Double Negative

I wrote this two months ago in May before I released Double Negative. It's still true and relevant but it's interesting because now I have deemed the record unlistenable. I can't hear it without physically recoiling. I'm still proud of it obviously, but also I think it's shit. It's okay though. I don't know if there's a way for me not to think it's awful. But even though I think what I make is bad I still make it, which is important to keep in mind. Keep doing it even if you think it's shit.

    Double Negative is an amalgamation of lyrics and melodies that I have come up with since age 17, up until now, about a month and a half away from turning 21. Most of it has been written by me in the past 6 months or so, but several songs feature lines I have written throughout the past few years and two songs in full are songs that I thought would be released under my own name, not SHC. Which I guess it doesn't really matter, because I am SHC and it's really only me doing the work here, but it was a little hard for me to make the decision to put them on DN when they had been part of a different project for so long. I still hope to make this project, but I don't know if it will be a SHC record or not. I have formed an attachment to the SHC brand I created for myself and I don't want to abandon it after DN is out, but I also feel that the other music I write is darker and closer to my soul than DN (which is saying a lot, because some of the tracks on DN are pretty bleak and naked). I think that my lyrical writing style has become much more refined than it was, but there's also no way to show that to anyone, because I have never made any music that can be listened to besides the songs on DN (except for one song, which I kind of want to release but it also sounds like a 17 year old anorexic girl wrote it. Because a 17 year old anorexic girl wrote it). And DN also has songs like "Mr T", which is not my best lyrical work. Or best work at all. (I'm editing this two months after the fact and God it's really hard to not go in here and say Actually The Whole Thing Is Bad. Why Did I Sing The Verse Like That? Cancel The Whole Thing.) It's really insane to be able to have a tangible thing that people can absorb and analyze and, well, listen to, that I have created myself. I guess it really only could've been DN that would be released first, because the whole thing is a bit. None of this matters or is real. Or at least that is what I have to tell myself to release it.

    The thesis of Double Negative is frustration. I have concerns that the album is too exasperated, and that the songs are too much of the same. Most songs are about the same situation, just in a different font. It was important for me not to sugarcoat anything, or try to censor myself. Because if I am not authentic in my music, then what's the point of making it at all? No one will listen to it regardless, but especially not if it's not even coming from a place of truth. I am in a very frustrating time in my life. There are many things I cannot control, and the only outlet I have to express that defeat is through writing songs. Which I have always done; lyrics have always been my way of expression. But now it's a real thing. So though I feel the album can be repetitive, it's authentic like Squidward, so it's what has to be released to the world. But the album is not necessarily what I imagined myself sounding like. Probably because several of the songs are a bit stupid. But releasing stupid songs helps cut through the pretentiousness that is present in my more serious songs. The world has not even witnessed the Final Boss of Phoebe being ostentatious. 

    My favorite song on the record is "9 Dogs." I wrote it in December of 2025, when I was feeling extremely bothered and depressed. It's just that the lyrics on that song are so precise to what I was experiencing. It's probably the most the real Phoebe song on the record. Usually, I'm rather ambiguous and speak in riddles in all of my writing, but every lyric on the song is something I have said or has been said to me, just maybe in different wording. I also think the arrangement is flames. "9 Dogs" is also the song that has given me the most trouble. I can't tell you how many fucking times I have sung this fucking song. I have rerecorded the vocals at least a hundred times, and I am not exaggerating. I guess because the song is so important to me, I don't really like my voice in it, but also no one else could sing it except for me. I've considered being in a band before and having someone else sing my songs, but I couldn't do it. At least not for this. And not for the next album, which I already have mapped out in my head. I am very insecure about my voice, because I don't think it's very good. We live in a technologically advanced world where there are tools and software that can make me sound fine, even good sometimes, but it still makes me cringe to listen to my vocals. It all does become mush after awhile, and I have become desensitized to how I sound, but whenever "Marriage" comes on shuffle when I'm driving, I do have to grit my teeth through the first verse. 

    I know I said I hate it. But I do love it. I don't eat it because I did. No I didn't. But honestly, you can't spend dozens of hours sitting at your kitchen table making a shitty record on Logic if you don't love it. Making music is the love of my life, but also so so so so so so so very annoying and tedious and hard and exhausting. I mean I clearly think it's worth it, but Jesus, it takes a lot out of you. Making an album for me is also like going through the stages of grief. You really put in all this effort and for me it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be (an impossible task. It would never have been good enough) and then it's like. Huh. I did all that. And it's not even that good. But you do it anyway. I think I also thought that it would change someone else too. I wrote a whole album about essentially one thing and it didn't. It didn't. Well. It didn't change anything external. But I realize now I did it completely for myself. Really, and this is completely true for me, when I write a song about someone else it isn't even REALLY about them. It's trying to deal with what happened. It becomes this whole other thing that eventually becomes so far removed from the original subject that it's like. Well I guess I was thinking about you when I wrote this but now I've spent six hours crammed into my closet so I can record vocals and I've been messing with the bus signals on the guitar for the past 45 minutes so actually I am not thinking about you at all. And even after it's done, and I'm listening to the lyrics and everything put together, I find that it's still its own thing. It's kind of freeing to be able to take my emotions and make it into something else that isn't the subject that hurt me. I Remained Myself In My Art Despite You Seeping In. And then you have the gratification that you did a thing you wanted to do. 

Factoids:

• The chord progression of "9 Dogs" was actually originally the chord progression to a very very early version of "Cope." "Cope" was not supposed to be on the album, but after cutting some other songs from the tracklist I was going through my notes and decided that "Cope" actually would fit quite well on DN. I did not realize I had plagiarized my own chord progression until I went and listened to the demo of "Cope" and realized that it was just "9 Dogs." I am far happier with the final version of "Cope" and the final version of "9 Dogs" than the original "Cope."
• "Spontaneous Human Combustion" (the song) actually had completely different lyrics and melody at first but I felt it wasn't how I wanted to end the album. I may release the original one day, but I also feel it pales in comparison to the SHC that made it onto the album.
• Songs by other artists that have directly inspired songs on DN (don't ask how, none of these make sense) are:
• "Airbag" by Radiohead- "Brimstone"
• "Instant Crush" by Daft Punk- "9 Dogs"
• "Trussed Yew" by Brunch- "What Kind of Joke Is That"
• My beautiful friends are featured several times on the album, and that's my favorite part. Thank you to the Indistinguishable Slime City. Glippy is trying to
• "What Kind of Joke Is That" has the most streams. Fingergate victims rise up
• "Dry February" has the least streams which pisses me off because I love that song. But also maybe it sounds really bad (I haven't listened to it since I released it).