Balancing Cohesion & Distinction In A Work of Art

I'm doing another one of these audio versions of writing. And I recognize that it was pretty windy in the last one that I did. But I still really like the process of doing it. The fact that I am not editing it, or I'm not self-editing while I'm writing it, as it were. And so I want to continue doing it.

And I think it also causes me to be able to do more posts. Because I don't have to sit down and write, all I have to do is go on a walk and sit with my thoughts.

I'm not sure how coherent this one will be, but it's something that I was thinking about today.

Cohesion vs. Distinction

The idea of: a lot of things in art have a sum of different parts and they make up a whole of a project. I think this is the easiest example and the one that I was kind of thinking about was an “album.” Because the idea of an album is you have a cohesive thing, a cohesive work. But then inside the album you have different songs.

And the thing that I'm always really interested by and striving for is like a sonic cohesion. But... Not so much that it's to the detriment of the album as a whole, or I should say, well, yes, to the album as a whole, but I should say a detriment to these individual songs, right?

Because I like an album where each song stands alone on its own. They each kind of have their own character and they stick out in their own ways and they're memorable in their own ways.

But then you obviously want the album to work together, the songs to work together to present a bigger picture.

For instance, I don't really want to badmouth this artist, but a recent rap album that came out. It's good. The music's good. I can't say that it's not good, but the production to me is just so cohesive that it's to the detriment of the album, I think.

Like, sonically, the production for each song just sounds so similar that I can't really, place which song is which. To me, that's a negative aspect.

I mean, some people are just like, oh, I don't know, I'll put on this album and I'll just kind of listen through it. And, you know, that works for me too in some instances.

For example, the mk.gee album I think does that really well where it's one that I just turn on and listen through. And the textures across the board are pretty cohesive.

But at the same time, I don't know, it works more than that rap album, I'll say, because it feels like there's these moments of punctuation that stick out in the songs themselves that keep it interesting, I guess, for me, even if it gets a little muddy as to what song is what.

But I think the balance is an interesting idea, to try to balance that.

This is what I try to do on my albums, or the albums that I've written so far is I try to, since my high school band, and into this project that I've been working on called Sure!, where I am trying to have each song have its own character.

And I'm pretty specific about cutting songs if it feels like, oh this is just a rehash or a similar feel to this other one, then I'll cut it because I don't want the mix up I don't want someone to be like, oh that was this song? I want the songs to stand alone and then also hopefully have them work together and that's the balancing act that's fun and a challenge and an interesting idea.

And I was thinking about it in terms of movies as well. How you do have these individual moving parts like frames, the different shots, I think, and different scenes, but I think probably, and we're talking about the songs working all together, I think a good parallel for film would be the frames, the shots, and the color, which also comes into play with that.

I mean, there's so many moving parts to film, but yeah, just how off-putting it can be if there's a shift. But then you want to keep the movie interesting as it goes.

So you do have to incorporate some changes so that it feels like you're in the same world. It's like a world-building sort of thing, too, where you try to keep all the songs within the world. And you're also trying to have a progression, keep it interesting.

Yeah, I don't really know what the answer is, but I do think that being cutthroat about it is maybe one way into keeping that balance.

In film, being harsh with the edit. If scenes are feeling out of place, they're not needed for the story, or they don't feel like they're working in the world.

… I feel like that analogy is maybe falling apart now. But I don't know.

I think it's the case for albums, too. You can fall into the trap of doing it either way, where on one end you make it so cohesive, kind of like this rap album, that nothing really sticks out. It's like, okay, this is good. If you listen to an individual song, it's not like I'm thinking this is a bad song. But then when I play the whole album together, it's just kind of muddy, and it's like, oh, it's background music, which has its place, but I'm not really into that as much when we're talking about making art.

And then the other end of it is like, you're making such disparate songs or maybe this is a good analogy: like anthology films are kind of similar where they try to keep a certain tone across the board where you have to keep them similar enough. I just watched Kinds of Kindness so it's kind of on my mind, but it's interesting because a friend of mine wrote on their Letterboxd review that the first short and the third short felt like the Willem Dafoe characters and the themes were too similar. And I think that's a good point. Or it's an interesting point. That it's like that idea of differentiation. There were a lot of similar themes across the board, the tone was similar across the board, you had the actors to help you, and the kind of austere style and stilted dialogue and stuff was there across the board, so you already had a cohesion in that sense, but are you differentiating what you're exploring in each of the shorts or whatever little films that you want to call them. It's hard. It's hard to strike the balance.

And I think it also ends up striking people differently. And so that's something, you know, it's for the artists themselves to kind of feel out. And then, you know, work with their collaborators to feel out too.

Because, you know, someone could watch [Kinds of Kindness] and think, oh, they were definitely different enough. Another person could watch the movie and think, I don't know why they included both of these. If they were so similar, why didn't they just include the one and do something different for the other one?

And that's kind of how I feel. With this new album that I just finished up, that's how I'm feeling.

And then the reason I thought of talking about this is because I've been thinking about the same thing with the visual end of the album. I want to do videos for the songs. And I'm just trying to parse out the balancing act of— I mean, these days it feels very important to give your album a visual identity. And have it be cohesive across the board so people can understand [and] have a sense of who you are as an artist or what you're trying to do with the album.

But at the same time, I don't want to have them all be so similar that the next single that's released, let's say, is not as exciting because it doesn't have a visual that's particularly different and doesn't feel fresh.

So it's an interesting balance. And like I said, I don't know what the answer is. Trying to be cutthroat about it is a start.

But I think it's like an intuitive thing. Going inward and really thinking about it. What feels right.

I don't know how much else I have on that, but I'm also curious what other people think. Something I'd like to do with this newsletter more is... I want people to respond. I'm curious to have more conversations with people.

Like I said, the interview portion of it is more beneficial to me than just when I'm kind of with my own thoughts. The community aspect of it I want to build up, so please leave a comment or text me or DM me or whatever if you have any thoughts on this, and also if you have any thoughts on it or you want to talk about it further, because it's always interesting to bring more people into it.

But, yeah, I think that's all for now.

Again, if you're reading this, you're reading this. If you're listening to it, you're listening to it. If people really like the audio portion, I would maybe bring up the quality of it. But for now, I think it's about the idea of walking and talking and thinking forward and through ideas. So... I like that kind of aspect of it. But if people really want to listen rather than read, I'd be open to trying to maybe get a portable mic with wind— What are those things called? A wind hat? I forget what they're called. Little fluffy things that go on microphones for wind blocking. But yeah, something like that so that I could just continue to walk and talk, but the audio experience was a little bit more listenable.

Just let me know. Peace out.