Fifty Thousand Plays

Fifty thousand plays. That’s what it takes before one song pays for itself. Here’s the arithmetic, and why I’d rather you bought the record. Getting a song mixed and mastered properly costs somewhere around $150. That’s not the recording — that’s just the last stretch, where a track stops sounding like a demo and starts … Lees verder

Are Song Lyrics Important?

Every song is a bundle of moving parts — melody, rhythm, tone, production — and they all pull at us in their own way. But the part I keep coming back to, both as a listener and when I’m writing my own songs, is the lyrics. They’re the words that carry the story, the emotion, … Lees verder

The Light in the Hall

I went quiet for a year and a half. I didn’t plan it that way, but sometimes you have to step away from the noise to figure out what you’re actually trying to say. The machinery of it all—the algorithms, the constant demand to be visible, the streams that never translate into real people—it gets … Lees verder

You Deserve to Know What You’re Listening To

There’s a number that’s been sitting with me all day. According to new research from the Dutch music industry, more than three-quarters of people in the Netherlands now want AI-generated music to carry a label on streaming platforms. Two years ago, that figure was 59 per cent. Today it’s past 75. And in the same … Lees verder

The Algorithm Almost Buried These Songs

What Spotify’s hidden Popularity Score reveals about how independent music really gets discovered — and why the first few weeks decide everything. I took a look at Spotify’s Popularity Scores recently, and what they reveal is worth sharing — not as a complaint, but as an honest look at how the discovery game actually works … Lees verder

Why I Wrote Black Sheep

For most of my adult life, I’ve had this quiet, nagging sense that I showed up at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Like the world had already settled into a shape and I was the one piece that wouldn’t slot in. The Beach Boys put it perfectly years ago — I just wasn’t … Lees verder