Why am I so excited to release this album on a physical disc?  Chances are, it will be unpopular.  If I were the consumer, I absolutely would grab it on iTunes before I’d shell out my time and money to get it on a format from two decades ago.  What is it that makes me want this to be such a physical album?  I think of Readers as a very complete piece.  Something that should be played on big, loud speakers as you sit in front, listening to the music and looking at the packaging.  Now, no matter how my listeners are going to consume this album, that is how it is intended to be.  I know that it is not going to work like this, for everyone.  We live in a time where singles dominate, shuffle is crucial and a song that isn’t about love isn’t listened to, by most.

I sent this email around to a few select sources around the web back in late November.  A little teaser for the album.  I won’t spoil anything else about the album, you’ll have to hear for yourself in a few weeks.

Readers & Reporters is going to be a big release.

Now, onto the general purpose that I am publishing this post: 2012.  Really, my future in general.  I have several changes for this year.  I am not one to start listing resolutions, as the majority are usually self-indulgent, egotistic shit stating something irrelevant and unreasonable such as “loose half of my body weight in the next 14 days”.  These “resolutions” for the new year are seldom completed and are blossomed as a demon-spawn of all of wrong reasons only to be paraded into other peoples’ faces as an attention-whoring monster.  That said, I have some goals for this new year, mostly in regard to my social media strategy and presence.  So, without further ado (this is spelt ridiculously), here is my self-indulgent, egotistic shit for 2012:

• New Website – As you can already tell, I’ve redesigned dylanseeger.com.  Little bits here and there still need some work, features still need to be transitioned, but I’ve done the best that I’ve can getting it up and running in the little time that I have between working on Readers & Reporters.
• Social Media Relaunch – This is a bigger task that is going to take a little bit of time to get in order.  I plan to relaunch all of my strategies with social media.  This means new Twitter wallpaper, icons, content.  This also means a new Youtube channel.  If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that tonight I deleted my Youtube account.  It was an untamed, unattended to, mess of my past filled with videos of old songs, etc.  It was ready to go, so I got rid of it.  Now, this leaves me with trying to come up with a new channel name, or possibly skipping out on the Youtube scene all together and going with something classier, artsier, and more pretentious such as Vimeo, which entices me with its clean UI.  Next, Myspace.  Oh, Myspace…  I’ll be deleting my Myspace shortly, for all of the obvious reasons.  Facebook is a question mark in my eyes.  I really don’t enjoy using Facebook, and seldom do actually use it (as you can see by my page).  The UI bothers me, the mobile app bothers me, and the complexity of the service bothers me.  It’s not complex in that I don’t understand it, it is complex in that I feel that it lacks focus.  Twitter is a service that I love because of its focus.  Short bursts of information.  So, I think I’ll be keeping my Facebook, but probably will continue to neglect it.  I may put a loud, obnoxious banner on my Facebook that says “Just follow me on Twitter”.
• No More Numbers Game - Something that sucks about social networks is the people using them.  It tends to be about number of followers, number of friends, number of likes, pings, pokes, etc.  I’m done.  I am not here to increase your followers for you.  I am not here to give you a shoutout.  Services like Twitter shouldn’t be about quantity, but instead, quality.  We are all here to post our thoughts and share, why degrade that by focusing on the superficial aspects?  I don’t like to turn down fans or people who are interested in my tweets, though, so when someone asks if I’ll follow, I usually do, to be nice.  But you should know that I do not read my Timeline.  I am currently following 1,854 people on Twitter.  Why check my Timeline if there are 800 or so new tweets a minute?  So, I have a couple private lists I look at now and then on Twitter and that is my “Timeline”.  Why am I telling anybody this?  Basically so that people are aware that if I follow, I am doing it because it is just a click of a button to make somebody “happy”, but that it is unrealistic to expect me to see these tweets on a daily basis.
• Linked – If you follow me on Twitter, you’d realize that, on occasion, I post a link to something I’m reading online, someone shows me, etc.  I realized, while designing this site, that’s something I’d like to do more of, and a little more formally.  So, I built this right into my site, and I’m calling it Linked.  It’s a page on my site and anything that I link to (random things) goes there.  Simple, but could be interesting and maybe even helpful to some.
• New Music – Readers & Reporters hits the public on January 29, 2012.  After this day, I go back to work, and start some new projects.  I have some ideas for concept albums and other music, so I’ll still be working after Readers comes out, just less diligently.
• Expanding Outward – I have a new project in the pipeline almost ready for debut that is non-music related, and probably for a much different audience than I have right now.  This will probably be released shortly after Readers, once I’ve got my wind back and am ready to release another project.  What this is the sign of is, my expansion.  2012 is a year of moving forward with ideas that I have, creating more and more content, and releasing more and more of it.  I’m excited to expand upon the types of content that I produce, and possibly increase the audience that I have as well.  This year will usher in this expansion and, hopefully, some cool stuff will come out of it.

That concludes most of my ideas, at the moment, for what I’d like to get done moving forward in this year.  I look forward to sharing some noise with you, come January 29th.

Bring your raincoats.

Dylan

I’m posting tonight with some exciting news regarding my new album.  I’m making an official announcement of the title of my album, and I’m very excited to share this news with you all!

It’s a concept album called “Readers & Reporters”.  I’m planning for a early Winter release and I’m just incredibly stoked to get this out there on the market.  I’m not gonna give away any of the premise or story behind the album, however it is a concept album in the workings for two and half years.  I’m trying with the best of my abilities to get this album into your ears sometime in early Winter.  This means late nights, early mornings, constant writing and recording, all that jazz.  Just keep in mind, I’m just one guy.  But my top priority is to get this album out there. 

Also, while I’m here and talking, I thought I’d update you all on dylanseeger.com.  I launched the new site last week, and I’ve gotten tremendous feedback so far.  Thank you!  I’m planning on, actually, doing some live performances + appearances for the first time tomorrow on Dylanseeger.TV.  I’d love to see some folks join in on the chat & performance.  I’ll talk a bit about Readers & Reporters and even perform some songs from the album, live.

I hope you’re all as excited as I am about Readers & Reporters.  All the best,

//ds