To Ignore or Appease The Algorithm?

 

To Ignore or Appease The Algorithm? 

My song from yesterday (Song A Day number 3,656, the 3rd day of #jamuary) is currently going viral on Twitter:

I’ve occasionally had songs go viral on the internet over the last 10 years of writing a song a day. It’s fun when it happens. It’s almost always tied to a specific cultural moment: Topical songs about presidential debates, Apple products, or rent prices in Brooklyn.

All social networks use algorithms to decide what they’re going to show you. The algorithm tries to show you the posts that it thinks you’ll engage with the most, so you’ll stay on the site for as long as possible, with the ultimate goal of getting you to click on as many ads as possible. 

As someone who makes things for people to watch or listen to on the internet, you have a decision to make: Do you want to make choices that appease these algorithms, or do you want to ignore them?

Personally, I do a bit of both. Simply posting daily is an algorithm appeasing act, but I don’t tag my videos any special way, and most days I’m not writing about key words that are buzzing at that moment. A couple times a month I’ll see some news story go by that I think will make for a good song, as with the above Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing video. This scattershot method — sometimes working with and sometimes ignoring — is not a great way to have your songs/videos recommended or picked up on regular basis by the algorithm. 

Some people find a way to appease the algorithm that fits really well with their overall style and goals. Peter Coffin and Andrew Huang both come to mind. I’ve been following them for many years. It’s been fascinating to watch how they’ve honed their respective styles, and how well it’s been working; their audiences have been growing in a big way. Neither of them changed the core of what they do, but they made conscious decisions to put hard parameters around the types of videos they release: You know that with Peter, you’ll get funny, insightful leftist commentary. And you know that with Andrew you’ll get weird, cool songwriting challenges as well as high energy, personable and interesting insights into making music.


There’s also always the chance that you’ll appease the algorithm without even meaning to. Take the story of indie band Boy Pablo. This video that they posted originally only got a couple of thousand views, just like all their other videos:

It got posted to Reddit and picked up another ~20,000 views, but then something remarkable happened. According to this article from Complex, YouTube’s algorithm noticed that people tended to watch the whole video, and they tended to click through to Boy Pablo’s page once they finished watching. This kind of behavior makes the algorithm happy, and so it started putting the video on people’s YouTube homepage and making it show up in the “Recommended Videos” sidebar. As a result, the video is now at 16 million views and growing, and Boy Pablo has over 1 million monthly streams on Spotify. 

This feels is the modern Internet’s version of being discovered: Right place, right time with the right music…to be scooped up by the algorithm. 

May we all be so lucky. 

This is the fourth post out of 31 blog posts I’m making for #jamuary. I’ve been writing a song a day for 10 years.

You can pre-order my latest album I Used To Love My Body on Bandcamp.



 

Led Zepplin's Mixing Console (Is Stupid)

 

Recently, the news came down the transom that Led Zepplin’s mixing console was up for sale. You know, it’s the one they recorded “Stairway” on.

Recording-console.jpg

Now, don’t get me wrong. I totally get the sway of objects like these. As though somehow it imbibes only that which makes it stronger (like the sword of Gryffindor), and by extension, it could magically imbue your recordings with that Zepplin essence.

Seeing people drooling over this piece of gear got me thinking about my old friend Rob.

He’s an awesome musician, sound guy and entrepreneur. He’s really talented. But - he struggles with finishing songs. He told me the notes app on his phone was full of thousands of half-baked ideas. He’s wants to feel more productive.

Here’s the interesting part - Rob works out of a studio. And not just any studio. An AMAZING studio. We’re talking vintage analog equipment, beautiful sounding microphones, and an incredible vibe. The mixing console in the studio belonged to Lynyrd Skynyrd. It’s a glorious place to make and record music. 

And Rob felt trapped by it.

“I can’t just go in there and record,” he would think to himself, “whatever I make in there has to be THE BEST THING EVAR!!! or else I’m just wasting all that amazing gear.”

I brought Rob over to my studio. It was in a basement with no windows. The basement often flooded and we’d have to lift up our computers off the floor. I had a $100 audio interface and a $50 microphone, and that was pretty much it.

Rob LOVED IT.

He was like, “Now THIS is conducive to creating!” The lack of gear somehow took the pressure off.


The fact is that you can start writing songs with literally whatever you have, even if you have almost nothing. If you’ve got a voice or can tap your toe, you can make a song. If you’ve got a smart phone, you can record, even if it’s just on the notes app. And, as Rob illustrated for us, sometimes having LESS stuff makes the process easier.

So close that tab that’s open to Musicians Friend. Forget about Led Zepplin’s mixing console. Pick up whatever instrument is near you and just start making something.

This is the third post out of 31 blog posts I’m making for #jamuary. I’ve been writing a song a day for 10 years.

You can pre-order my latest album I Used To Love My Body on Bandcamp.

 

On Writing Drunk

 

No, not literally.


There’s a quote, most often attributed to Hemingway (though no one can find where he said it):


WRITE DRUNK, EDIT SOBER

Most artists I know are great at editing.


Sometimes they’re too good and perfectionism puts them into a state of paralysis. Writing a song a day, even for a month, can help unlock the potential of “writing drunk”. That is to say: writing loose. Not caring about what comes out. Creating like a child, with total abandon. As soon as something occurs to you, just do that.


This way of creating has always come naturally to me. From the moment I started writing songs at 12 years old, something inside me just had this crazy urge to write as many as I could. But I’ve really struggled with editing. I think that’s a much harder skill to learn. The ability to think deeply about a song and find the best lyrics, the most interesting chord changes, the production choices that fit just right; if you can do these things, you have a true gift. Don’t discount it.

But, I hope in this month of Song A Day you’ll add a new songwriting tool to your toolbox.

The time for writing drunk is now (and the next 30 days). You’ll have plenty of material to edit sober later.