How Deadlines Make Music Better
Kyle Boydstun · · 1 min read
Every working producer I respect has the same belief: a finished song is better than an unfinished one, even if the unfinished one would have been "better." This is not a productivity hack. It's the actual truth of the craft.
The reason is that listening to a finished song teaches you things that listening to an unfinished one cannot. Mixing in context. Arrangement that survives a full structure. The difference between an idea and a song. You only learn those by crossing the finish line, over and over.
And yet — most aspiring producers I meet have hard drives full of half-songs. They will tell you, sincerely, that they're "still working on it." They've been still working on it for two years. The track will never come out, and not because they're bad. Because there's no deadline.
A class fixes this. When you have to bring something to a Feedback Night, or turn in a final mix in week 10, you finish things you wouldn't otherwise. The work is sometimes worse than what you imagined. That's fine. The next one is better, and the one after that is better than that. The only path forward is through.
If you take one thing from any course at Anthem, take that. Set deadlines. Hit them. Release the song.