Album Credits

This is my debut album. This, of course, dictates the following: This is the album that will introduce you, solidify you in the music scene, push you to stardom ­ or, you will find yourself hobbling, handing out free CDs at your nine­-to­-five job, eating all the more microwaveable ramen from the dollar store because you’re still just a “starving artist” along with all the other “starving artists” in New York, and LA, and Nashville. You come together collectively. You collect each others’ leftovers, bits and pieces of songwork, guitar riffs and lyrics crumpled up and thrown in the trash. You feed off one another. You help one another.

At the time of writing this, this CD, record, or cassette you’re holding—trusting you do live in Brooklyn, don’t own a car with an aux cord, and have a record player—could have introduced, solidified, and pushed me. It could have made a name for me. Or I could be selling the leftover 180 gram gatefold vinyls through my Tumblr. Either way, no album credit is complete without thanking the fans. The fans decide what path I’m going to take as an artist. The fans pay me.

They buy the albums and come to my shows and I can’t thank them enough for doing that. My label PR also says thanking the fans makes my public approval skyrocket, and that can’t hurt.

Thanking my producer is also apparently important. To my producer: I don’t really know what you do, and you go under the very vague title of “producer,” despite the fact I wrote and sang all of my songs. I saw you in the studio a lot and thought Who is that guy? a lot. My manager told me you made this album what it is, so I guess I should thank you for that.

To my manager: You are one of a kind in that I do not know another person who will call me at five in the morning to remind me that you could only book an hour of studio time from six to seven.

To my band: I’m beyond happy that you all responded to my Craigslist ad when I needed someone to play drums, bass, accordion, and every other instrument that I could not play at the same time as playing guitar and singing. Rock on.

To my significant other: I’m not entirely sure as to why PR says I should include you in these credits. You didn’t have a single thing to do with the creation of this album. They said something about public approval again. I love you!

I could not thank a person more honestly and from my heart than myself. Myself: ­You, you are the godfather of this album. You were the one who ate that microwaveable ramen, slept in the basement of an apartment, and took your own creative genius to work. You were part of that collective, writing from the single lines of discarded songs and the instruments you bought from your landlord’s teenage son before he left for college. You are the sole reason this album exists. I’d like to thank you for your dedication, time, and effort. You were called a “starving artist” for this. The smallest gears make the biggest machine work.

With only the time to take a picture of this album cover in its packaging and Instagram it before you play it, enjoy.

—By Audrey L. 17, Pennsylvania