This is the first year that I successfully completed weekly beats after many unsuccessful attempts - some public, some private. To anyone reading this who listened to some of my uploads throughout this year, either by intention or by random shuffle, please accept my gratitude with this (not-so) short message of transparency.

I completed WeeklyBeats this year with a very specific goal - to create a band new portfolio of functional, club-ready dance music. To this end I had to enforce a very strict discipline to keep the portfolio consistent. These rules included:

- Each song must be able to mix into each other; with extended intros and outros for blends
- Resist the urge to over-experiement with sound pallettes
- Every song must have a defined beginning, middle, and end. In theory, each song should be live-ready on date of upload
- The overall mix must be as close to release worthy as possible, with or withhout master processing

And most importantly:

- A strong emphasis on minimal, hypnotic grooves. Repetition is embraced and not feared.

As a result of this discipline and inability to refuse consent to all uploads being easily downloaded, I watermarked every single upload with a continuous fadeout that runs the length of every track. I apologize for this and hope you understand if by chance you happened to notice this odd pattern whenever one of my uploads interrupted your listening queue. Because of this I had comments disabled all year except for right now, where you can yell at me if you so decide or find it in yourself to forgive my eccentricity.

I don’t know exactly what I’ll do with all of these tracks. Some are certainly more usable than others. Some I’ve already played out this year as a full set. I was hoping to create a continuous mix of the whole year, appropriately mixed into a DJ set, as a big reveal for the end of the year. But the unexpected should always be expected and life throws more curveballs than you can catch. But what’s most important to me is that I didn’t give up and I genuinely feel that don’t need to do anything like this again. It is done. The strongest lesson here is that if I can do this, anyone can. So many weeks I considered this whole thing as a stupid idea and I should just move on to something else, but I didn’t. I knew I would get here no matter what.

SO - thank you to anyone who has read this far or has found enjoyment in any of my 52 little dance grooves. This username will not exist in the future so if you’d like to reach out, you can find me on instagram as @danield.mp3

Tags: week 52 2024, View by:SIDEEYEmusic