And we’re assuming you plan on re-releasing it too. Sometimes redoing old projects is a fun, exciting, and even smart idea. Some other times though, you might be shooting yourself in the foot and you put yourself at the risk of doing more damage than good for your brand reputation as a musician. Read below the 5 serious questions you must answer if you plan to re-record an old song and decide accordingly.
5. Has your voice/style changed enough to sound authentically different than the first round?
You don’t want to put out a newer version of an old song only for the two to be extremely similar to one another. That doesn’t show growth. That shows complacency and stagnation. But you also don’t want to force yourself to sound different. It shows. What you want, is for you to have naturally evolved to a place of genuinely sounding different than your past self. If the difference is not palpable, don’t do it.
4. Do you have a promotion plan or you’re just challenging yourself?
If your intention of making it on a large scale is serious, never put anything out without a promotion plan. Even if it’s a cover or redo of an old record. This matters so much because it will be part of your track record and if you won’t properly promote the new version, it will significantly draw attention to it when on Spotify all of your songs have 10k streams and this one didn’t even hit 1k. Treat a re-recording just as serious as a new single.
3. Was the first release successful to some extent?
Because if it was too successful, you can’t compete with it and fans will automatically dislike it. If it was completely anonymous and had no push, your fans will be confused seeing the title on Spotify as remake, remix, or version 2.0. for they never even heard version 1 to begin with. There has to be a middle ground between never took off and got a million streams on Spotify.
2. Have you tested the demo on other people?
You can’t trust your ears alone when you’re the one singing. Very rarely, some artists are objective enough towards themselves and songwriting abilities to make such big decisions alone. The other 99% however, need to test the waters before putting time, effort, and dollars into marketing a song. If you get mixed reactions, it’s not the right time or possibly the right song yet. Until you find
1. What are you trying to achieve with the 2nd round of this song?
Is it to prove yourself something or to celebrate let’s say 10 years since your first single came out? Make it make sense. Know why you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and have quantified expected results. While it is definitely fun revisiting your past material, remakes and remixes have to be streamlined within your catalog and make artistic sense when consumed along with your other songs. If you transitioned entirely from Alt-Rock to Alt-Pop, even if you like your old records very much and you’re engulfed in nostalgia, don’t mess up your brand credibility with a trip back to the very different beginnings. Trust that you are a better artist today than you were when you first started out.
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