In today’s music scene, artists are expected to wear a lot of hats. Between staying on top of social media, putting together your website, sending out emails, slinging merch, booking shows, and the million other things musicians have to do every day, it’s easy to lose focus on what is most important. When it comes down to it, none of those things matter if you don’t have good songs. Songs are where everything starts. You can’t have an album without good songs, you’ll have a hard time making fans without good songs, and poor songs make an otherwise decent show a cringe worthy experience. I like to say that professional musicians need to do all of the little things, but it’s even more important not to neglect the big thing.

I can’t help but think back to a time when one of my bands was having a hard time coming up with things to post on out social media feed. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was in some sort of creative marketing rut. Then someone put it in really simple terms for me:

It sounds like your problem is that you’re not doing anything with your band that’s worth posting about.

I couldn’t help but notice that they were right. We hadn’t written a new tune in months, and even our shows were dropping off. We needed some new life badly and we found it in…you guessed it… new songs. If I think back to most of the rough patches I’ve had with bands, 75% of the time, the root of the problem is in the songs.

When it comes down to it, remember that everything else you do from updating your Facebook page to playing a show is to showcase your songs. so make sure that you give them the respect and time they deserve. When you have great songs, everything else will fall in line.