The Album Experiment- A Little Past Exactly One Year Later

Today-ish, about just over one year ago, on January 30th, 2025, I committed to a creative experiment that demanded of me my attention, my time and my patience.

Said experiment rewarded me with a burst of creativity that was months long, gave me a hobby I was more than passionate about, gave me something to strive towards (potentially developing said works into something bigger), and helped drive my morale for other things in my life in the process.

How it started was a unique phenomenon. It was sort of a combination of jealousy, envy, sadness and anger.

After a trip I had with friends in the winter of 2025, I sorta found myself rather incredibly despondent. I was unhappy and unfulfilled with my life, found my social situation at school to be lacking at best and a painful drag at worst, and my disconnect with my friends in particular proved to be a step too much to bear.

Fortunately, my grief and my strife seemed to coalesce into something much more productive- and while it began as something of an anger-driven pursuit of the arts, it soon became much more positive and spiritual over time.

It was a simple idea- I'd develop, over the span of a little while, a musical concept album, in the mold of the artists I loved in Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder.

It was a bold, lofty and rather risky idea. Naturally, I was overconfident.

I was a fan of a lot of different genres of music, I had a rather good ear for music both quality wise and in terms of composition construction (I could make out basses, horns and such separately in tracks after long enough, and I understood where certain chords burst in), and I found it generally enjoyable. I liked to sing, I often danced, and as a writer who was familiar with poems and literary structure, I felt like I could pull off the writing portion well.

Naturally, it shouldn't surprise you to know that I could not and currently can not play an instrument to save my life.

However, I picked up the art of writing lyrics fast, and proved rather good at it.

Over the next few months, I wrote about everything I could, fitting into one of three categories- Life experiences and feelings as a teenager in the suburbs, social issues and universal emotions.

They weren't much, but they made up themes that I could work around, and build up a good web of stories onto.

It taught me a lot. I learned how to improve my lyrics significantly, learning about rhyming structures, keeping good beats, lyrical license with words, and got rather poet-esque with what I had.

I often wrote my ideas down in a slapdash fashion, either at home on my laptop or on my phone during my work (co-op), often either on breaks or dead little slices of time during my shift.

Eventually, I ran into a bit of a slump.

Stopped writing as often. Daily writings became every few days, and every few days became every week or two.

Still, I often had the occasional idea, or wanted often to finish up an old idea that was in need of some extra lines or a refined verse or a rewritten chorus.

And so, slowly but surely, updates kept coming.

All whilst things in my life still inspired me. My musical taste shifted towards the later works of the Beach Boys, the angstier material of Weezer, whatever the Beatles were doing between 1965 and 1968, their solo stuff from 1969 forward, some of the works of Sly and the Family Stone, and Jamiroquai.

As for themes, those tilted less social and emotional by this time, and more philosophical and psychological.

Despite numerous attempts to form a band (mainly to find a vehicle/outfit to work these ideas out under), it didn't really go much of anywhere, leading to me carrying on with the effort solo.

After a few more months, I paused work, mainly due to a need to prioritize my academics (had a summer school English course at the time) and also mental health problems that were impeding both my writing and my ability to enjoy my writing.

Work still went on, but much less so.

Eventually, when the new school year started for real, I had to buckle down and actually prioritize that, leading to the project getting semi-shelved for later.

Still, every now and then, I either had an idea for some new material, or additions to older unfinished stuff.

To be honest, I still got a few ideas in need of expanding now.

And an idea or two or three in need of writing.

And so, due to this simple drive, one to create, I guess I shall continue writing.

It's now been about a year, and all I can say of the experiment is this.

It has proven to be a nice little exercise to take on, to say the least.

It's helped me learn how to be a better writer.

It's proven to be a healthy and positive outlet for all my thoughts to be in.

And I can proudly say it's given me a pretty solid hobby to take into university.

All in all, I love it.