Friday, June 3, 2016

Resolving the Single Versus Album Dilemma

I'm sitting here on Friday, June 3. I did some promo this morning on Twitter and G+. Larry Carlton's "Smiles and Smiles to Go" just finished playing. And I'm thinking about "stragedy" (as Bugs Bunny famously called it).

I mentioned in an earlier post that I felt a dilemma regarding whether to do singles or albums going forward. After hesitating for so long to put anything out because I had become such a self-critical perfectionist, I find now that my mood has changed. I'm producing music that I feel could find an audience. The problem is that the economics have changed. Streaming is taking over, and people mostly want to stream songs/tracks, not albums. Unless you're an artist with a large following willing to buy your whole album (spoiler alert: I'm not - yet), it just doesn't make sense to release anything other than singles.

So, here's what I did. Instead of focusing on an album follow-up to Circadia, I'm releasing a single, called "Dream Catcher." If this post is your first entry to this blog, you can find out more at the Dream Catcher page. The other decision I made was to try to make the single more accessible than th tracks on Circadia. In that sense, I'm trying to update the kind of instrumental pop music I liked as a kid with more electronics and a stronger, more focused beat. However, I haven't completely given up on doing more spacy, longer tracks. So I'm giving serious thought to releasing an album in that style on an alternative platform, like maybe Bandcamp.

In the meantime, I'm waiting on pins and needles for the folks at CD Baby to complete their review process on "Dream Catcher" so I can find out if I need to make changes before next Friday's scheduled release date. When I get more information, expect to hear about it here, at the Dream Catcher page, and on Twitter and G+.

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