The Tale of Laney
When you create something that you know people want or like, success is often guaranteed. A great example of this is Laney. She's a great songwriter and singer. She's known for being truly good at what she does, and it's not that she sings like a goddess or that her music is perfect. In fact, several music critics consider her a singer without too many pretensions. Her great talent in music isn't singing itself, but rather what her lyrics convey to people.
She has known how to capitalize on this very well for a long time. She knows what matters to people, what they want to achieve, their dreams, focusing especially on people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, ordinary people, everyday folks. Laney recently experienced what happens when you disconnect from your audience and no longer know what they want. In a recent interview with a major media outlet, she shared her life story and her beginnings in music, explaining what taught her to understand what others wanted to hear. And she talked a lot about why she disconnected from people over time and the consequences.
In the interview, the journalist asked her, "How did you get started in music, and where did you get that knack for knowing what people want to hear that led to your success?" Laney recounted that as a young girl, she lived in poverty. From a young age, she observed the goals of the people around her. Some only wanted the bare necessities to survive another day, while others dreamed of becoming millionaires and escaping that situation, but their dreams rarely came true.
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There were also some people who were content with what they had and didn't worry about achieving things beyond their reach. Because she had so many friends in her neighborhood, she learned firsthand about the small goals of ordinary people: studying, having a family, and getting by however they could. All these experiences taught her many things that she would later use in her future music career. When she started singing, she focused on conveying the message she knew people would like.
She sang about hope for achieving seemingly impossible goals, or about the small, everyday goals of people. While other singers concentrated on creating music about topics that didn't interest anyone, she connected with everyone. This is what helped her achieve great musical success, and because everyone identified with what she was saying, they bought her music and listened to it everywhere. She wasn't the best singer, but she was the best at conveying emotions. She achieved fame in a short time.
When Laney finished explaining this, the journalist asked her the question many wanted to know: Why did she become disconnected from her audience at a certain point in her career, and why was her music no longer as popular as before? She replied that it was due to a series of events that unfolded without her realizing it. As her music career grew and fame consumed her, she had less and less time to connect with ordinary people and continue learning from them. Therefore, the more she lived among the wealthy, the more disconnected she became from everyday life.
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She lost touch with what people wanted, and her brilliant music suffered greatly after having so many hits. Many of her newer songs dealt with things people didn't want to hear, and she herself became just another face in the crowd. Being just another face in the crowd means you don't stand out and you get stuck. When she finished telling this story, the journalist asked her one of the final questions: "What did you do when you realized you were on the wrong track, and what do you tell future generations of singers about what you learned from this?" Laney said that when she saw that the music she was making wasn't performing as well as before, she knew why. She had simply fooled herself into thinking she was doing well.
To fix things, she changed course and focused again on the people at the bottom, those who truly felt her lyrics. People felt positive things with her music. Since she couldn't go back to the beginning to see what people wanted, she created a small army of men and women who would visit people everywhere—ordinary neighborhoods, poor people—and ask them what excited them, what they wanted to achieve. With that, she recovered her ideas and continued to be a brilliant composer. Regarding her words to future generations, she said, "If you don't think about the right people when you make your music, you will fail."
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