Two Dilemmas and an Update

Once again I'm sitting here taking time to contemplate the near future and my next nefarious plans. (Do I sound like Tom Hiddleston in that new Jaguar commercial?) Anyway, I find myself confronted by two dilemmas, which I want to take a few minutes to document here.

First, what do I want to do with my next album/project release? I'm proud I released Circadia, but in the crowded marketplace it hasn't found a niche. Worse yet, it seems unlikely that it will in the near future. The reason? For most purposes, with streaming becoming the thing, the playlist has edged ahead of the album as the standard yardstick for popular musical preference. A recent MIDiA Research report, previewed recently at the Music Industry Blog, makes it pretty clear that unless you're an established artist with a sizable loyal following it just doesn't make sense to release albums anymore. This is a problem for me because the direction I had started in with Circadia is much more conducive to albums with longer tracks. So, the dilemma is this: Do I step back and reorient my non-stock music work toward singles? I think for me this would mean going for much shorter (in the neighborhood of 2:30 to 3:30) tunes and a more instrumental pop approach.

Second, how do I grapple with the new reality of web security? Specifically, given that new reality does it make sense any longer for me to keep the thisbrucesmith.com domain? Since Google has started tilting their search results toward domains with security credentials, it seems like most of the traffic I get to the main web site is referral spam anyway. On top of that looks to me like I get more legitimate traffic on this blog than on my "official" web site. Furthermore, with recent changes at Blogger, all traffic coming here is HTTPS. If I want halfway decent security on my "official" site, I have to pay an amount about the same each year as what I spend on my web hosting in total. What's the point of that?

While I'm thinking about all that, let me update you on a couple of things. First, I sold a track last week at MotionElements, and will be tweeting more on that Monday. (Not subscribed to my Twitter feed). Also, I have a new track available to license at AudioJungle. This one's a little different - "Uplifing Light Rock." Of course, my latest featured stock music track of the week is coming up tomorrow. Stay tuned for more details.