this was originally published on novembre 25, 2025 as a video on my youtube channel. see video below.
a couple weeks ago, i released my second single, Can’t Stop Watching.
i decided to release on a tuesday, which isn’t a normal release day for music. new music generally comes out on fridays. since mine was a small indie release, i figured maybe there was more space for that on tuesday. i’d read that somewhere.
on the day before, the monday, i prepped everything for the release.
i went to all the music platforms and checked that my aesthetic was consistent across all of them. i had actually started doing that one week before, and it’s a good thing i did because it actually took quite a while for apple music and spotify to update my profile pictures. i’m really trying to have a consistent aesthetic across every platform so that it looks more professional.
i also did the same thing on all the social media platforms. i updated my profile pick on instagram and tiktok and youtube and threads even, and wherever i could put a banner, i put a banner that i made with the album cover photo. i actually spent the morning getting my hair and my nails done, and then i spent the whole afternoon taking like a bazillion photos and videos so that i would have material to post on release day and all the days after that.
i also wrote and prepped posts for social media.
and then i tried to relax because i was getting a little antsy about this release. i was like, “okay, should i wait until midnight to make sure everything goes smoothly?” because i’d heard that sometimes it’s supposed to come out at midnight, but it doesn’t because there’s a bug. so, if you have any support requests to make, you can make them as soon as possible.
but then at 11:00 p.m., i was so tired and i just went to bed.
i figured nobody was really waiting for this release anyway except me, so it wasn’t a big deal if it didn’t work on the first day. i could bump the release day to the wednesday or to the thursday or even to the friday. it wouldn’t be a big deal.
tuesday morning came.
the first thing i did was to check that my release was live, and it was. everything was functioning great.
i had on purpose set my alarm clock really early, so i went right to my computer and started updating every platform. i updated my linktree. i updated all my bios on all social media platforms. i also posted something on all the platforms saying that my release was live—instagram, tiktok, youtube, facebook threads—and then i waited.
people weren’t rushing in to listen to my song, but it was trickling in. i was getting one or two views, a couple comments. i was also engaging on the platform. i would type #midlifewomen, #altrock, #muse—all the hashtags that would be related to my music and to my brand—and engage in those posts. i’d post a comment myself or like comments or even reply to other people’s comments. i mean, i did that authentically if i had something to say, but i forced myself to do it. i’d read that if you do that, the algorithm links you to those hashtags in some way and then serves your post to those people.
and then i had to go to a doctor’s appointment that i had booked several months before and i couldn’t move. so i was forced to take a break, which was actually good because i was starting to get a little wired from all the waiting and the anticipation.
and then i came home and i’d done all i could on social media for now, so it was time to tell people that i know in real life.
i started spamming all my contacts.
(if you know me in real life, i’m sorry if i spammed you! hopefully it wasn’t too much of a bother!)
i started sending emails and whatsapp messages and dms to all the people that i know in real life telling them that the song was live today. i sent it to my family, to my friends, to anybody that had expressed interest in my music in the past. even people that i had only just met. we’re auditioning musicians right now to reform a band because we’ve moved cities, and all the musicians that i’d met recently, i sent them the link.
i actually hadn’t done that last time. i think i was a little ashamed and afraid of being pushy with the music. this is my project and it was only just getting started. it was actually easier putting myself out there to people that i don’t know.
but a couple of my friends made a comment that they were surprised and even hurt in some way that i didn’t feel like i could share this with them. so, this time i figured i’d just send it to everybody. and it’s only an email or a dm.
if you’re not interested, you just click off and it’s not a big bother. it’s not like i sent them tens or thousands of emails.
plus, i figured if a friend of mine did something like that, i’d be interested just because they’re a friend of mine. so, i felt more comfortable doing that this time. and actually, it was nice because i got to start a few conversations with people that i hadn’t talked to in a while.
i spent the bigger part of the day replying to people that i had sent the music to.
i also put the lyrics up on musixmatch. musixmatch is a paid service and i know a lot of small artists don’t subscribe to it, but for me lyrics are really important. they’re what i write first, they’re what i most enjoy creating, actually. they’re very personal lyrics and it’s very important for me that people hear my lyrics and understand them.
i think at one point sebastien asked me what would success look like in this project, and i told him if one person hears my song and says, “wow, those lyrics really spoke to me. i felt seen. i felt heard. they really helped me navigate something in my life.” i mean, that’s what i really want. i want to communicate with people. and so, putting my lyrics up on musixmatch is worth the money to me.
i had been wired all day long, and then came the worst moment of the day.
at 5pm, sebastien says, “you uploaded the wrong version of the song.”
what?
omg i did.
he was right.
i uploaded the wrong version of the song. face palm.
fortunately, it wasn’t that much of a big problem. it was just a small mixing difference at the end with marvin, my producer. i had asked him to lower the saturation on my voice on the first verse because i found it to be kind of buzzy. he had done that, but then i didn’t upload that last version. i uploaded the one before which was almost perfect, but still, it was very infuriating to have this version that’s perfect that isn’t online.
i asked landr, my distributor, and chatgpt how to fix this, and apparently you can’t.
once you’ve uploaded an audio file, you can’t change it or you have to take down your release and create a new release. i didn’t want to go through this whole release day again, especially since i’d already told all these people about this song…
i felt really bad, but i figured, screw it. let’s just leave it like this. it’s almost perfect.
(i will not make this mistake again, let me tell you.)
last thing i did was find all the people that had commented on the teaser tiktok posts i’d made the past couple weeks.
everybody that had commented, “oh, i like the vibe of this song,” i went back to those comments and replied and told them that the song was live if they wanted to go listen to it.
when evening came around, i was totally washed out.
exhausted.
only then did i allow myself to go and check the stats.
i had decided not to go to the stats during the day because i didn’t want to get discouraged by them if they were low. but then evening came around and i figured, okay, let’s go. let’s see what the result of everything i’ve done is.
with sebastien the day before, we had written down our expectations. i had predicted 100 listens on spotify, and it was actually less than that. at 11pm i had 24 streams, which is not a lot. but then i realized that since on my linktree the music video is very prominent up at the top, there was a lot more people that heard the song through that. at 11pm, altogether, 81 people had listened to my song.
since then, it has picked up quite a bit.
at the time of recording this video, i’ve had 69 listens on spotify. there’s maybe 10 on apple music and on deezer and 10 on tidal. overall, it’s just around 100 people that have listened to my music on the streaming services. and on youtube, i have 235 views on the music video.
so two weeks out, around 350 people have heard my song, which means that people that i know in real life came to listen, but also people that i don’t, because i don’t know 350 people in real life!
all in all, i’m pretty happy with these stats. they were just about what i was expecting for a second single.