lately i've been thinking a lot about creativity. not creativity itself. but the way we talk about it. i think we've romanticised the idea that great work arrives out of nowhere. one perfect idea. one magical afternoon. one moment where inspiration suddenly strikes. and then somehow... you create something incredible. if i'm honest, i used to think like that too. i'd wait until i felt creative. until i felt motivated. until it felt like the right day to write. but over the years, i've...
20 days ago • 1 min read
lately i've been thinking a lot about attention. not how to get it. but who it's actually coming from. everywhere you look, someone is trying to grab a few seconds of your time. another reel. another ad. another "you need this." and if i'm honest, i catch myself doing it too. trying to find better hooks. better ways to get people to stop scrolling. because that's the game now. attention feels like the currency. but i'm starting to wonder if we've become so obsessed with getting attention that...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
i think one of the hardest things about releasing music is knowing what to measure. everything is numbers. streams. followers. views. playlist adds. and naturally, those become the things we chase. and i get it. i’ve done the exact same thing. for the last few years, most of my artist releases have been through labels. and when a song comes out through a label, you get used to a certain process. the song goes live. the playlists start moving. the numbers start climbing. and without realising,...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
so something interesting has happened over the last few weeks. i’ve been pitching my new single to playlist curators ahead of its release this friday. after months of working on the music, finalising the mix, shaping the visuals, building the release plan and preparing everything behind the scenes, it’s finally almost out. honestly, this is usually the part where things get a little scary. you stop creating in private. and you start letting other people have an opinion. the response so far...
2 months ago • 2 min read
so i’ve been thinking about music releases completely wrong. for years, my process was simple. finish the song.sign the song.release the song. then move onto the next one. most of my leon taro. releases over the last few years have come out through different labels. which meant once the music was finished, i’d mostly hand the rest over. the artwork.the rollout.the assets.the release strategy. i’d still post about the release and push the song out. but looking back, i wasn’t thinking deeply...
3 months ago • 1 min read
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what actually makes someone stay on a song. not the mix.not how long you spent on it.not how good the idea is. just whether something grabs you straight away. Because that’s the reality now. people aren’t sitting with a track waiting for it to get better. they’re deciding in the first 10 seconds whether to stay or skip. I’ve had moments where a track felt great in the studio. but when I came back to it fresh, the first few seconds didn’t pull me in....
3 months ago • 1 min read
Lately, finishing songs has been harder than starting them. not because I don’t have ideas. but because I don’t know which one to commit to. I’ve been deep in my leon taro. artist project recently, and if anything, there are too many directions each song could go. I’ve explored different hook ideas.played with tempo changes.sent tracks to different singers to explore tone and character. and tested multiple versions of the same song. on paper, that sounds like progress. in reality, it’s...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Most songs I hear aren’t bad. They’re good. The writing works.The production is solid.The mix sounds clean. But something doesn’t land. Not in an obvious way. Just enough that you don’t feel pulled back to it. I used to think that meant something was missing, so I’d add more. More layers.More sounds.More details to try and push the track over the line. At the time it felt like progress. Looking back, it wasn’t. The issue wasn’t that the track wasn’t full enough.It was that it wasn’t clear...
4 months ago • 1 min read
There’s a moment in almost every record that decides how it’s going to land. It doesn’t happen at the start.It doesn’t happen when the idea first clicks. It happens right near the end. The song is close.The structure is there.It feels like it works. And that’s usually where things start to drift. Most artists think this moment is about finishing the song. It isn’t. It’s about deciding whether the record is actually ready to be released. Those aren’t the same thing. A song can be complete, but...
4 months ago • 2 min read