The Localist: Writing for Posterity

Posted by bigcityfolks on January 24, 2025 in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

There are many issues with the idea of “content creation.” It’s a trivial term, because in a sense, everything artistic is “content creation” which sort of makes it a misnomer, because people don’t use the term to refer to everything artistic under the sun. They specifically refer to the creation of content for consumption as part of social media.

People talk a lot about the burden that content creation places on artists, but I wanted to talk about a different issue with the idea of content creation. Lately, there are an increasing number of musicians that I am acquainted with who I have little to no recollection of what their specific artistic output is – whether they even have an album, or even a song that I might associate with them. In turn, as many musicians continue to put out single after single, many releases have increasingly become a blur, as the musicians put less and less investment into every release. As if the creation of the music itself was secondary to the “real” goal of gaining more followers.

I wanted to put forth the concept of writing for posterity. It could be the idea of writing and releasing music so that you are specifically remembered for that music (as opposed to, the guy who always comments about topic X on Instagram, etc… etc..). But it could also be the idea of writing specifically for an audience that intends to consume your music in a more comprehensive way than indirectly through 5-second snippets provided by the algorithm. The ultimate goal, I think, it so write something and then release it to the public, because it is relevant now, but will also be relevant in 5 years, 10 years and beyond. As opposed to relevant in the 5-seconds it happens to be forced into your feed by the algorithm.

In the end, I think people should think about the way in which social media has affected how they are perceived as musicians. Not just in terms of avoiding saying awful things on social media. But are you recognized as that one person who comments on topic X and is friends with so-and-so? Or are you recognized as that one person who wrote that one specific album that they listened to all the way through? What are things that you can do to avoid the former and encourage the latter?

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The Localist is a column focusing on issues relating to aspiring local musicians in New Jersey and New York City. In his free time, the author performs as St. Lenox. In 2021, St. Lenox was named one of Rolling Stone’s Artists You Need to Know, with comparisons to Mt. Eerie, The Hold Steady and The Mountain Goats. St. Lenox’s most recent record, “Ten Modern American Work Songs” was placed on Best Albums lists at AllMusic and Jersey Beat. AllMusic credits St. Lenox with “some of the most unique and unconventionally thrilling pop music in the late 2010s.”