mixed feelings

What song to put in a mixed album -- something everyone will like? Or something the band wants to do right here right now? This dilemma of choice has been plaguing artists since the dawn of time. Roger Waters once said something interesting in an interview. He was talking about the early days of Pink Floyd and how people would come up to him and ask "why do you guys do such dark songs? can't you do some lighter, more fun stuff?" Waters then went on to say that what those people don't know is that the artist does not control the art. I'm talking about all good/great artists in their fields, from Van Gogh to Mozart to Rabindranath, Nazrul, to Hitchcock and Spielberg and JJ Abrams to Lep Zep, Deep Purple, Maiden, Metallica to Asimov to Satyajit Ray.

The Artist does not control the art. There's something inside the artist at that particular point in time which is a culmination and a reflection of his emotions, actions, surroundings etc. And anything the artist creates at that point will be the product of those things at that point in time. If the artist is lucky, his work will be well received.

Every time i sat down with my band Cryptic Fate for a mixed album song, the only thing we cared about was sounding different from the 12 other bands that will be in that album. "Different" is a loaded word in the world of creativity. Everyone wants to be "different", everyone is working on a "different" angle. And at the end of the day, it turns out (to your horror) you are "different" in exactly the same way 6 other bands are "different". Or you are "different" because you were creative with your tempo and tune sense. Be that as it may, being "different" became our magnum opus motivation for every mixed album song. And its worked out pretty well so far. Just recently two of our songs were released, one as a radio single (Tepantor) on Radio Foorti, and the other (Ondho) on a mixed double album called "rock 404\505". Why two songs at the same time? Well as i said, the artist does not control the art. We did the Cryptic Fate thing for the mixed album and hopefully delivered something "different" than the 29, yes TWENTY NINE other bands haha. And the Radio single? i had this poppish tune in my head that i had to get out and i don't like solo projects so i used all my cards to get my band to play the song and then Radio foorti graciously released it. So after 4 years of Silence, the Fate engine is roaring back to life. Stick around. It will be interesting.