And so, the year has come and gone!
Happy new year everyone! This year has been WILD, and I mean fucking BONKERS. Actually, there is so much stuff that this recap post is probably gonna be longer than the last one. Get ready to read a whole book.
Speaking of last year's recap post, I think I left myself a goals list to hit in 2024. Let's go through it, shall we?
1. Get to 40 followers on Newgrounds
What the hell, we are almost at 60, we smashed this one lmao.
Thank you all so so much for the support this year! You have NO idea how every single comment or follow means to me!
2. I'm keeping the one song per month rule, but I'll try to release more. Let's say 20 tracks at least?
Lets see, 1, 2, 3, 8, 19, 25, 26, 27. Yep, that one's done too! However, if we don't count the Jamuary ones... nah those count. And of course I did manage to upload monthly! Next!
3. Finish and upload some of those unfinished songs that I talked about earlier.
This one is again getting saved by Jamuary. Man, that event was awesome. Pushing myself to make one song a day was an awesome learning experience. AND we even managed to get a frontpage during the event! That was actually insane! If you wanna read more of my thoughts about the event, here's the Jamuary wrap-up post.
As for this year, I actually don't think I'll be able to attend, at least not fully. This time I unfortunately don't have the luxury of being home for 2 weeks with an infinite amount of free time. That doesn't mean I won't try to make as many songs as possible tho! Keep an eye out for that!
Aight, next!
4. Start a Youtube channel, where I will be uploading some sample flips and original music.
That kinda happened. I do have an official artist channel now, with some releases and 2 vertical videos promoting my songs. No sample flips in sight tho. HOWEVER, I am planning to start posting actual content this year. I have a cool idea for a video series which I haven't seen before actually. I'll keep you guys notified!
I also have an Instagram account. I post whenever there's new music released onto streaming platforms. Go give it a follow if you'd like. And speaking of streaming...
I've started uploading songs onto my Spotify and other streaming platforms. The fact that my music is on there is still insane to me. I think that if 2 years ago when I started posting my music on Newground someone told me that I would have my own Spotify artist profile, I would either explode from excitement or just simply ignore that cuz wdym my music is not that serious bro. So yeah, absolutely insane.
5. Start uploading my songs onto Soundcloud.
wtf why would I choose soundcloud...
Well, I've already talked about the places where I upload, so now let's talk about what notable songs I've uploaded:
First off is "Third Strike", a chiptune posted during Jamuary a day after I learned about pixel day, meaning I was a day late, but oh well. That didn't really matter tho, because It somehow is the most viewed Pixel Day 2024 audio submission??????????
Final Jamuary submission, "Relinquished Runaway". This song was insanely fun to make, and although it wasn't made in one day I uploaded it anyway cuz why the hell not. I later put it up on streaming services, so if you like cyberpunk music, I highly recommend giving it a listen. You can find it HERE.
"AGNOSIA SHATTERED" is a "clear" version of "AGNOSIA". I've made it for my friends' birthday (the original song was also made for him). Both versions are available on Spotify HERE.
"Awake" was actually made like 3 years ago. I've dug it up and decided to sing over it for the first time. It went... uhhhhhh... not that well, however I'm still putting it here cuz I love this song so much.
"Awake" will get a remaster with better vocals some time in the future. When that happens, I will put it up on streaming services. For now, it rests unfinished...
"rndm sng gnrtr" was made in two weeks for the NGUAC Knockout Round. I had to produce the entire song on a mid-ass laptop because I was out on vacation. I unfortunately didn't manage to make it to the next round, I'm blaming it on the conditions, the idea for the song was fire tho...
"Light" is a collab I've made with mt friend Armazi. Man it's insane how well that song went. I loved working on it so so much and I think it's my best song to date. This song also marks my Spotify debut, as well as a rebrand to SoTshu. You can find this song HERE.
And so, we come to the end of the year with "Falling", which was actually released yesterday. The reason I'm including this here is that I'm genuinely impressed with myself. Bro this song didn't even exist 2 weeks ago how did I make this so fast????????
I am planning to release this onto Streaming platforms, it's just too good not to put it there.
I've also released a bunch of other music, they mostly consist of random piano pieces I've made or weird experiments, like this one I've made with just an amen break.
Man that was a lot, next point!
6. Take part in more Newgrounds contests and events
So I didn't actually take part in as many events as I wished I would. To be frank, I've just been either lazy or busy with other stuff. The events I did take part in tho were:
- Jamuary (Talked about this before, not doing that again lol)
- NGUAC (I got in with "Relinquished Runaway", made "rndm sng gnrtr", didn't make it past the first round. oh well...)
- NGADM (Didn't manage to make it out of tryouts unfortunately. I was placed in the fill-in list and had an opportunity to still get in, but I didn't take it because I thought I had to make a different song for NGDAM. After it was over I realised that you could've submitted the NGUAC song to this contest as well. oops...)
- and of course... wait- that's it?? really??? wow that really isn't a lot lol
okay that was embarrassing LAST POINT
7. Maybe get some money from my music idk
All I can say is that I did get some money for it. And I'm not talking about the few cents I've made off of Spotify royalties. BUT IF YOU'D LIKE TO CHANGE THAT NEXT YEAR I'll probably set up like a ko-fi with commissions or whatever.
And that's the list! It's actually surprising to compile all of this into one post, cuz the amount of stuff actually looks impressive.
Alright. Now, let's set some goals for 2025:
- Get to 100 followers on Newgrounds.
Is that a lot? I feel like that's a lot. But I also feel like if I'm consistent enough with posting quality stuff we can easily make it!
- One song per month AT LEAST.
Let's do this one again, cuz it was pretty fun. It also motivated me to actually make stuff. And future me, if you're reading this, PLEASE make some more than 12. Cmon, you can do better than that.
- ACTUALLY start the Youtube channel.
Self explanatory
- Release an album on Spotify.
I plan on taking a bunch of music I've already made, add like 1 or 2 new songs and put it all in an album. That would be fun, no?
- Get money.
Get money.
- Take part in events on NG
That didn't go well last time, BUT IT'S GONNA BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME GUYS TRUST ME!!!!
- idk do stuff with socials
Is it a good idea to start a Tiktok account? Probably not
- Get money.
Get money.
- Get money.
Get money.
okay i can't think of anything else lol. I think that should do it tho.
Congrats on making it to the end of the post lol.
Some final thoughts:
This year has again shown me that (as corny as this sounds) anything is possible. I did not think that my music would get anywhere, but with just [THREE EASY PAYMENTS OF $3.99] it got onto streaming. If you set a goal, it's actually not that hard to achieve it, as long as you push yourself towards it.
Actual final thoughts:
balls
Again, Happy New Year Everyone!
And for the last time this year, Cheers!