I have been following this thread with great interest
I think it is a WONDERFUL idea and the whole "Pawprint Album" project was fantastic and really pulled the forum together
As everyone has identified- the problem is selecting the songs for the album - or albums...
Most people know that I am not personally a fan of "competitive songwriting" and even though the competitions are a "bit of fun" I tend to shy away from them as they don't "feel" right to me as I find it difficult to be competitive about such a subjective thing as songwriting - and there is always a "winner" and lots of "losers"
Being realistic a compilation album can't contain 100s of songs so there does need to be some kind of selection process...
...so I would like to propose 2 ways for us to take this concept forward - and I am proposing we do BOTHOption 1
A 12 track album is produced from the winners of the "song of the month" competitions in 2017
I would volunteer to do the mastering of each song and the album - so would need a volunteer to do artwork and then a volunteer to take on the digital distribution.
We could then decide whether all proceeds get distributed between the 12 (or more) contributing writers, given to a chosen charity, used to fund the forum costs, or any other options we can think of
Realistically I think we could turn this around by the end of Feb (or sooner if we agree on this quickly and all SOTM winners can get me their pre-master mixes to me straight away)
This could also add a little more "meaning" to the SOTM as we would not only be voting for the "best" song but also for the song to go on the year's compilation album, which I think would add an interesting new dynamic
Option 2
I REALLY like the original idea of a "snap shot" album showcasing the talents of the forum at a particular point in time
I think we should build on the PAWPRINT experience and find a charity to support (which will not only be a nice thing to do but will help publicise the album etc.
)
Once the charity has been identified, and agrees to be involved and support the project, we can define a "theme" (relevant to the charity) for everyone to write a song for and perhaps we could even write a proper "brief" with guidelines for writers
Each member would then submit a song by a set deadline and a forum panel would screen the songs to whittle them down to 12 - 15 songs
The only guideline around "quality" would be that songs would need to be "broadcast quality", which does NOT mean a fully produced song - a well recorded guitar and vocal on a phone could be fine if it is clear and well balanced. I know this is often a controversial area but if we are going to try to produce an album there does need to be a benchmark for recording quality
I think we could realistically set a release date for Summer 2018 and work back from there to give us time to get things sorted - eg get forum agreement, determine the charity, get permission, set theme, write brief, write & record songs, select songs, produce album then release
This would then give the forum 2 regular album releases a year - the song of the month compilation in Winter and a Summer charity project
I think this would capture what most people want without it becoming too cumbersome
It is POMLEYJAZZ's baby so I am happy to leave it to him to "lead" but as the forum owner I would love to be involved and get behind the project(s)
I think it would be useful to get some initial views from everyone on these 2 options and if it looks like most agree (we will never please everyone!) then POMPEYJAZZ and I can have a chat to put some "meat to the bones" and kick things off
