A tweet showed up in my feed last night retweeted by a friend. The tweet said, “Should you release an album no one cares about?”

In short, no you shouldn’t. YOU should care about it. AND THAT’S EVERYONE WHO MATTERS.

I loathe marketing click-bait bullshit like this. Listen, artists, marketers have nothing to say to you in this regard. The link on this particular tweet went to the author’s blog where he entreats you to contact him to get started on your marketing plan.

“It’s important for you and your band to look ahead and start planning for an album people will buy,” he blogs. No, it isn’t. Make the art. Get all thoughts of people buying it out of your head. It will kill your creativity and set distracting expectations.

Marketing plans are all well and good but they should never prevent or even delay you from releasing your art. I know far too many musicians caught up in the belief that they should delay a release or even delay working on an album until the time is right. All it ever does is prevent anyone from hearing your work. I’ve seen bands break up with great albums “in the can.” I’ve watched nobody folk musicians constantly rework a record to try to make it sell. It’s depressing and antithetical to the act of creation.

My advice here won’t help you make money. But 99 times out of 100, neither will the marketer’s. The world needs artists. Artists make their art public. Marketing comes on the back end. It should always be subservient to the art and NEVER the primary concern.