I wrote a song a week for a year - this is my journey with the music weeklies challenge August 2022 to August 2023

 Hello, my name is Andy Jackson, and I am one half of Cosmic Bos, with my brother Nick Jackson being the other half (we aren't married to each other, we are married, but to our respective lady partners). We make music, lots of it, and host a monthly music challenge podcast called the Monthly Music Challenge with Cosmic Bos. 

I made a behind the scenes video of how I make a song for the music weeklies challenges, to celebrate reaching a full year of making a song a week. 52 songs baby!

And here is the finished product, after just a few hours from concept to lyric video

Let's flashback to where this all began.

So in the Summer of 2022, I was introduced to the Music Weeklies challenges on X (formerly Twitter) by a jolly good friend Trench Gun. The basic premise of music weeklies is to make a song or piece of music in a week around a hashtag. The week I was introduced to it, the hashtag was #NotAFan.

Full playlist of the 52 songs (plus a few other alternative versions of some of them) here

The first handful that I made I did using tiktok filters, and just my acoustic guitar and voice. In fact, quite a few of them were like that to begin with. It would be my 5th week of doing it that the first shift happened, the hashtag was Spaceship, and I love writing about space, so I wrote 'Spaceship Earth'

This one was good, not as throw away as the handful before it, the song was solid, had a unique feel to it and could easily take an upgrade, which is what happened (see video above) when it was picked for inclusion on our Virtual Normality 2 EP. Along with Morning Coffee, Burning Rings of Power and Nun in a Kayak. The list stayed pretty much acoustic only up until 14, where Plum and Dates was about time signatures and beats so I had to change my tactic a little. This influenced the next set to, making them take on a slightly bigger feel.

For Christmas I received an interface which allowed me to properly record guitar and synths and vocals like the pro's do it. So the songs started to change, getting much bigger, with layers and layers. Nick and I also launched the Monthly Music Challenge in conjunction with the Music Weeklies peeps.

From songs 23 to 52 I had the interface and the MMC to think about, so the songs drastically changed, becoming full on proper big things. Nude Beginnings onward, no acoustic tracks, all bigger affairs.

With the monthly challenge breaking things up into nice EP sized nuggets, the songs were getting a proper release on all platforms. We put them out on band camp and all the other places too.

Time marched on, songs kept coming week after week.

Until, before I knew it I was getting ready to write my year anniversary song!

I did a busking style set to celebrate my achievement, and here it is for you

It'a been a wild and crazy fun year of music making, in addition to the 52 songs of the music weeklies challenge, Nick and I worked with Monochrome Motif records on 'Poseidon's Realm', and teamed up with Andrew Hartshorn and Al Warren to form the supergroup Hartshorn, Jackson, Jackson and Warren. 

Our debut album came out in August 2023. Go buy it.

2023 has been so musical it's close to being labelled on Broadway! with still more to come before the year is done. I am stepping back from doing a song a week now, to focus on the other projects that we have going on with Cosmic Bos. There are still 3 episodes of the Monthly Music Challenge year 1 to go, and then we have the end of year celebration to plan (which Spoiler Alert! We are already planning)

Thanks so much for spending time with us, you da best!

Peace and infinite love

Andy from Cosmic Bos