A singer saved his hook for the end of his song, and the song took off anyway

Singer Dylan Gossett was explaining why his breakout song “Coal” makes listeners wait. He does not sing “They say pressure makes diamonds” until the second time the pre-chorus comes around. Chris Williamson, the interviewer, asked why he made that choice.

Gossett said he disliked music promotion on TikTok at the time. It centered on brief snippets built for reposts and dance trends, he said, followed by months of collecting pre-saves. He believed the strength of “Coal” was in the writing, and he wanted the hook to work as a payoff for people who listened all the way through.

He said he was especially proud of the lines “I’ve seen heaven without dying, met the devil without trying,” and he wanted strong lines like that to hold attention before the hook arrived. He said he was not thinking about whether a shorter video would draw more viewers. He just liked the writing and the build.

The restraint extended to the release. Gossett said he posted “Coal” about four times when it came out, and seven to 10 times in total. That drove his team crazy, he said, because the advice he was given was to hold the song, build pre-saves, and post it 30 to 50 times. For a while, he said, he also refused to run ads.

He does not present that as a formula. He said if he had started with the chorus, or if he had recorded on a dark day instead of a sunny one, the video might never have taken off. In that case, he said, they would not be having the conversation. “I’m a big believer in that things happen for a reason,” Gossett said, and that belief gives him peace.

Chris Williamson asked, “do you think deliberately looking unpolished is now its own kind of marketing?” Williamson argued that authenticity is hard to survive once a team sees it has commercial value, because people start performing it. Gossett replied, “For sure.” He said he obsesses over not faking it and tries to hold to lines he set when he started.