Deciding to write and record an entire album in February is the easy part. Deciding how to do it is a bit tougher.
I usually go into these albums with some idea of an approach. For 2008's Bluegrass the idea was to just get 10 songs done. I piled up ideas by writing what I called 'sky songs' almost every day: I'd just play chords and sing over them without thinking at all what I was going to do next. I got some ideas that way, but I soon realized that having more definitive ideas would have worked better.
So for 2009's Sketches of the Sun I had more of an idea of what I wanted to do going into it. The idea was to write shorter, punchier, catchier songs. I also wanted to write some songs with riff, as I had rarely done so up to that point. I succeeded to a degree, as five songs were based on riffs ("Drifting Apart," "February Rain," "1234," The Desolate," and "You Were the One") and the songs were a bit catchier.
Because forcing ideas is never a good thing, and it only makes sense to do what's natural, through the month I also wrote more "Erik Ritland" type stuff. This included songs about drifting and the apocalypse ("Wandering") and straightforward folk ("Breaking My Own Heart Tonight," "Woke Up This Morning Feeling Blue," "True Love Wins in the End"). A couple janky rock songs that are really like nothing else I've ever written ("The Desolate," "(I Wanna Meet The) Girl in the Black Dress") rounded out the set.
Last year's Kid Winston was the least work I've done for an RPM album. Since all the songs were based on my earliest attempts at writing, the basic outline of each track was already there. All I really did was tweak. It felt good to finally go back and finish those ideas though. I wrote a lot of songs, especially when I was 16-18, that had good ideas but I never completed successfully. Most included typically cringe-y lyrics for that age. I had tried a few times to re-write some of them but it never felt right. I was finally ready for Kid Winston.
The question is: what should my approach be for this album?
Usually during January I think about some different ways I could do an RPM album if I decide to go for it, and this year was no different. Here's a rundown of the basic ideas.
In the last couple of months I've written fragments of lyrics that are darker and deeper than anything I've written in awhile. They also have the same overarching themes (light and shadow, cultural and personal criticism, detachment, beauty and ugliness, bleak dreams). Making them into something of a concept album might make sense.
In addition to these fragments, I've also written almost 20 complete lyrics without melodies or anything in the last couple months as well. I don't usually do that; it was almost an experiment to see if I could. Putting them to music could work.
I usually write songs on the guitar. My songs on piano have a completely different feel: they're usually ballads, they're more melodic. It'd be tempting to write an entire album of songs on the piano, something I've never done.
I've written, recorded, and released 11 projects (6 EPs and 5 albums). While there are extra songs from each project, there is also a lot of material I've written between each one that never really fit on any of them. I looked through my old demos and, to my surprise to be honest, found 20 almost complete songs that I like a lot that kinda just got lost. This would be the easiest, but least fun and creative, option.
I guess we'll see how things go when I sit down to write. Maybe I'll go with some combination of the above. It isn't always easy to get to 10 songs, even if you have a lot of ideas.