Release Day Anxiety

I’ve had a complicated relationship with release day over the years. At my best it’s been exciting, at my worst it’s been soul-crushing. To say the invention of streaming services has added a new pressure to ‘release day’ would be putting it lightly. We’re all vying for a chance to be seen amongst a smorgasbord of a fuck-ton of music from a myriad of genres. I’ve been putting out music since about 2007 (it’s wild to even say that) and I’ve noticed myself get overwhelmed with it at times. I think i’m better with it now. I’ve deleted all the ‘stats’ apps off my phone and tried to focus on “what do i really care about?” I try to be realistic. I want people hear to my music. I want a lot of people to hear it! But I want people to hear it who genuinely like it. I don’t want to push it on people. 

I think that’s a big struggle with marketing, when does it start to become annoying? When does it shift? We strive for awareness of the music but from there I want someone to decide if they like it. If they say “not for me” I respect that 100%, but I want to improve on the, “oh shit I didn’t even know you had a new song out today.” We can always do better at getting it out there. But sometimes it’s hard to tell where you sit on that fragile balance between overselling and underselling. 

So how have I gotten better with release day anxiety? On that day I always plan to do something completely different to take my mind off it… or I just work on a new song. Something I know brings me joy. Also being realistic about numbers. I ask myself, “What would it look like if you got all the things you asked for?” from a streaming perspective. If that happened, I would still do the same thing, just work on more songs. So realizing I can do that either way and it’s actually completely unrelated to the outcome is super helpful for my brain. I find thinking of that helps keep me balanced and focussed on what’s important to me.

I had a post go viral over the previous weekend on my other page, Glass Petals. The post has over 70 million views, and we gained 100,000 followers. In a week. It took me 10 years to do the same for my Felix Cartal page. It’s wild. It kind of stressed me out tbh. It doesn’t feel real? Is it real? I’m grateful but it feels random and arbitrary. I know I will never have something go this viral ever again. So what do I do now? Same shit I would done without it. Make songs. Work on concepts. Stay in control of the process.

-felix

PS: i’m very grateful for everyone who streamed my new song ‘Need Your Love’ this weekend!