Motivational Weekly Beats Guy welcomes you to WEEKLYBEATS 2026!
By scottux on December 29, 2025 12:01 am
HAPPY WEEKLYBEATS 2026
EDIT:
Waited until this had like 29 comments or something to add something personal here. I started WB26 feeling that gnawing dread, the feeling I better articulated here in 2024. I had a nearly audible voice telling me how badly I would do if I tried, and how I've lost it as a musician, and how I'm going to make irredeemable trash, how paradoxically my weakened self-confidence in music was both irreversable AND making me worse at music in the first place. Lots of negative thoughts.
But the one thing I knew I wasn't going to do was skip WeeklyBeats. So I sat down and just kinda transcribed a few chord progressions I liked from some songs into lil midi clips in my ableton library, just to get into the work of music making a little. I figured I could at least make a lil dinky tune building off some basic chords and at least check off the week.
And then I felt a little better about myself. And then a little more. At least about my ability to make sounds happen in a way I would enjoy in that moment. And I decided somewhere in the mix that I had to start WeeklyBeats with Motivational WeeklyBeats Guy, for everyone as usual but for the reason I made him up in the first place: to tell me what I wanted to hear. That I'm good enough at this. That my music is important or valuable. That maybe I am as well as a result. That making trash is and has always been the actual path to the good shit, which is somehow something I forget whenever I've a dearth of motivation or self-confidence. Usually both.
But yeah, it's a bit of a goofy act. When I made it I hoped it would be felt as disarmingly goofy and sincere. It's cheesy but there's substance there, y'know? Like the intended effect would be to make someone hoot and holler on the outside and feel even a little bit actually encouraged on the inside.
So happy 2026! In WB24 I had the goal of using my voice more. I'd wanted to sing on songs more, but settled often for just saying some things in a true assortment of characters I'm pretty proud of. I imagine I'll do more of that this year, and truly hopefully I'll be singing on tracks (lyrics are hard!!!).
BUT my real goal this year is to stop lurking and comment the shit out of y'all's songs. Carving out the extra time to not just hit play on the week's submissions but to listen intently and highlight whatever I liked about what you made. So I guess watch out for that and if you're feeling friendly and supportive in that endeavor, reach out and let me know when I'm slacking on that (though maybe privately because then it won't have that public call-out post energy that can make people (me) defensive I guess). This is me inviting you to do that.
Already I am trying to run back through the entire 2024 catalog of the folks who were kind enough to comment on my shit during that year, so if you log in to find 52 separate comments from me one day, that's as sincere a "thank you" I can give.
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
