If you’re like me, you’ve seen a bunch of instances where certain musicians dislike, or maybe even hate, some of their own songs. In some cases, even the ones that made them the most famous. Kevin Rowland from Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Jani Lane from Warrant, Dave Meniketti from Y&T, and tons more.
I’m glad I missed the era of having to please a record label and bandmates and god knows whoever else. As an independent who doesn’t have bandmates or bosses or investors or executives to please, I can pretty much publish whatever I want. And for me, wanting to publish it follows a pretty steady pattern. If I make a track that I really like, I keep listening to it over and over. I listen to it in the car, when I’m working out, everywhere I can really. If I listen to it for weeks and I’m still happy to hear it, still think it rocks, etc., then I publish it. I always assume, because I’m my own worst critic and too cynical for my own good, that if something I’ve made is good enough to make me, myself, want to listen to it often, then there must be others who will feel that way about the track, too.
At the same time, if I can’t even make myself like a track — if I get sick of it quickly, or find myself skipping past it in the playlist — then I can’t expect anyone else to like it either, and so I toss it. Fortunately, that’s pretty much all it takes to divorce me from my own songs that I don’t like!
