Dan Miraldi’s “Internet Women” Caught My Ear and Teaches a Lesson

Indie music artists, I’m sorry to say that you’re only as good as your latest single. Well, wait, let me give that some context before you start throwing rotten eggs at the screen.

I’m reacting this week to the song “Internet Women” by New York City-based and Cleveland-born rock singer/songwriter Dan Miraldi.  With this new release of his, I am reminded that he had submitted a song that I liked and wrote a positive review of back in December.

The challenge is that you are, as a recording artist, always going to be compared to your last release and/or your overall body of work (back catalog).

For example, there is a band that I owned lots and lots and lots of albums by, however when they decided to release an album of entirely cover songs, I was very disappointed and opted to not buy that record at all.  In other words, despite my support of their work all of the years prior, it all went out the window when I decided that because they were not giving me anything “new” of their own, I was not happy.  They weren’t sticking with what I had become accustomed to.

In the case of this song by Dan Miraldi, did it work against him that I had liked his previous release?  Well, let's just say that I did like what he did with this latest song, so I might infer that he dodged a bullet.

As I listened, it struck me that even though I don’t particularly consider myself much of a listener to music from that era, I right away noticed that the song has a very 1960s sound to it and my first comparison mentally was to The Monkees.  Interestingly, however, as the song went along, I felt that it bared some resemblance to the song “Stand” by R.E.M. (released in 1989).  Let the record show that if someone compares your music to The Monkees and/or R.E.M. you should be happy.  The members of those bands made a lot of money and had a lot of popularity, so there are worse acts to be compared to.  ((wink))

A lot of what I am saying here is reinforcement of a lesson you should not need to be reminded of as you have probably heard it over and over and over.  However, I will repeat it one more time for you, nonetheless.  And that is that you must always lead with your best work.  In this day and age of short attention spans and “what have you done for me lately,” people will want to hear what can you give them today that they are going to like?

I have found myself in a discussion more than once in the last month or two or three about people who release music just for the sake of releasing music.  In other words, they’re just trying to hit a recurring release schedule.  They’ve become more beholding to the calendar than to making sure that they’re only putting out the best song(s) possible.  The quality gets sacrificed and their only consolation is, “Oh well, at least I’ve kept up my streak of putting out a new song every six weeks for the last (insert time period here).”

If Miraldi’s last song was the Christmas tune that I wrote about six months ago, then good for him that this much time has gone by before his next release.  It tells me that he wanted to get it right, not fast.

Take a page from that lesson.  And for that matter, go and listen to his new song and notice that it’s not the same sound that everyone else is putting out today.  Ask yourself, “Does my music stand out as being different (enough) that it’s going to hold the listener’s attention and make them want to hear not only the whole song but other work from my back catalog?”

If going six months between releases, like Miraldi, makes you uncomfortable, remember all the other outlets where you can stay active: livestreaming, getting interviewed, posting on social media, performing at venues of all shapes and sizes, and more.

Feel free to pick my brain on all this stuff.  For 20 years I have been helping indie music artists, authors, actors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, podcasters, and more.  Don't sit around being stuck and frustrated.  Call me with your challenges so I can help you keep moving forward.