Am I polishing my work to the standards I wish to hold my work to?

If you recognize the above question, it’s because it was one of the batch of self-interrogating questions posed yesterday by our friend Alex.

And I just wanted to lean on this one a moment. Because it’s so insightful, and also so important. When Alex is talking about polish, he’s talking about how he’s positioning his work.

It’s easy to assume that the question of polish runs only in one direction. That the goal is to sound as pristine as possible, and we’re all just at various stops along that one-way train ride.

But what if the goal is to make something intentionally lo-fi? In that situation, too much production value would be a problem! Most likely a deal-breaker. I have for sure lost mix gigs in the past because I misjudged the artist’s intent and made the record sound too “produced” on the test mix I submitted. Lesson learned.

I think the point is: you can aim at any level of polish and production that you want to. It’s art; there aren’t any wrong answers. But I think it’s very important to interrogate yourself mercilessly about what your goals are for each project, and then to put in whatever work is necessary to make sure that everything in the body of work is internally consistent — that every part of the thing you’re making is an arrow pointing inward toward a well-defined center.

Or, to put it another way: I think it’s very important that we hold ourselves to high standards. But, also, we get to say what the standards are! Because it’s art.

Rigorously — jamie