03|31|10 Why good is no longer good enough
A few months ago I read an interview between Derek Sivers and Seth Godin and couldn’t stop re-reading this particular paragraph: “Sure, some music that’s great is great for the ages and it’s okay that’s it’s not being heard, but so much of what people call great isn’t actually great, it’s merely “very good.” Very good music goes unheard every day, because very good music is not in short supply. There’s a huge surplus of it.”
“I’ve sampled hundreds of songs on CDBaby and I can say that almost all of it is very good. And virtually none of it is great, if we define great to mean music I need to buy, to give away, to talk about to everyone I know.” I have to admit: reading this really shook me up. How much of what I had released, had been truly great? How much material have I released that I knew to be “merely good” or “interesting”? Hand on the heart? I’ve probably released my fair share of songs that I could have made better, had I worked harder, had I thought more deeply about the song, had I had more confidence in my ability to turn good into great through sheer work and determination. Now, perhaps there was once a time where it made sense to just get on with it and start releasing music, but whatever the case for that might have been, that period is now over. Therefore, I hereby promise you that – from this day onwards – I will only release a song after I’ve done everything I can to make it the best song it can be. And while this will not guarantee that everything I ever release will be great, or perfect, or even close to it, I promise you that in the future, when I fail, I will fail because my very best efforts were not good enough, and not because I was too scared and lazy to really try. Pinky swear. So, how does this promise impact the making of my new album, In Perfect Blooms Of Color? Well, for one I am working a lot harder to make the music more beautiful, more memorable, more structured, more polished. I’m also doing my best to raise my production standards to the next level. Not only do I want the songs to sound better, but I want the sounds and performances to be more nuanced, rich, and more expressive. In addition, I’m finally allowing the needs of specific songs to trump my concerns for genre identity, “indie-cool”, or listener expectations. I’ve often had ideas that I ended up self-censoring because they wouldn’t “sound like Enright House”, or because I was worried I would alienate people who had grown to love my music as it was. But I’ve finally come to realize that worrying about all of this only drains my creativity. In fact, it’s enough to turn a sane man positively neurotic. Thus, if a song now sounds better with brass, I include brass – no matter that I’ve never used brass before. Now, if a song benefits from a 4-to-the-floor rave kick drum, then that’s what’s going to happen – no matter that I’ve never before written a song that one could dance to. If a heavily auto-tuned vocal a la Cher sounds perfect for a particular song, then a heavily auto-tuned vocal it is! – no matter that its sonic signature is almost exclusively associated with top-40 pop music. In short, if an idea sounds good, if it makes the song better, and if it excites me, it’s in – whether it fits into a previous Enright House canon or not. There are other ways, too, in which I am working to improve my music. For one, I’m trying really hard not be lazy about lyrics. I’m trying to dig deeper, be more straight-forward, less cute, less sentimental, and, generally, just a tad braver. No doubt I’ll be making myself quite vulnerable with the new lyrics, but I’ll own that. I’ll write my heart out, and when people start making fun of certain lines – and I’m calling it right now that there will be those people who will – I’ll take it. But the biggest thing I’m doing to ensure that In Perfect Blooms Of Color will be the best thing I’ve ever done is by preventing you from ever hearing the vast majority of it. If a song is “good”, it’s out. If a song is “very good”, but doesn’t really inspire me, then it, too, is out. Good is no longer good enough; like Seth pointed out, there’s already too much of it out there as it is. So, hang in there with me. I think it will be worth it. xOx Yay! Check out the new Enright House Shop I just finished making! Even if you’re not the type of person who buys music anymore, do take a look at how pretty and shiny it is! :)
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