As crazy as it sounds, this is actually part of why I chose vanlife. Situations like last night's cold front will inevitably intensify awareness and remind you how high the stakes are. I say discomfort actually aides clarity to some degree because rather than just being warm and cozy I'm over here like holy shit, did I go to the studio this week? Have I written or done anything to advance progress? If not I'd better fix that asap because this is fucked up.
I've put out two albums in two years but last week I realized it's not enough. I haven't been putting out videos, blogging, or releasing singles. As a result I've decided instead to focus on releasing shorter projects 2 - 3 times a year. It's actually the same amount of music for the most part just chopped up into more drops throughout the year. Plus with a few singles from each project I'd be putting out a new song every other month at the minimum. It also recently dawned on me that my freshman, amateur mixtape did better than my last two albums combined. That shit was sort of hard to cope with in all honesty but there's a reason for it.
I actually put out singles before the mixtape was released, certain songs were featured in videos that got a bunch of views, and I went out of my way to submit it to press outlets. Believe it or not, despite spending up to 4x more money on the newer albums, I didn't pursue any of those avenues. So it's not even necessarily that my first mixtape was more worthy of praise but rather that I allowed it the opportunity to be heard. Furthermore, I recorded that mixtape in my room with a cheap $100 microphone!! That's the part that blows my mind. Moving forward I'm going to start recording myself again, in house (van?) just like before. This allows you to create on the fly for cheap and release shit at a higher frequency. I wouldn't mix it myself though so don't worry, it'll still sound professional.
So I guess the moral is that in my discomfort I've grown smarter. This is my career. People spend their whole lives working for the same company, striving to ascend through the ranks and that's similar to how I see all of this. I'm down for life. It’s okay to make mistakes so long as you learn from them. I feel as though I have a better understanding of what to do moving forward and for the sake of my well-being I hope it works out because it’s cold as shit.
