You get to pick it. It’s your band. If you don’t like the setlist it’s not the songs’ fault…You need to go write different songs or figure out a better way to work with what you’ve got.
And writing out the setlist is a bad time to realize that you don’t have the songs to make a good setlist.
The setlist only works when you figure out how to make it work. And all of that happens long before you write it.
The sound of the beach is what you’ve waited for all year…so why put in headphones?
Because when you put in headphones, the stuff in your headphones just got way more important. In the face of the majesty of the beach, you’re putting that podcast you usually listen to at work above it.
Or chit chatting during a Paul McCartney show
Or scrolling while watching a sunset
You have to be not new at all.
In fact, if you’re scheming to get an award like that, be really good and popular in secret for as long as possible.
I remember years ago when FUN won the Grammy for best new artist and everyone, including the band, had a pretty good laugh.
It’s amazing how hard you have to work to be the best new thing.
If we’re talking about favorite we’re talking about you. Learning your taste helps us get to know you. Your favorite songs don’t have to make sense to anyone else…but your favorite songs can help you make sense to others.
If we’re talking about best we’re talking about an assumed shared standard. Of course the assumed shared standard is never completely shared. So talking about ‘best’ stirs up judgement and lifts up some people’s taste and diminishes other’s taste. It’s a tough, never ending conversation. If the ‘never ending’ part makes it more fun, keep having it. If it causes arguments, change the conversation to your favorites.
We use the same voice while talking to our friends at dinner as we do getting up in front of a hundred people to give a welcome speech.
But it’s different.
When we talk with our friends we don’t often have umms and uhhs or get words twisted around. We just talk.
But in front of a crowd, all those decades of talking don’t seem to be enough.
So a couple things…
While you use the same voice in both examples, they are different skills. And both take practice.
If you want to get the speech right, write some things down and don’t veer until you’re good at sticking to the script.
If you don’t have much experience as a public speaker it’s very unlikely you will go up there and improvise a good one. It’s much more likely you’ll improvise a bad one. Even though you might be a good talker.