Excuse the meat-related analogy, but when you listen to a song on streaming services or elsewhere, it’s important to remember that you did not see how the sausage was made. You are not hearing the songwriter’s multiple poorly recorded voice notes or all the wonky demos that did not make the cut.
More often than not, this is the pristine, glamour version that has been honed and re-recorded several times, featuring comped vocals. It also benefits from the skills of an engineer using expensive plugins or outboard gear to massage the tracks and the output, as well as the work of a mastering engineer who has sprinkled the mixdown with his own brand of musical MSG.
Using this method, an average song can sound pretty good. But you are not aiming for average in the long run (although don’t be afraid to write average songs on your search for the good stuff).
The lesson is: don’t try to sound shiny at the writing stage. Concentrate purely on the quality of the arrangement, lyrics, melody, texture, feel, emotion, etc. Knock the song into shape without worrying about how it will sound on Spotify. Song first, production later.
Eventually, you will play your shiny master to someone, and they will have no knowledge of the toil that went on behind the scenes. But you will.
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