Artist Tip of The Day: Be confident!!

 Imagine you walk into a grocery store and you smell the smells of warm sausage and cheese sandwiches in the distance. You walk over to find the sample table and ask “what it is this you have available to sample?” and the lady behind the counter replies with a huge smile “well the sausage is undercooked, the cheese is old and the bread is stale but these are our new sausage and cheese breakfast sandwiches!” (Still smiling, mind you) If I was a betting man I’d bet you’ll probably walk away sporting a Mr. Yuk face expression without even trying a sample.  

So it boggles my mind when an artist asks me to listen to their music but the first thing they do before I even get to press play is tell me everything wrong with the track. It usually goes something like “Well, the vocals are kinda rough because I was sick the day we recorded and and and the mix isn’t quite done yet but here it is, tell me what you think.” In my mind I’m thinking “If this is the case why in the world would you even make a CD of this?” Obviously you’ve thought highly enough of the track in order to burn it to a CD and play it for folks who’ve never heard your stuff before so…why are you downplaying it? If you cant stand behind your product then who will? A good car salesman not only stands behind the car he sells but chances are he owns one of the same make and model, can tell you everything good about it to the point that if he points out a flaw, it generally doesn’t make a difference in the fact that his car, in it’s respective class is the best bang for your buck. Remember your first impression is generally the one that sticks with people, so make it impactful in a way that is beneficial to your career.

Or…if the song really is that bad…go back in the studio, lay down the tracks right, mix it tight, and master it up before you go off showing people what you’ve got. And oh yea…own that shit! =) Happy music making.

Q Dot