Brave and generous.
Note: Links in this post may be affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission, at no extra charge to you, if you make a purchase through such a link. Learn more here.
Notes
Asking why:
- teaches how to see how things got to be the way they are
- puts us on the hook
- if we’re willing to ask the question, we should be willing to answer it
- we become responsible to address the status quo
- compounds: additional whys lead to first principles
Professionals can answer the question “why” because their process (“the iterative cycle of shipping, feedback, and improvement”) makes them aware of the whys that came before.
Asking why, even when it’s uncomfortable, “forces you to truly look at something”—an act that is both brave and generous.
Thoughts
One of the “whys” that I’ve been contemplating involves the music industry’s shift from albums to individual songs.
I may have mentioned this in an earlier chapter (too lazy to look), but I remember the gravitas that came with albums when I was growing up. There were no streaming services, so music came in 45-or-so-minute packages. And since I wasn’t rich, I had to be strategic in the albums I bought. In interviews with old-timey recording producers and engineers, bringing home a new album and listening almost religiously is a fairly common trope—and one that I can confirm.
And since albums were received with such reverence, they were often assembled with similar reverence. This was most obvious in progressive rock “concept albums”—Rush’s 2112, Pink Floyd’s The Wall—but it wasn’t limited to them. Again, in interviews, producers talk about finding the song that would start the album, or the one that would compel the listener to flip the album over at the end of the first side, or the one that would conclude the album, leaving the listener both satisfied and ready for the next album to be released.
With streaming, a lot of that is gone, and there’s a lot of debate online about the relative value (at least, from a marketing perspective) between releasing songs individually or as an album. (Or, as in the case of Pomplamoose, both…).
I landed on the idea of releasing songs as an album, but it might be interesting to spend a little time addressing relevant whys—not only “why did I choose that,” but questions about why albums (still) exist, and why people who don’t release albums make that choice (is it just marketing?). And how would that inform how I move forward? Enough of my project is nostalgic—I am writing new songs, but I have old songs, too, and the notion of “album” carries a lot of emotional weight for me. But asking why might challenge some of that nostalgia and encourage something less self-centered.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.