is not something that appeals to me.  I have a mild curiosity, but I’m not a pitch man, and I’m not out to constantly make contact with my existing fans to ask them to help me spread the word about my music.

One could argue if anyone were going to be that passionate about my music, they would’ve shown it by now.  If I were ever going to get popular, it would’ve happened already.  He has not risen, indeed.  Not the cream near the top, highly unlikely to ever rise much more.

I’m embarrassed about marketing myself as a singer-songwriter.  It’s uncomfortable putting on a salesman hat and telling people how great I am and finding publicity and attention to “get my name out there” more.  I don’t try to cultivate an audience.  I just make music, make it available, and hope people find it and like it.

I’m glad when people do find it and like it, but even making people aware it exists is a challenge for me.  I have to muster up the courage to announce an album release.  I know I could and probably should be doing a lot more to get more fans, but I only like the creative part.  As an indie artist, it’s all I have time for.  You can’t be great at everything.

I don’t like asking people to help promote my music.  Asking them to tell their friends about it, etc.  I assume that will just happen naturally.  I don’t like bugging people, and fortunately, I’m not desperate for greater popularity, although I wouldn’t mind it.  Aside from making the music, the only other way I like to offer information is via this blog.  Feel free to comment, by the way, but know I probably won’t reply.

I might have a few superfans out there, but none that I know of, and I like it that way.  Not that I wouldn’t interact with them if they reached out, but it might be weird.  People with excessive or obsessive interest in a particular music artist scare me a little.

 

Audience engagement seems to be something that music industry experts advise artists to focus on, and they don’t get into specifics, so I struggle to understand it.  Both what it is exactly, and why it's so important.  I'm talking about music makers when I use the word artist here.  I think "engagement" means the artist should communicate with fans in some way, and do it regularly.  Presumably social media is involved, which I don't really get into.

A part of that might be a meet-and-greet situation before/after shows, but I don't play shows.  I'm available for shows, and might be willing to do a more intimate house concert that would offer in-person hand shaking and more banter between songs, but thus far have received no such requests.  I haven't actively pursued live performance opportunities at all, like ever, but I have done a few before, and could and can do more.  However, I prefer being a recording artist only.

You can reach out to me directly via multiple options on my Contact page here any time:  https://www.scottcooley.com/contact.  I even have a group forum email list thing you can participate in if you want to here, although no one hardly ever does:  https://www.scottcooley.com/mailing-list.  I have a facebook page here that I sign in to and check a couple times a year:  https://www.facebook.com/scottcooley/, which seems to be best for my audience demographic.  I have profiles on a lot of the other social media sites too, but don’t use them very often.  

I make available a bunch of ways fans can connect and interact with me and get involved and even participate, but no one hardly ever does any of the above.  I wouldn't mind attracting more interest in my music, and I'm willing to communicate, offer the options, but no takers.  I think my fans are like me, they just like the music and don't necessarily want to get to know me better somehow.

Hardly anyone has ever signed up for my mailing list, for example.  Another thing "they" tell you that you should have.  I've had one for years, and even had newsletters ready to send, but people can just read my blog and my website and get the same information I would've sent them.  My fans know that, probably.  They're not the types who would want my autograph or anything, but maybe they'd like to hang out and have a drink sometime, and I could arrange that I suppose.

As a music fan myself, even though I'm of a certain age, I discover several new artists per year.  Sometimes they get recommended to me by friends, sometimes suggested by the streaming service, but mostly from me doing my own web surfing research.  Likely, my fans are not the superfan types who would want to pay extra for some sort of VIP treatment from me, although, hey, I hereby announce it's available.

One thing I could offer if any of you are of the VIP mindset about my music is that I have tons of original songs I've recorded and not released.  They're previously weeded out and unreleased for good reasons, but if you want to pay to hear them, I'll send those over right away.  I admit I've bought a few t-shirts at concerts before, but I'm not ever thinking I'd like to hang out with the band afterward.

I guess I could put the Cherchez La Femme album cover art on a t-shirt and see if anyone would buy one.  I drew it with pen on paper with my wife.  It's my only album art that is actual art I created as opposed to a photograph, and I don't think it's very good art, but I could throw that on a shirt for you if you want one.  Or, you can go ahead and just do it yourself, have it made, wear it with pride, you have my permission.

For artists I really get into, I check out their websites, which are usually underwhelming, and then I check out their wikipedia pages.  That's all I ever do, just find out a little bit more about them if I'm really curious.  That's it.  If I really like an artist a lot, I might buy a ticket to see them go play live once in a great while.  

I never subscribe or comment or follow or like or share or post or join fan clubs or mailing lists for new artists I like.  Or existing artists I already like.  None of that.  Or artists who don't exist anymore that I like.  I'm not the type of person to visit a dead musician's grave.  I tell friends verbally when I see them about new artists I've discovered and liked, but otherwise, I don't ever want to talk about artists online or buy their merch or get exclusive stuff or pre-order anything.  

I'm not that kind of a music fan.  Like all of us, I have my favorites.  I love the Beatles and Led Zeppelin for example, but just their music.  Mostly just their studio albums.  I don't really care much about what kind of people they were/are.  I like the Grateful Dead too, but again, not into the whole tape trading thing.  Not ever going to collect memorabilia or go to fan conventions or anything.

So, yeah, I like Neil Young's music too, and I've liked it since I bought Live Rust when it came out in the late 70s, but I don't want to send him a text or an email or whatever.  I bought several of his albums, tapes, and CDs over the years, seen him in concert several times, but beyond that, I'm not out to interact with him in any way.  I just like streaming his music.

I guess I just like the recorded music, and don't need to engage with artists I like in any way.  I've met a few celebrities in my life, and each time it was a combination of being a little bit excited and then a realization that they're just people too and not a whole lot different than anyone else.  If I got introduced to Neil, although he seems like a cool guy to hang out with and all, I'm sure it would be the same.  

I watch videos on YouTube all the time - some music videos, some live performance videos, but mostly to learn things, and one of my biggest pet peeves is that a lot of them spend the first 5 minutes going on and on about asking you to subscribe and like and follow and share and all that.  You want them to just get to the point.  For a similar reason, most of the time I turn on my TV I'm watching Netflix because there are no commercials.  So much better that way.

I don't like being begged to buy stuff, or to "engage" in any way.  I'm not sure if that makes me a passive type of music fan or not, because I'm a huge fan of certain artists, some of them from recent times, and not just the ones I liked in high school.  I'm passionate about listening to their music, maybe reading a bit more about them online, and then I'm good.  

I don't need automatic notifications when they have something new.  I find out about it eventually anyway when I get around to it.  Sometimes a favorite artist came to do a concert nearby where I live and I find out about it after the fact, and I just think oh well, missed out on that one, no big deal.

I can only imagine how it must be for the artists signed to record labels.  They would constantly have people bugging them to engage, engage, engage with the fans.  All the time.  Never stop.  Sending them messages constantly, checking inboxes constantly.  I don't get it.  

Does it make people feel more special somehow if they make contact with a musician they like?  I guess I can understand it a little.  I imagine they become bigger fans as a result, and they tell their friends, and there's some potential exponential growth in the fanbase.  It's not the kind of music fan I am.

Your music listening preferences are often a personal, private thing.  Whether when home alone, with headphones/earbuds on at work, alone in your car, etc., you probably spend more time enjoying music that way than you do with other people.  You might enjoy certain bands or solo artists that you don’t necessarily want anyone else to know about.  When people ask me what kind of music I like, the less I know them, the more I tend to go with a safe answer.  We all have our guilty pleasures that we’re maybe hesitant to admit we like, knowing it can give people a certain impression.

I appreciate all kinds of music, like a lot of you do.  Everyone has surprises in their record collections (or playlists now).  People know that when my high school friends were getting into Journey and Van Halen, I was leaning toward REM and Tom Petty.  What they didn’t know was that I also liked John Denver.  

Now I’ll readily admit I’ve always loved the Carpenters, but it wasn’t cool back in the day.  I still listen to them fairly regularly, but never around other people.  I assume my Deadhead friends or Headbanger cousins are not going to get into it, if you know what I mean.  So, yep, we have our secrets.  I love more of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin catalogs than other bands, but have obscure favorite songs by lots of artists, whether they were famous or not.

I’ve never loved music by one artist so much that it becomes a big part of my lifestyle.  I’ve never wanted to get involved in any kind of scene.  I guess I understand why people become superfans a little, but assume most people are like me and are fairly private about it.  As a solo artist myself, I know recommendation is how I have fans, particularly since I don’t perform live shows.  

Replying to anyone who comments on my music or reaches out to me in some way sort of freaks me out a little, but I’ve done it.  I’m not really out to converse with strangers, it just feels uncomfortable.  I am sincerely thankful there is interest though, of course.  The more popular someone is, the less feasible it is, and the more ridiculous it would be.  You can’t send a thank you note to everyone who likes your song or your post or whatever.

If you are one of those people who like my songs and want to let me know about it, you can.  Some of you have before, some of you will again.  Know that I appreciate it, even though I haven’t sent you a personal reply.  

We all have limited free time.  As a DIY solo artist, mine is best spent writing and recording more songs for you to enjoy, which I’m sure you understand.  I’m not a natural engager.  I am a loner, an introvert, someone who really has to psych myself up for going to social functions.  I used to be a frequent “partier” and my inhibitions were eased by alcohol, but I don’t drink anymore, so those situations are no longer my cup of tea.  When forced, I drink tea.  Non-Long-Island.

I always appreciate the listener support.  I’m not much of a public thanker or acknowledger either, and am not into social media much at all, so I hope you understand why, but I hereby thank you all and promise to keep at it so there’s more music for you to listen to in the future.

This blog is how I engage, I guess.  They said I should have one, and turns out, I like blogging about myself and my hobby several times per year.  It’s how I keep readers updated on what I’ve been up to and what I think about being a solo artist.  I’d like more of a following, but guess I’m not willing to do a whole lot to get it.  I’m somewhat of a slacker.  It’s the ski bum mentality I haven’t been able to shake since my wild and crazy youth.  

In a good way, that’s probably reflected in my music and my alter ego as a singer-songwriter.  I work hard at the day job to pay the bills, but in my hard-earned free time, I just want to do what I enjoy, like we all do.  I wouldn’t even call this a side hustle really.  It’s good I haven’t pursued music as a way to earn a living.  I’m doing it with no pressure…but limited time (or desire) to self-promote or advertise or do any more of the dreaded “engaging” they say I should do.

Other Stuff They Say You Should Have

As many of you already know, I am just one of millions of other people in the world who like to write and record and release songs.  Most of us are men, I’ve recently learned.  The music world needs more women!  A lot of currently-popular mainstream artists did in fact go the DIY route to start, but then got “discovered” and subsequently “broken” by the big-budget marketing machines of record labels that picked them up after they gained some traction on their own.  This is what I’m trying to do.  Gain traction on my own.

The past 20 years happen to have been a really great time for someone with this hobby (man or woman) because it's relatively inexpensive to get started, record at home and then distribute to streaming services.  Especially great luck for someone like me who would never have had a chance to have my music alongside the superstars before this all became possible.  I do not have their level of talent or skill, but I’ve been allowed to have my creations alongside theirs.

You put your music out there next to Elvis, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, etc. and obviously don't expect much, but you wish it would at least get a little more popular over time.  You wonder what else you could do to help things along, and predict it will be overwhelming hard work that doesn't sound like much fun. 

So, despite your fears, you Google advice on what else you need.  I’ve made small attempts to “have” some version of most of the other things they say might help the fanbase grow, but I can only handle so much.  The "experts" say you should have things like these: 

Photos

Big ones.  Hi-res.  People want to see what you look like.  I don't like how I look.  Embarassed about my appearance, I've let myself go.  If I can admit that in a blog, why not show the proof and own it?  Can't bring myself to go there.  Like the non-famous actors in movies who won't ever be stars, they are necessary.  I'd like to think of myself that way a little bit, only as a music person.  We all want to represent ourselves in the most favorable light, but photoshopping and touch-ups are not going to help me much.  I want people to enjoy the music and that's it.  Unfortunately, I know the experts say you have to have an Instagram account and post pictures of yourself constantly.  Not for me.

Merch

I’ve done a whole blog post about my dislike of the word ‘merchandise’ being abbreviated like this, but other than that, I understand the appeal.  You want to show off to passersby who your favorite musical act is, whether via a bumper sticker, shirt, hat, button, patch, whatever.  All those can be cool.  You have to be famous though.  You need some measure of celebrity I would think before you have those t-shirts or coffee mugs with your name on them made up.  

I know that if you have the up-front money for it, which I don’t, you can upload pictures of yourself to these online services and design the items on there, then you can sign up for Shopify or some similar place to sell stuff, even use it as a page on your own website.  I could pull it off if I had the photos of myself I liked to begin with, the money to begin with, and the belief I would sell any in the first place.  I currently have none of these.

Playlist Adds

As far as I knew a few years ago, my music hadn't been added to any people's playlists at all, except my own.  Now, I guess I’m included in some, according to the streaming service dashboard stats some make available.  There are whole branches of music marketing focused on how to get these, but you have to either pay for them, or reach out and pitch yourself.  I won’t be doing either.  Let the people add who they want, if it’s me, great.

TikTok

One somewhat related cool thing I recently discovered is that people have used my songs in their TikTok videos.  Like 20 people or something, so I doubt that will be financially lucrative in any way, but maybe the exposure will help?  Somehow somewhere I opted in to some license thing to make my songs available to add to their short videos.  I have a TikTok account, and got a notification that I qualified for long-form music videos, but the software doesn't work - I tried unsuccessfully to upload my music videos there and the videos are there, yet the sound won't play.  I then made a video demonstrating my frustrating experience and uploaded that https://www.tiktok.com/@scottcooleymusic/video/7258730171031719211, which didn’t accomplish anything.

Press Coverage

I haven't had any press coverage whatsoever.  I not only don't pay for these, but I don't do anything at all to seek them out.  I guess I could look up how to type some perfectly worded email to music review bloggers to let them know about my new album releases, but it's like ordering soup from the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld - if you do one little thing wrong, they're easily offended and weed you out so I've heard.  They'd probably weed me out anyway.  I'm sure they get gazillions every day.  

Yeah, and the other thing is - I'm a non-performing solo artist - no shows, gigs, tours, etc. ever except the occasional family/friends get-together, so I'm intentionally out of the public eye in that regard.  Songwriter/recording artist only.  This fact wouldn't help bloggers decide to write about my music I suspect.  The other thing is, honestly, I'm sensitive, and don't really want to know what people think of my music unless it's all 100% positive compliments of course.  I'm not into criticism.  I can dish it out, but can't take it.

Website & Blog

I update stuff on my website a couple times a year, and I average about 1 blog post every two months.  I can see that I have visitors to my website every year, from many places (mostly Michigan), and I see that way more people read my blog posts than I ever imagined, like sometimes over 100 readers for a single post.  I have no idea who they are, but it's cool.

Mailing List

As aforementioned, literally no one ever signs up for my Email List at all.  If people would sign up for it, I would send them awesome emails with updates about my songwriting and recording a couple times a year, and it would be similar to what I post on my blog anyway.  Here that is again:  https://groups.google.com/g/scottcooley.  

The Dreaded Social Media

It can be exciting.  I get it.  I posted a “short” video my friend took of me skiing moguls once to the YouTube Shorts area of my channel (which I think is here:  https://www.youtube.com/@scottcooley/shorts ), and it immediately got thousands of views – way more than any of my full song music videos.  I know that’s the rush of TikTok too.  The virality potential is there and enticing.

I'm on Facebook, but my actual family and friends are on there, and I've friended them, and I'm embarrassed to ever post anything promotional about myself.  Plus, my mom will scrutinize anything I post, whether its about my music or not, so I avoid it by not ever using Facebook.  I log in every couple years and thank people for wishing me a happy birthday and that's about it.  

Sometimes people tell me someone else posted some old childhood photo of me or something on my feed or whatever and tell me I should log in and check it out, so I do, but that's only a couple times a year.  I'd say for the last 10 years or so, I sign in about 3 times/year on average and rarely post anything myself.  I used Twitter for a while, sharing my blog posts on there, but that Elon Musk guy really made it way worse in many ways, so I rarely use it anymore.  

I don’t have money to pay someone to manage my socials, but I’m aware there are such services.  Must be nice for the famous artists to not have to deal with any of that.  For now, I’m on my own to announce stuff on Facebook or Twitter, tell you about my new album or whatever.

Feel free to follow me on either of those, or any others I might have a profile on that I've forgotten about.  It can only improve your reputation, I assure you.  I've checked out most of the socials, and don't really like any of them, especially the ones that are all about photos or dance videos.  I don’t like how I look, and I can’t dance, so Instagram and TikTok are out.  I guess my Blogger is social media, and so is my YouTube channel, and I do like those.

Music Videos

Speaking of YouTube, over the last few years I decided to create and upload music videos that feature my studio recordings of my songs mixed with lyrics, photos, and free video footage.  I don't like the way I look, so there's no lip-synching.  I'm not a dancer either.  They've had a few hundred plays or streams, so maybe that has helped awareness a little.  I try to get people to subscribe, but I only have about 30 at last count.  

What's a little disturbing is that it seems like every time I post new music videos on there, someone un-subscribes and the count goes down, which is also hilarious.  I've subscribed to both mailing lists and youtube channels before, and know the overwhelming feeling when people bombard you, so understand wanting to bail out.  But I assure you, I only post about 3 new videos per year on average.  Here's that subscription link again, just in case:  https://www.youtube.com/scottcooley?sub_confirmation=1.  

A Backstory

If you read my last post before this one, you know I’ve tried, exhaustingly.  I like a lot of artists’ music, but I don’t want to know a lot of personal details about their lives.  I just like listening to their songs, and that’s good enough for me, but a lot of people need the background info to really get into an artist.  They say you should offer up some intimate details about your life, and that will make people become more of a fan.

My story isn't that interesting.  For example, I don't have a beard, I don't write an album in some remote cabin up north while snowed in for a whole winter, I don't write a song of anger about rich men in some county in my state, etc.  I am fed up with things in the world, but don't like to get political or controversial in my songs (or in my blog) with the hope of going viral.  

There are a lot of ways you could spin my story, but none would appeal to a pro marketer.  I'm a late bloomer, I'm a slacker, I have a ski bum mentality, I grew up a lawyer's son and country club kid, yet haven't come anywhere close to the standard of living my parents afforded me as an adult on my own.  I've hung around lots of trust fund kids in my life, but I'm not one of them myself.  

If you really want to know more about me, I’ve provided a ton of information on my website and in these blog posts.  Everyone’s favorite topic being themselves, of course.  I don’t mind revealing details, even things most people do not know about me.

For example, my parents' generation had a now-archaic way of describing someone like me who lacks ambition as a "ne'er-do-well" and relatively, I probably am one in a conventional sense.  I didn't get sober until age 50 with the help of a 12-step program.  I'm obese, I'm old, I'm poor.  My teeth are way more yellow in recent years, and my hair is almost all grey.  I'm average in many ways.  I haven't saved for retirement and I have trouble holding down a job for very long because I get frustrated and quit a lot.  I've never found a job I liked, have never known what I wanted to be when I grow up, but now I'm on the brink of senior citizen age.  There, I admitted stuff most people don’t know about me.

What else?  I like skiing and tennis and sailing, but can't afford to do any of them very often.  I don’t play live, don’t use real recording studios, don’t get pros to help me, and am opposed to getting my picture taken.  A marketer's dream, I know.  There's a lot to everyone's backstory, but how to spin that in a way that makes people want to stream your music?  No clue.  I know how to ride a unicycle though, and here's proof:

The self-taught thing started early for me.  Get the unicycle first, then teach yourself how to ride it.  Get the instrument first, then teach yourself how to play it, get the recording equipment, figure it out on your own.  Nerd glasses, cowboy hat, cutoff jorts, high-calf gym socks w/ stripes, riding around your neighborhood, smiling, waving at you.  What would you think of this kid riding down your street?

Mainstream Commercial Appeal or Being Radio-Friendly

Nope, none of those.  Never had them, never will.  I intentionally leave in minor mistakes in my released songs, I have no idea what I'm doing with the arranging/producing/recording/mixing/mastering, let alone the instrument playing or singing.  I'm completely self-taught in all of it, with no formal training in any of it, and you can tell.  I don't use auto-tune or quantization or other digital perfection trickery.  I don't even use reverb very often.  

I have a somewhat clean analog sound using real acoustic instruments played into microphones, and no one tells me what to do, and I like it that way.  I don't follow trends, I don't copy popular artists, I don't even listen to the radio except NPR once in a while.  It's far from major-label, far from perfect, far from what's popular today, and that's all good.

Synch Placements

That's why you'll never hear any of my songs in a movie or tv show.  Maybe if some other artist does a cover, but not mine.  They want pristine quality for those synch licenses, and my music is nowhere close.  I do, however, have a page for that:  https://www.scottcooley.com/licensing on which you can access a handy form to request a license to place my songs.  Just in case, you never know.  Someone might want intentionally imperfect sloppy lo-fi amateurish music for their project.

I'll be a home recording guy for life I suspect, so the sound quality, the production quality isn’t what you hear in the background of shows and movies.  I do everything myself, and have never paid for studio time or hired anyone or collaborated with anyone.  Unless someone out there just gives me money that is...here's my paypal for your donation by the way (thanks in advance):  https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/scottrichardcooley

Streaming Stats

I'm not an artist with any “trajectory,” but my streaming stats keep going up a little bit every time I check them over the last few years.  I'm talking in the hundreds of streams, not thousands or millions, across platforms.  That's my reality:  there are some streaming stats, not many, but I'm not going to buy them -to look more popular-in order to get even more popular.  

I want it to be real, not purchased popularity.  Supposedly there are a few people who get enough streams and follows and likes and subscribes, etc. to grab the attention of record company people who then sign them.  You’ve heard of the now-famous Soundcloud rappers who started that way, and like The Accidentals or Prince, some that go the opposite way and ditch the labels and go DIY independent again.

A Fanbase

I'm not building my fanbase in any way that I'm aware of, and I'm not doing anything toward such a goal.  It is a goal, but I just hang out hoping for word-of-mouth recommendation, I guess.  I don't play live, don't advertise, don't market, don't publicize, don't promote my music in any way.  I should, but I don't like doing any of that kind of stuff.  Doesn't sound fun at all, so I just don't do it.  If people want to find out about me, I have a website and a blog, and that's about it.

Being “Emerging” or On The Verge

What does it mean?  Related to what?  I'm not on the verge of anything.  I'm a late bloomer in many ways in my life, getting my first "conventional" day job in my early 30s, getting married and buying my first house in my late 30s, starting my music "career" by not releasing albums publicly until my late 30s (mainly because it wasn't possible yet), not seeing an uptick in my streaming stats until my late 50s when most artist's careers are long over or winding down. 

I notice I'm improving in little ways as an artist over a long period of time all on my own without anyone's help except reading advice online and my own trial and error.  We're talking fractions of pennies per year coming in now, which at this rate won't come anywhere close to offsetting the cost of the equipment or Martin guitar I love but probably don't deserve, so no industry pro would confuse "uptick" at my levels with "emerging".

Is There Room For Me?  Why Not Giving Up Has Served Me Well

There's not room.  Whatever the numbers are is staggering - something like 200 million new songs per week on Spotify - that may be an exaggeration.  I'm not in a great position to compete for listener attention.  The major labels are certainly trying to figure out how to reinstate gatekeepers in the music business to push average joes like me back out as we speak.  

I'm living proof that not giving up is an awesome thing though - not for the public necessarily - but for me.  I've gotten so much enjoyment and satisfaction out of writing and recording songs for a few decades now.  I've got a few I'm quite proud of, and a large catalog of original music.  It was worth buying a bass and drums I didn't need or know how to play, the audio interface(s) - I'm on my 3rd one now, the DAW software, etc.  

The nominal CDBaby distribution costs have been worth it just to know that my music CAN be discovered on Apple Music, Spotify,etc. and listened to and potentially enjoyed by other people in the world.  It's awesome to know that some people have, but at the same time it can be very discouraging, and let's face it:  I have no business in the music business, but things changed and I'm sort of in it now, and there are people out there who do like to actually stream my music.  

My Take on Converting From Outsider to Insider

There’s this guy named Ari Herstand out there who now gives advice about how to navigate this "new" music business I've been talking about if you’re not someone likely to be discovered and broken by a label.  I’ve read and even followed some of it, and I think he’s a good communicator and offers good content.  I suspect he started like me as an early user of the “get-your-songs-in-iTunes” aggregator music distribution services.  

My first impression of him was, who is this guy complaining about his frustrations with becoming successful in the music business as an artist by ripping into these services that “let him in”?  Their relaxed gatekeeping made it possible for me and millions of others to participate in the real music marketplace.  I’m not saying he’s necessarily one of them who would not have been discovered and signed to a major label in a traditional way, but we are all lucky the Average Joes of the world have been permitted to make our music available in the places where everyone gets their music.  

Now the labels are establishing ways to keep us out again.  If you’re fairly young like him, you maybe realize you’re not that awesome to begin with and pivot to carve out a music-adjacent career for yourself as he has.  I’m too old for that now, but he’s done it.  He’s one of the “theys” now, an insider expert giving advice and attracting advertisers.  I'm sure he's a great and deserving artist too, and I admit I haven't heard his music, but he's made a nice career in the music business for himself and helped many others, including me.

Wrapping Things Up

I've said to myself and others way too many times that I know I suck at pretty much every aspect of being a solo artist, but some sort of inner passion made me not want to give up yet.  I’m completely self-taught in every aspect, and I keep learning and make little improvements here and there I can notice.  Arguably and slowly, I’m sucking less.  Hopefully, but we all know our favorite artists had some dud albums, and maybe their careers faded on bad notes.

Overall, it’s been extremely rewarding to have a creative outlet in my life.  It was fun to write my first songs in the early 90s, get my first 4-track cassette recorder, use my first DAW, burn my first CDs of my own recordings, distribute my first album to iTunes, create my first website, post my first blog, upload my first music video to YouTube, etc..  

When I first started teaching myself to play guitar in the late 80s, pre-world-wide-web, none of this was even fathomable.  Super exciting that all this became possible for someone with my hobby when it did.  My engagement with you is this blog, my website, an album announcement every couple years on social media, and a few videos on Youtube.  

If I don’t die between now and then, you can expect at least a couple more albums out of me.  The recording myself part has also become a part of the hobby in addition to the songwriting.  All the other stuff – what little of it I do – is done somewhat begrudgingly.  The stuff record companies with budgets do to break their artists and turn a profit…young artists with real talent, formal training, great voices, good looks, etc. – in other words, not artists like me.

The bottom line is it's been a fun thing to do.  I’d like to say I’ve done all I can (without spending any money), but I’ve done all I wanted to toward gaining an audience.  All I was comfortable with anyway.  I can, and might, do more in the future with self-promotion.  I doubt I’ll ever sink any money into it though.  They way I’ve gone about it, it’s been slow to catch on with the masses, and I’m a “niche” artist at best so far.  

Like I’ve said before, for a person who likes writing songs as a hobby, the world changed to allow someone like me to also become somewhat of a real recording artist too.  I had my hobby at the right time to do such a thing.  If I’d been born in 1957 instead of 1967, it may not have happened.  As I’ve mention previously, I’m a late bloomer when it comes to making music.  Whether I ever made any money at it or not, I was going to do it anyway, so I might as well keep putting it out there while I can.

 

Narcissistic Confessions

It's long overdue for me to explain to whomever might be reading this why I created and continue to maintain a website about myself (which includes this blog, wherein I also blog about myself).  I admit I've gotten a little carried away with the whole thing - there's a lot of information here.  I'm on a fence about being ashamed/embarrassed to the point of deleting it all, and being really proud of it.  Although it could easily be interpreted as a sad thing for someone to do, I have to confess that working on it makes me happy.  Here are a few insights into my motivation to do such a thing:

Write what you know:  "They" say write what you know, and everyone's favorite subject is themselves, there's no denying it.  Get someone talking about themselves in conversation and they'll like you even when you yourself hardly speak.  I'm a writer for my day job anyway, and often enjoy different types of creative writing in my free time.  Having my own website is an extension of what I'd be doing anyway.  Perhaps bits and pieces of what I've written in these pages will become part of a more formal book someday, you never know.

Fake it 'till you make it:  As a songwriter, I'm like most others in that I'd like my songs to reach a wider audience.  When you love writing songs but you're not a great performer, you call yourself a songwriter - meaning you think it would be cool if a famous artist recorded one of your songs.  When you haven't had a famous artist record one of your songs yet, "they" consider you "aspiring" or "emerging" or some similar word.  And when you're aspiring, they advise you to present yourself like a pro until you become a pro.  This site is a step in that direction.

Vocational practice:  As a career professional writer, you've got to keep up with changes in technology.  All forms of writing are online and electronic now, and gone are the days when a writer could turn in a hand-written, pen-on-paper work and a publishing company did the rest.  I started by writing instructional manuals meant for printing, and now what I write is rarely printed by its readers - people not only buy written works online, but they also read them online now.  As a way to improve my skills with various online writing technologies, I started creating websites with "practice" subject matter, and happened to use my interest in songwriting as a topic.  This evolved into the scottcooley.com you're visiting today.  It has also led me to indeed become skilled with webmastering to the point where at my current employer I regularly maintain websites, as well as moonlighting as a website designer/maintainer for personal clients in my free time for extra money.

Online presence trend:  In recent years, our social world has changed drastically due to advances in technology.  Everyone has a computer, and everyone is online now.  The internet isn't just for celebrities and people who are trying to sell something.  Instead of the limitations of free social network profiles where you write about yourself, why not have the freedom of your own domain and website so you can really go to town?  If like most people I'm going to post some online information about myself on Facebook anyway, I can now experiment with layout, formatting, presentation, graphic art, multimedia, etc. in addition to writing and paint a more interesting, detailed and complete picture of myself this way.

The mad scientist thing:  Although I suspect most people I know would describe me as reasonably outgoing and social, there is a side to me that is a loner.  Writers are by nature lone wolves to a certain extent, and I've always gravitated to individual as opposed to team sports.  Similarly, songwriting is a solitary pursuit, and the introverted side of me craves quiet time alone for this.  Rather than being a performer as a solo act or as a member of a band, which I've enjoyed in the past, my involvement in music has evolved to the point where I lean toward recording in my home studio lab as yet another way to express myself - mad scientist-style.  Tinkering with my website is an extension of this same kind of madness.

My Secret Public Life As A Musician

If you’re like me, you have a secret-yet-totally public part of yourself that is your online music presence.  You never talk about it with people at your day job, or with your family, or even your friends.  Only a few people you’ve run across in your life know little tidbits - maybe they remember you mentioning you taught yourself a few chords on a guitar, and maybe that you like to strum and try to make up songs once in a while in your free time.  Technically, since you’ve had no formal training, don’t read music notation, and basically don’t think you’re very good, you don’t even qualify to be able to say you’re a real musician.

Most people you know don’t know you have a blog, a website, and your songs for sale in online stores.  You love making music, and can’t go long without getting cravings to do it some more, but few people know about this habit of yours.  Maybe you’ve kept it that way because you’re modest.  Maybe you’re modest because of your personality but also because you’re not confident that this passion of yours will result in your music being appreciated by other people.  A part of you wants people to know, to listen, to compliment you, to buy your albums.  A part of you envies other amateur musicians who go for it, and make it known to everyone they know, even though they’re not that good in your opinion.  No guts no glory, but you want to keep this part of your life separate.  

Even though it’s nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing that could wreck your career if people found out, you keep it hidden, yet it’s out there online for the whole world to discover.  Your music isn’t all that controversial or explicit or even overtly rebellious.  It’s pretty tame and far from being reputation-damaging, aside from the potential fact that it might not be good, which then might cause people to feel sorry for you, or ridicule you, or think less of you.  Yep, when you’re like me, and when you’re kind of afraid of playing in public, and you have a cheap little home recording rig, and a few cheap instruments, and you like to make up words and sing, you put your recordings of your songs online and nobody notices or buys them.  This helps solidify the notion you already had in your mind that you’re not very good at this little hobby.  

You still love doing it though.  You don’t have money for advertising and you have no fan base or mailing list.  There are little things that you can focus on, which might help attract listeners.  For example, since you’re up against short attention spans, which means you’ve got to have short intros in case someone ever hits that play button.  It might help if the songs are really good, but they’re not.  It might help if you have a great voice or great instrumental chops, but you don’t.  There’s got to be a way to improve your chances of gaining an audience.  

You think about these kinds of things when you’re not writing & recording.  You know how it is yourself to surf around the internet and stumble upon music and listen with your headphones on.  Maybe it’s a recommendation, maybe an accident, maybe someone you know, or someone that someone you know knows.  When you’re a closet recording artist, or non-performing songwriter like me, you miss out on audience feedback from playing live, and you’re forced to take into consideration what can get you recognized online.  This boils down to catchy song titles.

A few months ago, I ventured out of my basement studio and performed some of my original songs in front of a live audience for the first time in at least 15 years.  I had been scared beforehand because it had been so long, and also because the audience included many professional performing singer-songwriters.  I decided to go for it and do the best I could, and it worked out fine.  I got the audience to sing along, got lots of applause, and even got compliments afterward.  This made me feel good.  It also made me feel like I could do this more often if I memorized more of my own songs and practiced more.

Overall, it made me look back on my involvement in music – from my beginnings as a music fan, to someone who learned to play guitar, to someone who played in duos and bands, to someone who played solo at open mic nights, to someone who wrote his own songs, to someone who records his own songs while playing multiple instruments and singing.

Prior to the recent live performance, I had evolved at my own pace to become someone who treated music as a hobby – writing songs and recording them alone in my basement.  In my home studio – where I have a computer, audio interface, multitrack recording software, guitar, bass, drums, microphone, etc. – I have taught myself to be able to record one track at a time and mix those tracks together to produce a song that sounds like a band had played it.

With no formal music training and limited natural talent – particularly vocal talent – I do the best I can with what ability I do have, and with the help of the internet, learn little things here and there about music along the way through trial and error.  I take it slowly, and my progression with the craft of songwriting and recording has slowly improved over the years in small ways that may only be noticeable to me.

Live audience feedback can be a good indicator of memorability.  Herein lies a missing ingredient – the input of others.  Although I sell my recordings online, I don’t sell much, and I get very little feedback from those who do buy them.  Playing live would probably help me sell more, and it would also give me an idea of which songs are better than others.  Instead of relying on my own intuition or a review by a relative or friend, a live audience would help as an additional means of weeding out prior to releasing.

So, the pre-conlcusion here is playing live would no doubt help my cause to bring people my best songs.  What works and what doesn’t in front of a live audience would also help me refine works-in-progress.  There is potential to self-market when playing live and get more people to buy my music online.

Another conclusion I came to when playing live recently was that people love a funny song.  In a live performance setting, people remember your funny songs, or your songs about drinking or partying, much more than your love songs or statement songs or story songs.  When you look at the list of an artists songs online, you read the song names and certain ones jump out at you.  The ones that are funny always do, and the ones that are unusual in some way.

What’s going on here is that catchy titles and humor seem to rule the age of internet singles.  Which brings to mind something music consumers have always known - catchy titles are more important than you might be willing to admit.  For the same reason you liked Fat Bottom Girls by Queen or Big Balls by AC/DC, or even songs whose name you remembered because of a memorable phrase it contained like Hair Of The Dog by Nazareth, catchy titles combined with a little humor and/or rebelliousness stick in our minds.  As a songwriter, you don’t intentionally try to write these, but they happen, and even though the artist in you never admits that such cheap novelty tricks work, they nonetheless do.  

There are artists whose entire careers are built around songs about drinking and partying.  They’d be nothing without those songs.  The music business has evolved into more of a singles business versus an album business.  In an era where single-song downloads are the norm, catchy titles rule.  Memorable song titles that grab the attention of potential listeners seems to be more important than ever.  Something tells me that the kinds of songs artists are remembered for most are the ones that are humorous, controversial, and rebellious…and most importantly, have those elements reflected in the song title.

My guess is that a song is more likely to be downloaded when it has a catchy title and poor melody/lyrics, and that a song with great melody/lyrics that does not have a catchy title is less likely to be purchased.  A part of me thinks it’s unfortunate, but a part of me thinks it’s always been this way.  It’s just emphasized more due to the way people find and buy music online now.  Videos seem to have great potential to help a cause like mine, but I don’t like seeing myself on video, and I never like how I look or sound, just like when you first got an answering machine for your phone and recorded your first outgoing greeting message and played it back...you said to yourself “Is that really me?”  People discover YouTubes every day and overnight sensations are made and recordings get bought.

Just like no one will ever discover this blog if I don’t do anything different than continue to write rambling posts like this one, findability, “sticking outedness,” getting noticed, getting remembered ain’t gonna happen by happy accident.  Naming is important.  Artist/band names get noticed first, followed by album titles, then song titles, and it helps for all three to be attention-grabbing in some way.  Nailing down what constitutes ‘attention-grabbing’ is part user preference - that is, based on the individual’s personality and taste, but also part advertising.  General advertising principles apply, such as the fact that babies and sex sell products.  Songs that have familiar places, famous people, or that have blatant nose-thumbingness in their titles stand out in the crowd of song titles online.  Other qualities that appeal to the masses include anything popular - from popular phrases to cultural colloquialisms to well-known slogans to favorite words, etc.  These same principles are similarly important for books and movies as well.  

Theme time could be the right time.  Just as authors become known for a certain style of writing, songwriters/performers become known for a style of songwriting and performing.  Take Jimmy Buffett for example - chances are if you brainstorm a list of words that are tropical (coconuts, palm trees, sandy beach, ocean, etc.), you will find them in his album titles, song titles, and within the lyrics of the songs themselves.  There is a clear theme to his music.  You can say the same about instrumentation for certain musicians, as well as their clothing, performance style, dancing, etc.  Certain musicians are well aware of the importance of aesthetics - Jack White of White Stripes fame comes to mind here with the red & white theme he created for that band.  Album art can no doubt draw people in, but not as much as the old LP brick and mortar record store days.  Not only do you have a theme in visual style, but you also have a theme of musical style, and a big part of musical style involves the lyrics.  Lyrical themes delivered consistently create an expectation, and thus, draw an audience accordingly.  Here you get into pigeonholing, labeling, classification, categorization, genres, tagging and so forth, which goes against the grain of artistic freedom.  Having a recognizable signature style evolves out of experimentation, and can eventually help one build an audience.

Figuring out what people like while not repeating a formula is something to keep in mind.  Rather than taking a risk of your music being considered contrived, you can blow off trying to repeat something that appealed to many.  Record companies who get a hit out of an artist want another just like it, and rightfully so.  However, no artist wants all of their songs to sound the same as each other.  AC/DC stuck with a formula and have had a consistent signature sound, whereas Led Zeppelin included more variety in tempo and style, doing reggae, country, folk, and ballads as well as hard rock and blues.  You can change tempos, instruments, song forms, singing style, etc. and still sound like you, but sometimes, it’s contrived when it’s obvious you’re intentionally stretching too far from your home base.  

Punk rock musicians who suddenly switch to classical, or jazz musicians who change to recording country are rare.  Crossover attempts sometimes occur, but other times they are more contrived like when Garth Brooks recorded a rock album as a different persona.  Nashville songwriters seem to successfully pitch formulaic songs to mainstream country artists and it’s noticeable.  Sometimes you notice, and you don’t care, you like it anyway, and it just works.  There’s no accounting for people’s tastes, except that you can bet something fairly new and different will come along eventually that will be a breath of fresh air, and then others will try to emulate it.

Dealing with this knowledge can be tricky.  Despite knowing all of the above, I still just write what I feel like writing, and record the best of what I come up with.  The self-rated keeper ratio remains about the same from year to year, and I throw away about three fourths of what I write.  The remaining one fourth may suffer further weeding out due to not sounding so great after my best effort with the recording process, and then I’m left with a handful of songs every year that I consider “release-worthy”.  The songs I release are perhaps unconsciously influenced by my knowledge of what works, but I never set out to try to write a hit according to my knowledge of what worked in songs by others I enjoy.  My songs just happen, and although I’ve done some rewriting that worked on occasion, it’s usually a case of trusting the weeding out process I use.  The song has to be pretty good from the get-go to make my final cut.  The best ones fire on more cylinders than others right from the start, as if by pure accident.  More often than not, those that make the cut have some of the important catchiness in their titles and lyrics, and always in the music, but getting people to hear the music is greatly aided by the title.  

We’re in a try before you buy world now, where you stream it online first.  Prior to hitting play, the song title matters.  Can you rename a great song so that the title stands out more?  Yes, but only if it doesn’t take away from the song.  It usually means rewriting the chorus too, so you have to be careful.  The bottom line here is if you have a few attention-grabbing song titles, you’ll maybe be lucky enough to get fans who want the whole album.  They might be intrigued enough to try out the more boring-sounding song names as well.  Catchy titles happen naturally for me, but I never start writing with a title in mind.  It’s an accident, but when it happens, it helps to have a catchy song title.  The beauty of it is when you’re writing a song, maybe mid-way through, and you realize it’s going to be good, and then you realize at some point it’s going to work out that it has an attention-grabbing title according to the aforementioned criteria, you’ve got a definite keeper.  It’s cool when that happens, and I know that if I write enough songs, the keeper ratio will produce another.  It’s just a matter of time.

From a bedroom, basement or woodshed, you can get a somewhat decent recorded product, depending on your quality standards.  Nowadays you can record at home, then sell online, and never have to get out of your pajamas.  You can remain anonymous if you want to, and develop a following without ever needing to play in front of people though viral online recommendation.  Since I don’t even have a good voice, and am not a great guitar player, I shy away from playing in front of people.  I’m realistic in knowing I’m not a good performer.  Yet, I think my finished recordings show that my songs are pretty good.  It’s not that I doctor them up with fancy digital trickery - in fact I intentionally resist these temptations and try to produce a very realistic version of each song using the bare minimum of effects.  I must admit that I wish my music could reach a wider audience.  I’d love it if people liked and bought my music, and so that’s why I’ve made it available for sale in digital retail stores.  So my main confession is that I want that to happen without having to perform live.  Secretly, I’d like to maintain a slight bit of mystery, and maybe someday there would be a demand for me to play live.  If that ever happened, I would definitely be excited to learn my own songs and play them for people.