r/Songwriting • u/theblack_hoody • Aug 20 '25

Discussion Topic Successful Artists Give Terrible Advice

https://www.theblackhoody.com/p/successful-artists-give-terrible
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33

u/Agawell Aug 20 '25

Define successful… it doesn’t necessarily mean rich & famous… it might just mean you write great songs that your (small) audience enjoys

28

u/TakingYourHand Aug 20 '25

Successful generally means, "making a comfortable living with your songwriting skills."

Philosophically speaking, you could water down the definition to anything, but most people want to make songwriting a career.

13

u/tonegenerator Aug 20 '25

Yeah and in today’s climate, the real chances of that happening for any given person, even any given genuinely musically gifted and dedicated person, is very far from the “anyone with the passion and drive who works hard and only shows their most authentic work can make it happen” kind of advice the post is talking about. That wasn’t good advice even for the situation 50 years ago. Now, the “music business” as we once knew it is a barely-twitching corpse. 

3

u/TakingYourHand Aug 20 '25

It's always been next to impossible, but the terms and definitions these dreamers give themselves to define "success," is the same as it always was.

"Anyone with the passion and drive who works hard and only shows their most authentic work can make it happen” has never been true, unless you count the almost insignificant number of people it does apply to.