Last night I got all stressed out trying to design a cover for a demo of 4-5 songs I plan to release in the next week or two. I know it's last minute but the whole reason for putting out this demo is to put a punctuation on my older songs so that I can focus on new ones, and to provide friends with somewhere to listen to me.
Right now the only place you can hear my music is Soundcloud and Youtube. Soundcloud is not a part of many people's daily routine, and Youtube is not primarily used for music, so I thought I should create a few more ways for people to listen to what I've recorded already.
So I'll put it up on Spotify and Apple and all those platforms, and also make it available to download at Bandcamp and as a physical CD. I don't think I'll make a whole lot of money from this, but it's an added bonus if I can earn a little bit extra.
Mainly I see this as a chance for me to fill out a metaphorical "portfolio", and start again fresh on some new ideas.
But I kept stressing over my lack of ability to produce powerful images. People say don't judge a book by the cover but that is exactly what people do, almost everyone almost all the time. And it makes sense. We mainly understand the world through our eyes, and so even when we are listening to something, we like to have a visual association.
It doesn't mean people are completely shallow and only care about the visuals, but they certainly notice them first and they will always associate the song with some image in their mind. If you can provide them with something that enhances the original work, it can give a lot of energy to the music, and help people understand or appreciate it better.
This has frustrated me to no end as I have never been much of a visual artist. I'm not all that interested in creating images, not nearly as much as words or songs, and so I hate that it's something I need to think about at all.
I got into a long conversation with my partner who was trying to give me advice about how to change the cover, not realizing that I didn't have the skill to do what she was recommending. It turned into a tiny argument but then evolved into some really really great advice from her.
She said that stop trying to make something you can't make. If you think it's worth it to pay for a cover artist for a4 song demo that you are releasing on a whim, then do it. Otherwise, completely rule out anything that you don't feel is something you are interested or curious about. Keep it as simple as possible, and try to make it as powerful as you can with that simplicity as the foundation. And have fun doing it, if you don't it will feel rigid and unnatural.
She also said that social media has turned us all into big personalities, trying to be seen and heard and not listening to our natural voice, and that a softer approach can be a lot more powerful because it doesn't have all the static drowning out the real message.
SOLID ADVICE!
We got into a long discussion about what motivates artists in general and what motivates me. Artists pretend not to care what other people think but if they truly don't care, they don't need to share their work with the world. At the very least they want people to pay them for their work so they can survive, and sometimes they want to feel a sense of purpose or that they've made a difference in someone's life.
But the best artists can create some distance between that and their artwork. The art serves a purpose, to explore an emotion, or a place, or an experience, to answer a question, to ask a question, or simply to just flow in the moment. It isn't thinking about how to convince you to listen to it. It can, and that would be "commercial art", which is product driven rather than expression driven.
We agreed that, for example, rather than trying to convince anyone to listen to the songs, the cover should fit the songs as well as it possibly can, in a way that may convince people to listen to it. The starting point is fitting the songs, not convincing people to listen to it. After you figure out how to make it fit the songs, then you can look for ways to make it more attractive.
You don't put the packaging on before you finish baking a cake....if you did, it could be the most delicious cake and beautiful packaging in the world, no one would really want to eat it.
And so I realized I have been mixing a lot of these things in my head, simply because I need to survive in this world and I want more time and energy to put into creative pursuits...and getting people to like my work would make it a whole lot easier....
It doesn't help my art or me to be run on the fear of not reaching people.
This is why some of the best things take time. When you push too hard, it effects the quality of your work. I don't think it's effected my writing or music all that much, but it certainly has prevented me from developing a visual sense to accompany my writing. It's made even the thought of learning some digital design or photography so unattractive to me that I've never felt curious to go out and learn, even though it would solve a lot of my problems.
So I haven't comprised on the core of my work, but this lack mentality has led to me having shitty packaging on all my work, with the exception of my novella series which I paid a lot of money to artists for, artists I'm glad I spent but still have not made back on book sales.
So today and for the foreseeable future, I will be trying to get back in touch with the idea of creating out of curiosity and fun and just doing what feels right in the moment, or completing tasks that I've decided I want to complete.
One of those tasks is a potential zine I had an idea for. I spent more than half of my time between late 2011 and 2017 in Xiamen, and it was a magical place to be at that time because the cost of living was very low compared to the average salary and the workload was always light for people. It cost very little to start a business and that first attracted lots of artists and wanderers there. Due to it being a tiny island, and due to the nature of internet hype, it couldn't continue like that forever though.
I decided I want to put more of my creative energy into expressing what those times were like, both through stories and songs. So where my previous work was more abstract or fictional, I would like to create some stories and songs that are more autobiographical.
The goal will be to preserve and transmit that vibe, because it was so beautiful and feels like what is missing from most of the world today, short of maybe a dozen or so spots around the world around the world (Thailand, Indonesia, and the countryside of Portugal Spain and Italy come to mind) which Xiamen almost ended up becoming.
Maybe by examining our motivations and how we went about doing things, as well as what prevented us from creating something more sustainable, we can bring out that vibe no matter where we are in the world, the feeling of freedom, creativity and harmony with nature without too much obsession or intellectualization over any of it.
"We tried to build a paradise, knowing that it couldn't last. But we made our rough drafts, and still keep the blueprints".
That was the overall theme that I will be playing with in 2025. I'll looking for ways to bring it to life, and to see what we can do with the blueprints we created.
I want to stay rooted in the desire for exploration and experimentation, play and honest expression. First be where I am, and create from there, rather than from the starting point of where I want to be. We'll get there somewhere along the way.
The music video for "Mirror" below was an attempt, but I had very little footage to make it with, mostly starting in 2017 when the city had already become pretty developed. The first 3rd of the video was filmed at the tail end of that though.
I have a few ideas about where to go from here :-)
Keep your eyes open for my first "EP" release. It will be out in the next 2-3 weeks, and will include this song of course!
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Visual representations is important. It doesn't make sense but that's the world we live in. A chefs has to give equal weightage to the presentation or else he will lose customer.
A dancers has to put on a fancy dress to add to the skills. Its a part of marketing. Basically the packaging of the good. If a food looks good, our mind automatically assume it to be delicious and this bias favours the chef.
I have told by some many people to work on my appearance. I need to radiate more energy and my style should reflect the energy with in me.
The cover is part of the package. It has to look appealing and convey what's inside. Otherwise it serves no purpose.
As for motivation, I am searching for mine. 🤗