Issue 002 5 minutes
Soundtrack Is Strategy
Read time: 8 minutes. Creative ROI: Timeless.
✨ VIBE CHECK (Grammy Week)
Grammy week. Everybody suddenly owns a velvet blazer. Time for me to bust out all the jewelry.
Quick reminder: the trophy is not the point. Doing good work is.
Today’s level: Stop chasing the trophy. Start chasing the work that makes the trophy chase you.
(Also: timeline full of “we always believed.” Love that for everyone.)
🧨 AGAINST THE GRAIN
Stop optimizing for virality. Start optimizing for replay, retention, and return.
Virality without depth is a sugar rush. Spike… then silence.
Replay value is what makes people:
• come back
• save it
• send it
• build a relationship with it
Calibrated question:
If they saw it once… what would make them return twice?
Tactic to pocket:
On your next project, ask: “What’s the detail they only catch on listen three or third viewing?”
Plant it on purpose.
THE TOP 5
1. 🎧 ONE THING I’M LISTENING TO: “MANDELA” (Westside Gunn)
Museum-grade grime. Minimal. Menacing. Expensive pockets.
Not turn-up. Stand-on-it. The groove is reminiscent of the RZA hooking up the beat for Wu-Tang C.R.E.A.M. Not overdoing it, not overcompensating. Minimal and potent. Just the right amount of seasoning…. no more, no less.
Why it matters:
Taste wins when the room is loud. A lot of people are performing “big.”
This is being big.
Tactic to pocket:
In your next track/pitch/campaign: remove one extra thing you’re using as a crutch.
Replace it with one bolder decision (a cleaner hook, sharper silence, harder stance).
2 📖 ONE THING QUOTE THAT STUCK WITH ME: THE PRODUCT GUY MINDSET
Jon Bellion: “I’m a product guy.” On the And The Writer Is Podcast
Jon said: “The best producers aren’t beat makers, they’re product people. They know how to make something that connects.”
Why it matters:
Winners aren’t making content. They’re making products people live with.
Tactic to pocket:
Ask: Is this built for a moment… or built for replay value?
Moment-only = rented attention. Replay = owned attention.
3. 🗒️ NOTES FROM THE FIELD: GRAMMY HOUSE (BEST NEW ARTIST SPOTLIGHT)
I pulled up to the Grammy House Best New Artist spotlight, moderated by Jimmy Jam and watched Lola Young + Olivia Dean get interviewed on stage.
Here’s what hit (and how to steal it without being corny):
- Bedroom → Stadium is the blueprint (Lola Young)
Here’s the cheat code nobody wants to hear because it isn’t sexy:
The stuff that scales is the stuff that started private and real.
Lola literally said she wrote “Messy” in her bedroom. No rollout. No “brand strategy.” No algorithm astrology. Just a real human trying to process a real feeling… and accidentally making a global record.**
That’s the pattern:
The work that hits millions usually starts as something you made for one person… you.
Whether it’s an entrepreneur starting the company to solve a problem that he had or Taylor Swift making a hit record from a confessional experience from her life.
Because when something is true, it travels. …… That’s a bar. Gotta trademark. LOL
When something is manufactured, it needs paid ads and prayer.
The lesson:
The stuff that scales is the stuff that started private and real.
Hard line:
If it only works with marketing, it’s not a song/product. It’s a campaign.
Tactic to pocket:
Before you post/pitch/polish, ask: “Would this still hit if nobody saw it for 6 months?”
If yes: keep going. If no: rewrite.
4. At the Grammy House event, another gem was dropped from fellow Best New Artist Nominee, Leon Thomas: “fight for the detail you believe in - especially when it’s ‘out of character.”
He talked about pushing to keep live drums on “Mutt” even though that wasn’t what everyone was doing. It even felt like the “wrong” move for a single… which is exactly why it mattered. He backed his taste, argued for the choice, and it paid dividends.
Takeaway:
If your record sounds like it could’ve been made by anybody, congrats-you just followed the trend. This is also the case in marketing, TV shows, films, clothing, etc. If it looks or sounds like something else, it won’t leave an impression; it’ll just blend in.
The unfair advantage is the thing you’re willing to defend in the room when everyone’s telling you to play it safe.
5) 🧰 ONE TOOL / WORKFLOW: THE VAULT
The recording artist Russ dropped a gem on the And The Writer Is Podcast:
“I had a playlist called The Vault. I’d put it on shuffle and see what hit. Some of my biggest songs came from beats I made months before.”
Russ kept a playlist called The Vault. Shuffled old ideas. Found future hits.
Business translation:
Your Vault is your backlog. Your idea file. Your prototypes. Your almost-launches.
Do not throw away old ideas. Let them marinate. Revisit. Remix. Reframe.
Why it matters:
Creativity isn’t linear. Sometimes the best idea needs time-then fresh ears.
Tactic to pocket:
Make a folder called THE VAULT.
Once a week: shuffle old work and pull one 30-second proof out of the grave.
🔧 ONE TOOL / WORKFLOW: BUILD BULLETPROOF (CREATIVE RESILIENCE)
The hit: Native Instruments filed for preliminary insolvency. Whether they survive or not, here’s the wake-up call: your career can’t depend on one company’s balance sheet.
Why it matters: Your plugins are a rented convenience. Your taste is permanent infrastructure. The producers who survive aren’t the ones with the most expensive gear-they’re the ones who can recreate their sound anywhere, with anything.
Real talk: When license servers break or updates nuke compatibility, the people who keep shipping are the ones who built resilience into their workflow from day one.
Tactic to pocket (The Resilience Pass - 15 min per project):
1. Print your pillars: Bounce stems (drums / music / vocals / FX / full instrumental)
2. Freeze + commit: Render heavy plugins to audio, keep MIDI for flexibility
3. Snapshot your sound: Save presets, screenshot your master chain-document what makes your work sound like you
4. Two copies, two places: Local + cloud or local + external
The deeper move: Resilience = creative freedom. When your sessions are portable and your sound is documented, you stop making decisions out of fear. You stop thinking “I can’t switch DAWs” or “I can’t try that move because what if the plugin breaks?”
You start making bold work because your creativity isn’t held hostage by your tech stack.
Taste note: The pros who’ve lasted 20+ years don’t panic when gear companies fold. They’ve already built systems that outlive the tools.
Make it matter: Build work-and workflows-that can’t be killed by someone else’s bankruptcy filing.
📊 ONE NUMBER THAT MADE ME LOOK UP
I came from the 100%er era-one person, one vision. Write it, produce it, mix it, engineer it, record your own vocals. Full ownership. A lot of my catalog is exactly that.
Now? Collaboration is the default. And that’s not bad…..fresh voices bring fresh insights. But here’s the trap: too many perspectives without a taste guardian turns a song into a committee decision. And too many chefs can spoil the soup.
The move: Collaborate widely, but assign one person final say on vibe, tone, and cohesion. That person is the taste filter…..they protect the singular POV even when the credits are seven deep.
Tactic to pocket:
Many hands, one taste. Always.
⚙️ THE MECHANISM (non-negotiable)
Belief + Frequency + Replay Value = Relevance.
Belief keeps you in the game. Frequency keeps you sharp. Replay value makes culture keep you.
🎯 RUN THIS DRILL
1. Goosebump Drill (5 min): play your latest work-did you feel it?
2. Vault Flip (10 min): open old sessions-pull one 30-second proof.
3. Belief Sprint (5 min): write “I can if I…” then do the “if” today.
Reply “DONE” + which one you ran.
🚫 NOISE CANCELLATION
Not it: polishing to avoid being seen.
Safe doesn’t cut through. Safe gets skipped.
💭 STUDIO THOUGHT
Most creative blocks are drafts you don’t want anyone to judge yet.
Ship the draft. Then improve it.
If this hit, forward it to one person with taste. You know the one.
- KOVAS
KOVASsoundcheck.com
Check out the playlist below. The playlist is the syllabus. If you want to hear what I’m hearing, it’s all there…curated, not algorithmized. This playlist compounds like the newsletter. Every issue adds new heat to the stack
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