Exclusive Means Exclusive By The Way…

Last year, I created a digital album exclusively for my quarterly newsletter subscribers. It’s nice to give back from time to time, and I’m pleased to have done so. It also developed into a useful exercise in honing and producing songs in different ways. Last year’s freebie album started out as a way of collecting a group of songs that I’d left out of recorded works for one reason or another. I added a couple of unrecorded songs and re-recorded a couple of others. The net result was an album of ten songs entitled “Varying Degrees of Incandescent Protest”, crafted in December 2023 as a New Year’s present for 2024.

That was then, and this is now. I’m currently having fun recording ten songs for the next freebie album “Live In ‘25”, again exclusive to subscribers to my quarterly newsletter. All songs are being recorded with just me and one instrument. This time around there are no overdubs, and minimal production other than the mastering, thus hopefully giving you a flavour of one of my live performances.

I think it’s important to be clear about what exclusive means, because the meaning of too many words has been diluted over the years by aspiring marketing executives and social media clever dicks. In the case of my annual free albums to newsletter subscribers, it means that those subscribers, and only those subscribers, receive ten digital songs for free simply for signing up to receive the newsletter. There are no other terms and conditions, and I do not share the minimal contact information required with any other person, entity, or third party.

The other key point about these annual gifts of music, is that none of the songs will be released commercially in that form. Some will never be released at all. With each free album, subscribers also receive a PDF explaining something extra about each of the songs. So, if you like my music and you haven’t yet subscribed, you have until the moment the clock welcomes in 2025 (Greenwich Meantime) to sign up at the top of the homepage at www.johnreedmusic.com

Yes, I know. There will always be the odd twat who signs up to receive the free album only then to unsubscribe until next year. Twats do that kind of thing, and will always hover around the music scene, but one day karma will visit them, hopefully while they’re vulnerable on the loo 🤣

Peace.

John