Transparent recording process reveals all.

Thirty-one years ago this May, my band “The Addition” and I were LITERALLY arrested while making our first album––caught breaking and entering into our own recording studio.

These days, a band making an album couldn’t even FIGURATIVELY get arrested. Music is too ubiquitous, or as former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren once told me and my pal Mike Ruekberg, “Rock’n Roll? The curtain has been lifted. There’s no mystery left.”

Depending on how you count, I alone am guilty of adding to the glut, following up the Addition’s debut release with 17 more albums, as recently as last year’s “True“.

Well, it’s over. Album projects are too hulking, too far between, too all consuming. As an artist, they creatively constipate––forcing prolonged periods of writing, recording, strategy and touring. Problem is, I like wigwagging between all those tasks. Thus, the whole thing is too painfully putzy to be enjoyed any longer. It’s time to make music in bite-sizes.

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Recently I spoke with a fan who told me his favorite song of mine was “Nothing But Wind” from 2008’s “Wisely” album.

Initially, this warmed my heart, because it’s an experimental tone poem, outside my normal aesthetic, and I’ve been furtively waiting for someone to mention the track, good or bad, for ages––because for me it’s the high point of the album.

But no one ever said “boo”, save for my sync placement person. Bless you Eileen at The Song Pimp. But she’s paid to listen carefully, so that doesn’t count.

I make music in order to start conversations, not to never have them. So if a track gets one mention in six years. UGH, what’s the point in making it in the first place?

Take away? It’s too easy to ignore what’s on albums. The best stuff is unlikely to get unpacked by listeners.

Bob Lefsetz would disagree and say only the best gets unpacked. I’m not so dogmatic, and plus, the bar for what qualifies as great pop music has been fundamentally lowered over the last sixty years. Modern tastes cannot be trusted. Could Dave Brubeck (R.I.P.) sit on top of the charts today?

So, my future albums are going on a diet, onto a regimen of paired singles. Not because of nostalgia for 7” vinyl, but yeah, kinda. In any case, it’s the right amount of music to thrill contemporary ears with.

Maybe we’ll press vinyl, maybe not. But here’s the biggest shift: I’m taking the process transparent. We’re gonna show you how the music is made––stuff that in the past, I’d have rather you not heard.

Every materially-different, interim version, and maybe even some soloed-up performances [e.g. an beautiful backing vocal arrangement], will be posted.

Here’s the call to action people: Stay tuned. Click the Follow button. Put this blog on your RSS feed and hear the singles grow over time. Also, use the icons below and leave comments. I welcome criticism. Recent proof, see the comments section.

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We begin “The Singles Series” humbly: here’s an early writing session demo, one of many sent back and forth between Pennsylvanian co-writer & pop-droog-in-crime, Cliff Hillis. My voice is late night pitchy, but the lyrics are good. It’s b-side will be “Sutures Loose” a track I began building years ago with producer/long-time-collaborator John Fields. More on that later.

INVISIBLE IN LOVE
by Cliff Hillis & Willie Wisely

LYRICS ::

You moved to Manhattan
Like a moth toward light
Dreams gathered around you
But something didn’t look right

You were one in a million
But then millions of people made plans
They make it look so easy
From the outside looking in

I’m invisible, you’re invisible, it’s so criminal what we’ve become
If we disappear, like were we ever here?
We’re invisible in love

Watching you unpack boxes
Putting all your stuff on shelves
If we’d looked in the mirror
We wouldn’t recognize ourselves, ‘cuz

I’m invisible, you’re invisible, it’s so criminal what we’ve become
If we disappear, like were we ever here?
We’re invisible in love

I’ve got the solution
To keep love strong
To keep us both turned on
A cocktail of delusion
Meets skin on skin
To keep the walls from closing in

You said it wasn’t electric
Just something you turn off and on
But here comes the unexpected
It was fading all along

I’m invisible, you’re invisible, oh it’s criminal what we’ve become
Nothing’s right or clear, like was it ever here, did a tree fall in the woods alone?
Oh I’m invisible, you’re invisible, it’s a poison we don’t drink alone.
You can’t taste or hear it just disappears in a bright white flash and it gone.
Cuz we’re invisible, we’re invisible, we stared straight at the sun for too long.
We watched as our best years, vanished to thin air, now we’re invisible in love

Click to see the entire collection of “Singles Series” blog posts.