Don't Be a One-Hit Wonder

One of the staples of the modern music world is the “Greatest Hits” album. When an artist has been around for a while, and they’ve had at least a few hits, it’s customary for their record company to release a new album that re-packages all those hit songs. 

Have you ever thought about the work required to actually create enough songs for a Greatest Hits album? If you look at the albums of any popular artist, you’ll see that they generally only have a couple of truly “hit” songs from each one.

Occasionally, you’ll have an artist with four or five massive songs from one album such as Richard Marx’s 1987 album “Repeat Offender,” which had at least four massive hits. Or you’ll have a true superstar like country legend Garth Brooks, who was on such a hot streak in the 1990’s that almost every song was a huge hit.

And let’s not forget the Beatles, who were so far above everyone else that almost everything they touched turned to gold.

But the exceptions prove the rule. Most of the time, a band or solo artist making traditional albums only has a couple of hit songs for every ten they put on an album. What’s more, they often don’t know which 20% of songs will be a hit as they’re making the record. They’re just doing the work.

On today's episode, Kent uses illustrations from the world of music and baseball to remind us that the daily work, not the occasional hit, is most important.

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