 So many people make a huge mistake of thinking that artists who achieve massive success make music they think will get them popular by chasing trends. But the fact is, if you're as lucky as I am to get to interview many of the top artists of the world and hang out with the producers who make many of the most influential records around, you realize that this is a myth that amateurs believe and pros understand is total bullshit. The fact is, you need to make the music you want to hear in the world in order to have a long and consistent career in music. And I'm going to explain to you why that is. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon. This is Museformation. There's a mind-boggling statistic that 20% of the songs on Spotify have never even been listened to one time. Just as awful, a large percentage of the songs on iTunes have never been downloaded. There's many reasons for this, but one culprit is there's no feeling to be found in the countless emotionally vacant songs. So even the writers or their loved ones would never subject themselves to another listen to this insincere garbage. And that's why all these songs are left unplayed. Those who make music with motives of achieving commercial success as opposed to making the music they want to hear don't even want to listen to their own music. Since music is an emotional expression, we have to remember that the only way you make music that other people want to hear is if you listen to your heart and your emotions and then make something that you hear from that, otherwise it's missing that ingredient. When we all hear songs that do absolutely nothing emotionally, even though all the elements of the song seem to be doing the right thing, there's just that missing feeling there. Whether it's a country music documentary on Johnny Cash or the excellent Stretchin' Bobbito documentary on 90s hip-hop, those interviewed always talk about this thing, that everybody in music that gets it seems to know, which is music that speaks from the heart. This music authentically comes from what the musician loves instead of trying to do what someone else wants them to do. There's a reason that one of the most overused lyrical cliches is, My heart's a compass. Right behind, follow your heart. Every artist creating great music is expressing an emotion, which they let guide them to a sound that makes them feel that emotion in a stronger way. I know the idea that you need to love the music you make is counterintuitive to the stigma that listening to your music is for narcissistic, self-absorbed douchebags. In 2015, Apple even shamed Jamie Foxx for enjoying his own song in an iPhone commercial. But this trait is the commonality in everyone who makes great music. However, we shouldn't confuse this with musicians never wanting to hear their song again after it's been recorded and they've slaved over it forever. Writing, rehearsing, and recording along with the paralysis of creative decisions you make along the way is enough to have a sore spot towards a song for a lifetime. But there's a greater factor that goes into all this. The love a musician has for the music they make gets complicated with success. Artists suddenly have to keep the money coming in to support their team who holds a financial interest in their music. To make matters worse, fans have expectations and musicians think they should live up to them in order to sustain their success. Software subs are often caused by giving in to the expectations of fans' money or commercial success. Instead of the artist listening to what their heart wants to do, just as they did when no one was expecting anything from them on their debut album before they had any fans. Humans develop emotionally, as well as the naturally occurring development of what inspires them. Therefore, the music that's emotionally relevant with you changes as your emotions change. Inevitably, you experience different parts of life evolving along the way. This is why you see your favorite bands struggle after they become successful or continue to grow further from their original sound. They know they get a paycheck by making music they no longer feel emotional resonance toward if they keep their sound the same. This payday is at risk if they follow their emotions by changing their sound to one that's more emotionally resonant to what they're presently listening to. This is why you see musicians make big changes to their sound instead of making the record their fans want to hear. They are listening to their own heart instead of the sounds of those throwing money at them. One of the most overly thrown around thoughts in rock criticism is that you have your whole life to write your first album, which is why debut albums are often the most impressive work in an artist's catalog. This thought ignores that the artist probably made tons of other songs with other bands or may have written all those songs in the past six months, which I tend to see as pretty common, disregarding all that older material that wasn't presently resonating with them. It neglects that the external forces haven't begin to tug at the songwriter of what the fans expect and what their team expects and what other people are putting in their heads, which is much more often the culprit for a poor showing on a second album. Whether it's financial gain, writing hook of your songs or having a hit or following whatever trend a clueless suit thinks will lead to success, the advice to not follow your most emotionally resonant instincts gets hurled at you the second your music receives a claim. Instead of being advised to just keep getting better at what you do, an army of professionals tries to influence the musician instead of letting them continue with the authentic expression of what they feel, which is what made their music connect with an audience in the first place. Time and time again, the musicians who resist outside pressures by writing their most emotionally potent truth and ignoring the outsiders is what allows them to sustain writing great songs. You hear this in countless interviews with the artist, yet no one seems to listen. It's not just the financial gains though that tug at musicians after they become successful. As a musician grows emotionally past their old self, an illusion of a catch-22 occurs. They can make their fans happy by making a record of their old sound that's no longer emotionally resonant to them or they can follow their own musical instincts that their fans may find alienating. Most musicians know there's no choice but to follow their heart. For example, Blake Woody II could no longer do songs about dogfarts in their thirties, so they had a great success with their huge sound departure, which was their self-titled record where they really matured. Radiohead had to make music outside of the canine finds of a guitar after OK Computer since they had mastered the expression on the guitar that they had wanted to make. Daft Punk can't make another homework or discovery since that's not what's emotionally resonant to them. They're all following their emotions by making the music they want to hear. I always think of this Ray Bradbury quote. If there's no feeling, there's no great art. If there's no feeling, just forget it. The choice between doing what the fanbase wants versus what your heart is telling you to do is often framed as safe versus risky, but defying what the heart wants is the riskiest move of them all. Fans will say, just make part two of your last album or make more songs like you're hit. These critiques are regularly seen through the prism of business advice where the customer is always right. But what's definitely not right is trying to make an emotional connection with someone when your heart isn't present. You know, business advice is not really always good art advice. The only directional concern for a musician should be fulfilling an authentic emotional expression of what's inside them since anything else leads to music no one wants to hear anyway. Badly navigating this concept has doomed many musicians' careers. When they make the music the fans want to hear without it being emotionally resonant to them, the fans call it hollow and soulless and wonder why the record's not as good. You can make a list longer than the pages of any of my two books of musicians who make the experimental record they want to make, fans revolt, so they return with an uninspired version of their fan-preferred sound that never has that same emotional impact of when that sound was emotionally resonant to them when they were younger and a different person. To the listener, there's something missing they can't put their finger on that just doesn't feel right. That missing element is the emotional connection between the artist and listener because the artist did not do what was emotionally resonant to them. However, when the band makes the music they want to hear, they either come up with a record that alienates fans or a record that's celebrated. The safe option of a crowd-pleasing record only works when that sound is still emotionally resonant to a musician. The only safe option is doing what your heart wants since that's the only way your music will continue to be resonant with your audience. This choice often also leads to musicians regretting their decisions. I can't tell you how many beers have been cried in a musicians in Brooklyn who've told me they made a bad decision by appeasing their team members and the pressures around them. When I interview musicians who made a record inspired by making more money or what a suit told them to do, they're always regretful they didn't trust their heart by doing what they knew was right. They learned the lesson but it's too late and their career is done. When the musician does what their heart wanted and it doesn't connect with their audience they always have a more peaceful demeanor as they don't regard it as a regret. They accept that it was all they could do and for whatever reason their audience wasn't in the same place as them. There's no choice but to make the music you want to hear since the other option is always regret and failure. This extends past my experience as well. If you watch any documentary on someone who's made a great work the most common correlation between all of them is an artist saying I made it for myself, there was a void and I couldn't find what I wanted to hear. They wanted a flavor they weren't tasting or an emotion they weren't feeling in other artists' work. Despite the excessive vacuousness of many stars today you never hear that they made music to get made, paid and laid. Yeah! Even the dumbest genre-defining hair metal bands or pop stars will talk about how no one was doing what they were so they had to make it for the rest of the world to hear. I often think about this quote where Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks not exactly my favorite band, talks about working with Rick Rubin. She says that he lets music be discovered, not manufactured which is an artful way of describing the origins of great music. Rubin being one of the most successful producers in music history with an unparalleled track record that spans both unknown acts and established artists across nearly every genre has an undeniable understanding of how to craft a great song. He says, if you think about what's on the radio you won't be using your own voice in its most potent form. Any commercial considerations get in the way. If you think about music that gets on the radio competing and concerned about what others think is in the way of great music. It's not hard to figure out why writing songs about your passion results in the songs that sound passionate to others. Inherently these passions are what we feel strongest about so they'll evoke the strongest response inside us when we find a way to marry those feelings with the music we hear. They compel us to work tirelessly at getting our expression right which is what you need, you need that fuel for the fire to go as far as you need to to make music that really affects other people. When we follow the compass of our emotions we gain the added benefit that anything we're passionate about puts wind in our sails which makes any endeavor easier. Ask anyone who's fallen in love as they describe the intense feelings of when someone understands them. When we connect with each other through the emotions of the song it's very much the same. That's it. If you like this video there's tons more to like it and a playlist on my channel so please head there, subscribe and like and get notified about future videos and watch some more in this playlist. Was I missing anything in this video that you didn't understand? Is there a different way that you like to talk about this? Let me know in the comments and if there's anything else I can be answering I'm going to be making future episodes where I answer your questions so please let me know in the comments what no one else is talking to you about. I hope you stay tuned to this channel because I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're happy with in future videos. As well I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything. No playlist or con artist. Only artist having helpful discussions allowed. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do go to jessecanon.com or head to jessecanon.com on any of the socials. See you in the next video.