If you take the next ten songs that you write and make those ten songs an album, then you will have a mediocre album. If your feeling is that those ten songs are absolute bangers, then you have set your sights too low on what a banger is. On the other hand, if you acknowledge […]
Author Archives: bigcityfolks
July
13
The Localist: How To Write an Album, Part 5 – The Process of Overwriting
posted by bigcityfolks
June
29
The Localist: How to Write an Album, Part 4 – A Manifold of Hooks
posted by bigcityfolks
In Parts 1 thru 3, we looked at some more abstract aspects of album writing. Essentially, when you decide to write an album intended for release to the public, you are intending that the public listen to your album. However, asking the public to listen to your album places non-insubstantial burdens on you to put […]
June
17
The Localist: You Are Essential If You Make Yourself Essential
posted by bigcityfolks
A few days ago, a meme was being passed around showing a picture of a survey indicating that artists were deemed the “least essential” job, eking out the title by a slim margin over Telemarketers. (71% to 69%). The survey was not done in the United States – it was a survey of 1000 citizens […]
May
20
The Localist: How to Write an Album, Part 3 – Building a Toolkit for Self-Expression
posted by bigcityfolks
In Part 2, we looked at the idea of trying to give strangers a reason to listen to your album, as opposed to the tens of thousands of albums released every year, and in particular the idea of writing something that is both new and substantial. But how do you do that? I discussed the […]
April
26
The Localist: How to Write an Album, Part 2 – The Standards of Novelty and Substantiality
posted by bigcityfolks
In Part 1, we looked at the general posture of releasing an album, and specifically the idea of intending to present the album for public consumption, which involves presenting something that you have to say, to the public, with the intention that the public will listen to it, and get some kind of benefit from […]
April
22
The Localist: How to Write an Album, Part 1 – Writing for Public Consumption
posted by bigcityfolks
As I’m in the process of putting together and thinking through a fourth record, I figured it might be good to put together some guidance on album-writing, while the thoughts are still fresh. I’m not going to pretend that what I’m drafting here is a definitive guide on how to write a good album. There […]
March
15
Interview: Ammar Farooki
posted by bigcityfolks
Big City Folk founder Niall Connolly chats with Pakistani songwriter and former Fulbright Scholar, Ammar Farooki about quitting his day job, his first six months in NYC, Islamabad’s best spots for kayaking and much more. Ammar’s music can be found HERE. ///**// Niall: Tell me about your Fulbright scholarship? How did that come about? What […]
February
25
The Localist: The Basic Standard of Quality for Hitmaking
posted by bigcityfolks
I was looking for a different article but ran into a study done on how music trends develop. A number of years ago, a Princeton professor ran randomized trials on 30,000 teenagers, exposing them to the music of 48 emerging artists, to learn about how musical trends develop. His conclusion from the study is essentially […]
February
20
The Localist: Developing Vision as a Writer
posted by bigcityfolks
One way to get at the concept of vision is to think about how you would describe your music to someone if they asked you what kind of music you play. I know the question is a cliché. But suppose that the person asking you isn’t a co-worker asking the question to just be polite. […]
January
11
The Localist: Don’t Compete Locally, Compete Nationally
posted by bigcityfolks
One of the fundamental mistakes of musicians trying to grow a music career is that they try to compete locally instead of competing nationally. Under the local competition mindset, gaining success on a larger level is a matter of winning at the local level, where winning at the local level helps you to “get to […]
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