Why I Quit Posting Weekend Weapons

I have some thoughts that have been percolating over the past few months...

As a new artist, it's exciting to get Traxsource Weekend Weapons and other curated placements. It certainly feels a bit validating, but after the novelty wears off, posting about every single curated placement is a bit much. Over the past couple of months I've been doing some serious evaluation of the overall message I want to share as an artist.

In August I had three remixes and two tracks on compilations released all within four weeks of each other. They all were receiving some great support from DJs and Traxsource - and I wasn't very judicious about posting the Traxsource "accolades" to social media. This was the routine I had settled into as part of promoting my music releases: share Weekend Weapons on Thursday or Friday, Essentials and Hype charts on Monday, and maybe DJ charts on Tuesday or Wednesday. Other than posting a link to the release, I was doing very little to showcase the actual music getting charted.

During this time when I had so many projects being released, it felt like I was only "flex" posting about chart placements. So I started to think about whether these posts were very effective and whether such posts were aligned with my values and the message that I want to spread as an artist. And I asked myself some questions: Who or what am I attracting by posting the Traxsource achievements to promote a release? Am I only attracting people who care about the vanity metrics? How does posting every single Traxsource achievement and DJ chart serve my community? Is my existing community turned off by all the flex posts? Do the chart posts help me connect more with my community and does my community connect more with me?

An answer that I came up with is that posting every single Traxsource or Beatport achievement does very little to help my community and I to connect more with each other or with the music. I know that my community is happy to see me succeed and wants to celebrate with me -- and I really appreciate that. But... my community has no influence on my track getting placed on a Traxsource or Beatport curated chart - that's all the doing of Traxsource, so it's not really a celebration for my community when an arbitrary entity "anoints" my track as a Weekend Weapon or an Essential track for that week.

What my community does have influence over is the sales charts - the top 100 charts for a given sub-genre or the overall chart. And I say this because the sales charts are an indicator that people like my track enough to invest a couple of dollars into my music and me. And that for me is huge. When even one person purchases the track, it brings me a lot of joy just knowing that a song or track is connecting with someone. So the sales charts mean even more to me now than they did before.

That being said, sales charts are not the holy grail. I could have one track perform really well and then the next string of records could be total duds.

But what about this... do those curated charts help sales? I think those charts do help sales-- because I know a lot of people purchase tracks directly from those charts (including me) -- but I don't think me posting on social media about my track's placement on those charts will influence many people to go and purchase the track. In other words, I don't think a lot of people see my post about a Weekend Weapons placement and then go buy the track based on that post. Instead, I believe that people purchase music based on their connection with the music or with me as an artist.

With all of this in mind, I have committed to a few changes with regard to self-promoting my music on social media:

1. For the most part, I will not be posting about Weekend Weapons, Essentials or other charts curated by Traxsource or Beatport. I'll probably post some year-end stats or maybe a quarterly "recap".

2. As far as posting about certain SALES achievements - I will be reducing the number of these posts as well. When I make it to the top 20 of a genre chart or the top half of the overall top 100 - that's an achievement I feel is worth celebrating with everyone in my community because that doesn't happen very often for me. But posting about getting to number 99 on the deep house chart again - isn't the achievement it was for me two years ago. This isn't to sound cocky - it's just a testament of my growth -- and I'm super grateful to all who have been a part of that.

3. I WILL be posting much more content about the actual music -- videos that feature audio clips, what the track means to me, how I made a track, my songwriting inspiration, and other things that I feel matter to my community that helps us forge a greater connection with one another.

Lastly, I want to be clear that these thoughts represent what I think is best for my journey as an artist, and I don't think any less of other artists who post every curated chart placement. And maybe my own perspective about these charts will change over time.

--Tony