Wait, Spin, Repeat: New Thoughts on "Old" Albums (+ New Johnny Headband Song)

I was speaking with a musician friend lately about how deflating it can be, in a way, to have so much build-up toward ones album release, to wait, and to work, and to reach out, and to hope, and to wait more...

...Until you can finally share these songs! It's a burst, it's a relief, it's a great kind of nervous energy... A culmination.

And for a week, or maybe less, some reviews pour in over the internet and you can get Likes, Shares, and Retweets... It's all an instantaneous fling and everyone spins it through a couple of times. But then, unfortunately, the harsh reality soon sets in: that life goes on. Or, everyone else's respective lives go on.... And the next week comes, then the next week..., and someone else's album, then another's... Attention scatters.

That album that you worked on. Did we become fully acquainted with it? Did we perceive the themes and emotions that you fused onto each lyric or song? Did we forget it too quickly?  Anyway, I told this friend that I'm starting to see an increased worth in waiting to write about an album. Sure, the release is a big deal and one would always want to promote that, but with the speed of social media's updates and shuffled status posts and boosted content and frustrating algorithms, maybe it's worth taking a bit of time to really sit with an album, before we write about it. The biggest Billboard icons release albums at midnight, and by 2 a.m., there are album reviews... I think we can do better.

People walk into the public library where I work and say: "Wow, you host live concerts here? That's SO COOL... How long as that been going on?"   And then you tell them that we've been doing it for seven years or more.... It's just that not everyone's tuned in at the same time. Not everyone has their ears open at the same instant... that instant you drop your album. I think belated reviews keep that tree, that album, from proverbially falling in the woods without anyone to hear whether it makes a sound or not...

Let's draw attention back...  Let's remember what you never forgot... Yesterday's news could be tomorrow's eureka!

Meanwhile, take a band like Johnny Headband. They're slowly releasing an album, track by track, every three months or so. After a year, five songs have trickled out for "Freedom Rock." Here's their latest