Celebrating the Unreleased
From unlocking the vault with Taylor Swift, to begging Zach Bryan to release songs he only posts on Twitter, why we should continue to embolden artists to release the unreleased.
Header by Brigitta Brumund
Ever heard a song you liked, went to look it up on Spotify, and found it only in the form of a podcast? Or, you had to listen to it on SoundCloud, having to rewind to play it again? Join the club. The popularity of unreleased music is on the rise, and while leaks are detrimental to artists, unreleased music is invaluable to the music community and should be celebrated as such.
Let me paint you a picture. The year is 2012, and Taylor Swift has just released Red (for the first time). She pens a brilliant song called “All Too Well” (you may have heard it), and fans love it. However, she will soon slip up in an interview, revealing there is an unreleased version that is 10 minutes long.
Fast forward to 2021, and Taylor Swift is re-recording her music and is about to re-release her 2012 album Red. And what’s the final track on this version of the album? All Too Well (10-Minute Version). And the song goes number one.
Streaming platforms have changed the way artists release music, with deep cuts and 10-minute versions once doomed to sit and collect dust in a side table drawer now have the opportunity to not only see the light, but thrive. Before the era of streaming, artists were forced to limit the length of their albums. To produce a record was expensive, and only so much of that music could fit onto a vinyl. And if they wanted to ensure that they would get some net return on the money spent producing the record, the songs had to be suitable for the radio in order to reach consumers. This meant songs followed a tried and true formulaic pattern, and had to be under 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Taking risks outside of these parameters was out of the question, as they were not regularly rewarded. However, with streaming services, much of that risk has been lifted, with artists able to put out an album that follows a money-making formula, while also putting out more artistic and inventive material on the side. And this has done wonders for the music community.
We are now not only hearing more experimental music but also receiving more holistic views of albums. Going back to Taylor Swift’s re-recording process, songs that were once on the cutting board, not guaranteed to be automatic hits, are now back on the albums. These songs offer insight into the writing process and how some of Swift’s most famous hits were formed. Take for example, in “All Too Well”, the lyric “So casually cruel in the name of being honest”. While the phrase casually cruel is so poignant, and filled with raw emotion, it evokes a sense that she is saying this to a former lover for the first time. And this is not the case. We see on the re-recording of Swift’s 2008 Album of the Year, Fearless, that the lyric “casually cruel” has been in the works for sometime, with her calling an old flame “Mr Casually Cruel” in the song “Mr Perfectly Fine”.
Celebrating the unreleased also encourages bad songwriting. And yes, this is a good thing. I don’t mean praising the pop song you can’t seem to escape and pray that radio stations would stop overplaying. I mean allowing artists to not fear putting out imperfect music because now they could always put out another song if the previous one did not perform. It encourages the continual writing that artists such as Ed Sheeran and Joni Mitchell have endorsed, both of who are respectively extremely successful artists. It strengthens artists ability to write, under the philosophy that writing all the time will yield more success rather than looking in the rearview, stuck on that one song they can *possibly* make better. Artists even write music in excess and leave it unreleased, with fans helping them pick and choose what the best songs are. Zach Bryan is no stranger to this strategy, with two unreleased songs, Tourniquet and Tradesman, making it onto the singer’s recently self-titled album.
Releasing unreleased music is not only beneficial to the artist, but also to us, the listeners. When all we hear are radio hits with the same formulaic patterns, we become used to songs and trained to only listen for earworms. Releasing more music allows listeners to be more accepting of songs that do not fit the standard verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus formula. That is, it helps us become better listeners. Tak for example, the indie supergroup Boygenius. While their debut album The Record had a few hits that followed a more listener-friendly formula (namely “Not Strong Enough”), without the restriction of a traditional album release, they recently were able to release four unreleased songs in their EP The Rest. The songs were of varying lengths, some of which had no identifiable pattern. However, by releasing these songs after their album, they are teaching their audience to be more accepting of different types of music and, in turn, allowing them to create more interesting melodies and songs without restrictions.
Unreleased music not only helps artists break boundaries, but encourages for the whole music industry to make room for more interesting music outside of the general pop formula pattern. By emboldening artists to take risks and release old music, you not only benefit yourself as the listener, but the music community as a whole.
Edited by Amy Bernier
