Welcome back to The Club List, a newsletter about making a business out of what you love.

December is here! That means it's holiday party season, if you're in the music industry. I look forward to seeing many of you out in the mix over the next couple weeks. Let me know if you're going to anything in NYC that's especially interesting, and I'll do the same.

This is also a good time to note that this is the prime time to get a head start on setting your marketing strategy for 2025, if you haven't done so yet. You know exactly where to find me for help with that.

You're not likely to be perfect when you first set out to do any kind of creative work. Nobody is, because perfection is a mental construct. Today, we're talking about how it gets in your way.

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The Case Against Perfectionism

When I’m in the throes of listening back to an entire year’s worth of new records for year-end list purposes, I’m often reminded of the subtle frustrations that hold back a lot of albums from even happening. The one I always get stuck on is perfectionism.

Done is better than perfect. A project will be unfinished before it is perfect, because humans are never finished as long as we're alive, and we inherently create from a place of flaws.

I am not anywhere close to a Rick Rubin devotee. In fact, I think most of what he advocates for is said in a clearer-eyed way by people who are nowhere near as celebrated in modern pop psychology, which is already a funny way to talk about the man who both gave us Def Jam and also helped the world hear Slayer. But there is one quote from his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, that is absolutely true:

“The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world.”

Now, in typical Rick Rubin-ism fashion, this is a touch more hippy-dippy than how I’d personally say it, and there's lots of room to accept this take as surface-level deep without applying critical thought to it. But this quote is quality.

Let’s get more precise on why, and I'm just going to come out and say it.

The least productive artists I have ever seen were all perfectionists. Every single one of them.

The local musician who played in bands around town for years and had good ideas, but never got around to making an album? Less likely that they were lazy. More likely that they were a perfectionist. I have known many.

In fact, hardcore perfectionism seems to be a universal kiss of death (fast or slow) among creatives. One slow-burn example in indie rock circles would have to be Japandroids, whose singer-guitarist Brian King was notorious for it. It’s wild to imagine given the famously almost-too-excited looseness of their debut Post-Nothing (one of my favorite indie rock albums period), but it’s documented. The dude couldn't get out of his own way.

Would we have probably gotten a few more albums out of that band than we did, if not for this? Quite possibly. And to me, that’s a tragedy. They had a simple thing dialed in on paper, but it was incredibly unique for what it was. I would have loved to hear more art from their worldview and felt more of how they grew with the world around them. As it is, that impression of a special worldview gets lost for me after their second album, and now they’re gone.

There are rare examples of artists who seem to recognize this tendency in themselves and then purposefully subvert it, exploring the tension between creativity as both a force and as a means to an end goal. My absolute favorite in this capacity has to be Kendrick Lamar, no question. From a hip-hop perspective, good kid m.A.A.d city and To Pimp A Butterfly are layered in ways that sometimes suggest an attempt at making the Great American Novel, but in rap form. Yet we also got untitled unmastered., which was a fascinating EP made solely of TPAB cast-offs - and now we’ve got GNX, a record that’s so loose and bangers-focused by K-Dot’s usual standards that there are rampant rumors of a second “real” album yet to come. I don’t think it’s an accident that his album before this prominently featured him going to therapy. 

Maybe Kendrick Lamar realized perfectionism was something to be fought against in himself. Maybe not; he's one of the only rappers I've heard describe himself as more calculated than his opponent in the intro to a diss track. But I get the impression he has accepted himself more and is channeling his creative energy differently. It's fascinating to watch from such a visible artist, in real time.

Much less productive examples of notorious perfectionism are scattered throughout the pop and rock music landscape. If you’re a guitar geek, you’ve probably heard the numerous stories about Eric Johnson, the “Cliffs of Dover” guy.

“Cliffs of Dover” was a guitar instrumental from his album Ah Via Musicom, which came out in 1990. You may have played it in Guitar Hero a few times, if you’re a millennial. The song won a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, and the album went platinum. As one-hit wonders go, this final boss of dentist’s-office guitar music looms large.

What happened next?

Well. Johnson was infamous for being incredibly exacting; when I was coming up as a guitar player myself, there were endless stories about him making sure his effect pedals were placed in an extremely exact way and about him claiming he could hear differences in the quality of their power supply from gig to gig. It’s not clear how accurate that is in retrospect, but one fact is undeniable.

The right thing to do, if you’re a niche musician with a massive gold-strike moment, is to waste no time on crafting and releasing a follow-up. Unfortunately, Johnson was a hardcore perfectionist. 

His follow-up album Venus Isle took him six years to finish, and he got dropped by Capitol after it released. 

It probably doesn’t hurt also that 1990 was a year before Nirvana’s Nevermind, the album that pushed pop music away from the appearance of virtuosity for a while. (Ironically, I both am a perennial believer that Kurt Cobain was a uniquely talented guitarist in his own right, and I also have to observe that the 90s were arguably the best decade of all for virtuoso singers in rock music of all stripes.) But if you’re a guy making instrumental music named after portions of the English countryside, that wasn’t a time to be slow on the uptake. Perfectionism makes it really easy for music to keep moving without you, if you’re an artist.

And Johnson, for his part, has expressed a shift in his views. As he said in a 2020 Guitar World interview, “I still want to play well, of course, but I want it to be more about the songcraft, and the underlying harmony, and if nothing else, about the emotional connection and emotional delivery of the music. That’s 99 percent of what matters to most people with music in the first place.”

There is a certain kind of skill in getting out of your own head, like he did with that observation, and seeing how the rest of the world approaches your work.

An industry adage I’ve heard for years is that the average band lasts about five years. In record nerd terms, I find that bands are generally good for 2-3 albums, and maybe an EP.

That doesn’t leave a lot of time for second-guessing. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for decision paralysis. And if you can’t move forward as a creative on any project, your time is not unlimited. In fact, it’s one of the few resources you can’t get back.

I haven’t made everything perfectly along the way. But the only times I got within sniffing distance of failure have been when I’ve stopped moving entirely. And a lot of creatives across disciplines would echo that.

Express yourself, first.

You have to put a mark on the page to get a grade. 

In fact, every time I write an issue of this newsletter, I try as hard as I can to not overthink its content, for this very reason. I feel that showing how I view things about marketing, art, and creativity is more important than saying it in the absolute most precise manner possible.

Your point of view is one of your most vital qualities as a human.

When you give way to perfectionism, the world loses a chance to see itself in how you see it, in all of your idiosyncrasies.

Don’t lose your chance to show it.

One Thing You Can Use Today

Are you a musician in the US?

Do you have a song available publicly?

Did you write the song?

Did you also publish it yourself, with the help of a distributor?

You should be registered to either BMI or ASCAP. Twice.

Registry to BMI or ASCAP is currently free for songwriters. (ASCAP has temporarily waived their standard $50 fee for this). One you register to one of them as a writer, you should register again as the publisher. 

If you don’t register as the publisher and you own both publishing rights and songwriting rights, you’ll only receive 50% of the performance royalties you’re owed. Why is this? It’s because the publisher’s share is always kept for whoever the publisher is.

When you register to ASCAP as both, they waive fees for you; for BMI, registering as a publisher is $175 or more depending on the structure of your business. Both have advantages, but are ultimately about equal - and being with either is a vast improvement over none. 

If you want to make a living from music and have released music - or are planning to release it soon - do this. You’re leaving money on the table otherwise.

Track of the Week

Rasheed Chappell - "Haysoos"

Since I've already acknowledged the human gravity well that has been Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 run, we shouldn't let this overshadow the year that hip-hop as a whole has had, and not just US-based hip-hop either. Kneecap became stars! ASM's new singles fuse jazz-rap and boom-bap to perfection, and Europe has already known about them for years! This has been an unusually strong year for rap music from seemingly every angle, with great stuff from heavyweights and new names both - and that extends to less-heralded veterans. Rasheed Chappell has been churning out albums underground for some years now, but the New Jersey native's NONSTOP: JFK>ATL is his second for this year alone, with stellar craft and production from top to bottom. The whole thing is worth a listen, but "Haysoos” is an especially immediate 2 minutes-and-change hit to the pleasure center.

Spotify | Apple Music | Music video

List of Clubs

These are the kinds of clubs I’d like to be in around NYC! Wherever you might find music, art, or a compelling experience under one roof, that’s a club to me. I only list clubs I’d enjoy going to. If I list a client, you’ll know.

Now until January - Dyker Heights Christmas Lights (free)
Look, this is just powerfully unhinged every year, and I do what I can to go. It's deep in the south of Brooklyn, in a neighborhood where old moneyed families compete with each other to have the most extreme holiday displays imaginable. We're talking Monty Python-esque Santas the size of a house that move and talk to you. You cannot prepare for this until you see it. "But I don't like Christmas lights!” My friend, these Christmas lights don't like you, either. This is an annual tradition, it's a little twisted, and it is perfect.

Saturday, Dec 7 + Sunday, Dec 8 - Press Play @ Pioneer Works (free)
December is well-known as a perfect time for maker fairs, as everyone is shopping for unique stuff. This is a cut above that, in a venue known for the space it provides to forward-thinking creativity: “A weekend-long fair of books, records, art, ephemera, talks, and workshops.” That's what I like to hear.

Sunday, Dec 8 - To The Front Ball @ TV Eye
A stacked benefit lineup for the Lower East Side Girls’ Club and the YWCA. You could do far, far worse things with your time and money, especially while everyone's busy gawking at the Rockefeller Center tree.

Thanks for reading! And now, an image of me in the club…

The Club List is a newsletter from MeInTheClub.com. All issues are available at TheClubList.net. To inquire about marketing services for your work, contact [email protected] and include "Services” in the subject line.