The Only Bit That Matters

So I’ve got together 13.5 songs for a new album, I’ve demo’d them up on Garageband, I think they’re pretty darn great and I’m almost ready to think about recording them properly. Having made tonnes of albums over the years, in loads of different ways, I know how this is done and as always, I’ve got the songs.

But it’s also different this time. I’ve made many mistakes in the past and I’m simply not making them again. I’d say the biggest one was undervaluing my work (or rather allowing others to undervalue it) This time I know, I’ve got the only bit that matters.

In the creative industries, ideas are the real currency and people with none can steal them, buy them or licence them. They cannot manufacture them. For that they need the people who make things out of nothing. So what shall I do with this something of nothing?

Well, currently it belongs 100% to me, I used to be tied, it used to belong to someone else before it was made, before it was even conceived of.

I had to work to get to this point, to sever the ties and release myself from the many binds you find yourself in when you’re the one that has the only bit that matters. I lost things in that process but what I retained I get to keep and I need to be more careful with it.

I’m not going to give it to Rough Trade Records again for all the zeros they wouldn’t offer, I’d sooner bin it. I want it to be treated with care like I would myself or a person I cared about. My creativity is not a bottomless well of expendable ideas people can sift through and take for nothing.

I know I’m going to produce it myself, partly because I’m tired of being called ‘aggressive’ for insisting “my guitar tone is exactly how I want it, I know because I made it that way and please don’t make me tell you these are my songs, this is my album, I’m paying you and I’m in charge” a bit that, but mostly because I can, I know what I want and I know now that I’ve always been making those key decisions. My ears are clever, my taste is discerning and I know how to use music to make a song speak to you.

So I’m going to make it and I’m going to make it good. But this time I’m going to treat it with care and respect and demand others do too, like a thing that matters. I’ll put it on Bandcamp and you can buy it and listen to it and I’ll come and play some of it to you. To me, as always, that’s the only bit that matters

*this was, of course, ‘a small unknowable thing’ before it was released and became a small knowable thing! 🧡