Website founder and creative Pawel Tarkowski recently launched the business platform Blogelist.com, and collaborated with PremiumLyrics to help bring artists the very best opportunities. We caught an interview with Pawel, to find out more about the new endeavour, and his plans moving forward. Here’s the conversation in full.
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Hi Pawel – excited to interview you, thanks for your time! To introduce things, can you tell us about Blogelist and how your passion led you to creating it?
Hi! Early in my career, I created a technical webpage and later a technical blog. Technology was my main passion and is now my work, but I have other passions as well, like trains. There was a time when I documented and discussed how Katowice changed during my studies and work there. About five years ago, I missed having my own blog/page, and I started thinking about creating something that could be the center of my content and interests that I could develop further.
As I started learning piano last year, it was time to include new topics within my portal. I began lessons for two reasons: to surprise my father on his 60th birthday and to see if this was something for me. Both milestones were successful, and with a lot of help from my teacher, I started thinking about the next step. After many iterations during lessons and practice at home, I figured out the concept for a “FINAL” concert, which is a summary of the progress made during the year, filled with storytelling.
How did you connect with PremiumLyrics and what does this new music hub represent?
Finding PremiumLyrics was lucky timing. I had planned music content mostly based on my plans for the next Final Concert, which I intended to make more public this time. As a creator, you have two possibilities online: be an expert in a topic, or show your journey to achieve a goal. I prefer the second approach. For me, the final concert shows and summarizes my music adventure.
I also have some investing interests, and from time to time I look for other projects to buy. They need to fit my web portfolio and provide value to visitors. That’s when I discovered PremiumLyrics in one of these sessions.
What I’ve learned is that I gain a lot from such acquisitions by seeing how others work. Dr. Krauss, who founded PremiumLyrics.com, had very interesting ideas and created this project in a fascinating way. I’m learning a lot from his vision for the portal, and I’d like to take it to the next step.
From my perspective, the ideas for the Final Concert are still in progress. I’ve already encountered the first challenges—the perfect venue is closing, so even though the event will take place next year, I need to search for a different location now.
I have lots of ideas for the event in my notes, and many people need to buy into my vision. I need to work hard to realize as much as possible from my list.
You’ve got a Hybrid Event coming up – what can you tell us about that, and how can people get involved?
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make this event as attractive as possible for a global audience, so the main event will be mostly on-site/local. However, I’m thinking about a live transmission, and I definitely want to have a recording.
Because of the PremiumLyrics acquisition, I’m also thinking about online/virtual side events that could be attractive to a global audience. For sure, I’d like to include the certificates for “the best…” mentioned in the “Season Opener.” The only risk I see is that I’d like to add a minimum number of qualified artists. If we only have one song released based on text bought on our site, I don’t think it makes sense to give a prize for “The Best…”
If you’d like to get involved, join our community, write lyrics, and try to release your song—even as an amateur on YouTube. I’m also just starting in many topics and doing things for the first time. Let’s have ambitious goals together and celebrate them at the final event.
Can you tell us more about the music segments ate Blogelist.com, and how this can benefit artists and / or music fans?
I’d like to have a mix of blog posts, case studies, and interviews, especially with people who can really help achieve goals. Given my level of knowledge and the difficulty of competing with bigger companies, I think we’ll focus on independent artists and people who dream about a music career. I hope that in 1-2 years we’ll have truly successful people in our community who can be good examples for aspiring artists.
Since the root of my music content comes from a local private music school (before I acquired PremiumLyrics.com), an ambitious goal for me would be to somehow connect the global community with the local community and have positive examples of experience transfer in both directions.
What is your role creatively as founder of this project, and how do you write the lyrics on offer?
PremiumLyrics? The founder of the project was Dr. Christian Krauss—I bought this project from him. PremiumLyrics is a marketplace. Lyrics come from lyricists; my work is to approve artists as lyricists and later approve each set of lyrics.
How do you make sure to bring soul and depth to the lyrics on offer, and what are your thoughts on AI generated lyrics – you’ve promised no robots, how important is this human aspect and promise as you continue to build?
I started operational work last month, and it seems that “soul and depth” has been less of a problem so far. Sometimes I review strange requests, and I’m not sure if the requester knows they’ll only earn something if someone buys their lyrics.
Sometimes I get the feeling that requesters think they’ll receive money based on how many people “view” their lyrics. I’d like to gather feedback and create a guide for newcomers.
I think fully AI-generated lyrics are not a good idea, but smart use of AI as an assistant might be beneficial. If I have contact with someone who keeps the human touch and creativity while working smartly with AI as an assistant—not as a job replacement—I think it could be a good idea to follow up with an essay on our blog.
You currently work with over 300 artists, what is your ambition moving forward, and how will you make the most out of this venture in terms of helping artists and benefiting financially?
This is something I have on my mind. The 300 artists represent the number of “lyricists” in our database, but as I mentioned, PremiumLyrics.com is a marketplace. That means we need both sides of the transaction: lyricists and other artists who need lyrics to release a song.
Currently, when someone enters our page and buys lyrics, everything comes from our common experience, and later it’s mainly a financial transaction for both sides. My job is to extend this experience so that both lyricists and singers have value even after the lyrics are sold. My first idea after joining PremiumLyrics was to move the final concert concept under the “Blogelist x PremiumLyrics” umbrella. I’m thinking about next steps—maybe in the long run we can extend the experience until the song is finally released?
Feedback from the community will be very important: what they really need.
For me personally, it’s important that I’ll be using our tools and learning from old materials in the blog that are new to me, just like everyone else.
What specifically are the services you offer?
We have two segments. PremiumLyrics joined my portfolio on September 1st, and Blogelist is the umbrella for all my projects. PremiumLyrics is a marketplace for lyrics, and Blogelist is mainly content/blogs. I had a final concert concept where the first edition was private, but I decided to move it to Blogelist.
I’m working on an application for lyricists—you had the opportunity to look at a demo in the Season Opener. I hope I’ll be able to release the first version this year (only web and Apple ecosystem at the beginning). I’m not rushing; I want to make sure it’s working and is really useful for lyricists.
One additional tool I created is “MusicResourceBase,” a free database of free and open-source resources for musicians. This is the first version, and I would also like to include more tools there.
What’s your biggest success story so far?
Since I joined PremiumLyrics last month and my head is full of ideas, I hope we’re just before the biggest success story. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be interviewing some artists who started with us, and they’ll talk with you about their biggest success story!
Do you work with artists of all genres?
PremiumLyrics.com is open to artists of all genres. The only potential issue I see is that I can’t understand all genres at the same level. Even a childhood friend of mine makes music that I don’t understand. I support him, always wait for premieres, and watch them, but I don’t feel it the way I do other genres.
I think a good idea might be to create “rooms” in the community where all kinds of genres can have their own space to discuss and exchange knowledge.
What’s the main thing you’d like musicians to know about PremiumLyrics and Blogelist?
Even though PremiumLyrics has been online since 2017 and Blogelist since 2021, we’re currently changing and need time to implement ideas. We need to gather more experience in some areas and test new ideas. It won’t be perfect, but I hope it will keep improving.
I’d like the whole process to be inspiring for people dreaming about their career.
