Sitting in my studio again, working on new music and thinking about rebuilding my reputation, I keep coming back to the same question: Do I make the music I want to make, or try to make what people want to hear right now?
There was a time when I was always rushing to finish something. I was working on artist development, producing music, recording, mixing—whatever the project needed. There was always another project to finish and another goal to chase.
Now I look at what it takes just to break through and sometimes think, why even try?
What Keeps Me Making Music
The answer is pretty simple: I still love making music.
After doing this for years, creating the music itself isn’t the hard part for me. The hard part is figuring out what to do with it once it’s finished.
In the past, I would sometimes try to make music that fit whatever was popular at the time. I understood the reason for doing it. If a certain sound was working, you tried to make something that could compete with it.
I don’t really want to work that way anymore.
These days, I’d rather make something because I like the way it sounds. I’m not as interested in asking whether it fits neatly into what people are listening to right now.
And creatively, that feels better.
The Problem With Making Music for Yourself
There’s a downside.
The farther you move away from what’s popular, the harder it can be to get people to give the music a chance. It’s one thing to make something you believe in. It’s another thing to get someone who has never heard of you to stop what they’re doing and actually listen to it.
Shadows Beneath the Moon is a good example of where I am creatively right now. It’s dark, slow, cinematic and a little edgy. I wasn’t sitting down trying to figure out what kind of track is popular right now or what would give me the best chance of getting streams. I was making something based on a mood and a sound that interested me.
That’s the freedom I’m enjoying now—but it’s also the challenge. How do you find an audience for music when you aren’t starting with what you think the audience already wants?
That’s the part I’m trying to figure out.
So What Am I Really Chasing?
That’s the dilemma I’m sitting with.
Do I make the music that makes me happy and accept that it may be harder to promote?
Or do I start chasing today’s sound again and risk getting frustrated trying to keep up with something that’s constantly changing?
Right now, I’m leaning toward making the music I actually want to hear.
Maybe rebuilding my reputation doesn’t mean trying to become the producer I was before. Maybe it’s figuring out who I am as a producer now—and finding the people who want to hear that.