I’ve had One Wayne G on all day while working and it’s incredible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loQolUfkyvo&list=OLAK5uy_km-PM87aSfmgeSHvhVwCj_Dixxd1ecOR8
A release like this really makes me think. I went to my “Song idea starts” folder out of curiosity and there are 334 voice memos there of song ideas dating back to 2014 (I lost years worth of voice notes from before… thanks Apple). I think anyone who has any kind of creative itch can identify with this release… we all have our ideas folder of some kind.
I can’t imagine how brave (or zen or something?) you’d have to be to blast the equivalent of your “Song idea starts” folder out to the world. I’m also stunned he has a creative process where his equivalent of a “Song idea starts” folder is this coherent, high fidelity, and overall pleasant to listen to. Underscores why I put so much less stock in “genius” these days, having realized that while some people truly have a vastly higher natural peak ability at specific things, most of what we call genius is someone who has a process and is relentless. But it also feels like a “perfect practice makes perfect” type of thing - like him or not this dude has undeniably defined a lot of the aesthetic and trends of some circles of music over the last decade. Seeing the quality of everything below the tip of the iceberg is instructive. Setting up an environment conducive to that might be a lot of the battle. Case in point, these two “geniuses” are basically saying the same thing here https://youtu.be/5WMyjU5RweU?t=249 and here https://youtu.be/syIBWDnZqCw?t=322
It also is an interesting stamp on the streaming/post-album era. I guess he’s releasing an abridged version of this as a vinyl, but dumping ~9 hrs of music on the world as one release was never really practical before, similar to how albumless isolated singles have recently become more practical. Now a ~9 hour song dump is actually great given the incentives of the streaming platforms. A lot of these tracks are long enough to count as plays for streaming payouts. I don’t know what the monetization is like on lofi girl style youtube streams, but I have to imagine 9 hours worth of short songs played through traditional streaming platforms has to be better. Not that I think Mac cares about any of that type of stuff, but it’s interesting how natural the current landscape made releasing something like this.
