“Why Write a Song?”: An Essay by Nick Perloff-Giles of Wingtip - Atwood Magazine

      Throughout the year, Atwood Magazine invites music industry professionals to contribute a series of essays exploring themes such as art, identity, culture, and inclusion.

      Today, Nick Perloff-Giles of Wingtip shares his complex journey through the changing digital music landscape — from remix culture to Spotify playlists to TikTok trends — ultimately reinforcing songwriting as a personal expression of hope and artistic validation in a chaotic, algorithm-driven industry. Since its introduction in 2017, Wingtip has garnered hundreds of millions of streams and collaborated with notable artists like Adam Lambert, Lauv, and Céline Dion. Nick Perloff-Giles, a San Francisco native who is a singer, songwriter, producer, and DJ, has created a unique niche with his blend of nostalgic soft rock, vibrant pop, and cinematic electronic elements. He recently announced that his eagerly awaited second album, ‘Luckyman,’ will be released on October 17th, 2025, through Nettwerk Music Group. This announcement coincides with the launch of the album’s thrilling lead single, “Bloodstream” — a bold pop-rock anthem that captures the exhilarating rush of infatuation. With ‘Luckyman,’ Wingtip aims to further blur genre boundaries and expand sonic limits, hinting at an exciting future.

      “I’ve been sharing my work as Wingtip for quite some time now,” Perloff-Giles notes. “The sound has clearly evolved. At the same time, the past decade has been one of personal growth and transformation for me. With ‘Luckyman,’ I’m reflecting on how everyone around me navigates various phases of their lives. One advantage of aging and gaining wisdom is a greater appreciation for the present moment — and I know I've definitely experienced that.”

      ‘Luckyman’ was created during an immersive four-day retreat in the secluded Malibu mountains, where Wingtip collaborated closely with Theo Kandel and Jack Kleinick. By eliminating digital distractions, the trio recorded the album live, utilizing a wide array of instruments, including saxophone, pedal steel guitar, banjo, strings, and more. The outcome is a richly textured and emotionally resonant album that fuses vintage warmth with contemporary vibrancy. With ‘Luckyman,’ Wingtip confidently establishes himself as an artist of exceptional vision and emotional depth.

      •• ••

      by Nick Perloff-Giles

      In 2015, I found myself parked outside a Starbucks in Santa Monica, idly munching on a cold brew’s plastic straw while waiting for a prescription to be filled, on the day my song topped the Hype Machine charts. I checked my phone and the reaction was instant; I pumped my fist in excitement before driving home to tell my grandmother that I was popular on a site she’d never heard of.

      I've been a 'professional' musician for about ten years, depending on how you define it. Perhaps longer, as I was DJing fraternity parties in Arkansas in 2013, but the money I made didn’t cover my bills. Despite nearly a decade of making music intended to pay for my groceries, I now look at the current music landscape, searching for clues about the paths to success, and I'm utterly baffled. I'm not sure anyone has a clear understanding either.

      I began my career by making remixes on SoundCloud. I launched the ‘Wingtip’ project after my previous alias floundered due to several missteps — including a bizarre photoshoot in NYC’s Chinatown where I spoke about my deep connections to a city I had moved to just two years before. But initially, the path for a kid making beats in a dorm room seemed simple: take the components of a popular song, create a remix, share it with every blogger you could contact, hope they'd post it, and then rinse and repeat.

      It was a flawed system, leading to perhaps a thousand excess remixes of the Chainsmokers, but it worked. If you had talent, vision, and sound, you could build a following with these remixes and covers, get noticed on blogs, request follows on Facebook, and eventually release an original track a year or two later. At least that was my experience, and it was effective! A year after I dropped my first song, a remix of Janet Jackson, I had a manager and a lineup of shows. Then Spotify emerged as the next phase in the music journey.

      I was added to a Spotify playlist without realizing it for about three months. My manager mentioned it, but at the time (2015), Spotify still felt like a quirky corporate newcomer. I didn’t think much of it — it felt akin to being invited to a party that was marketed in a confusing manner, where many were invited but only a few attended.

      A few months later, my manager informed me that my first original song, “Rewind,” had made it onto a Spotify playlist and was performing well! I still didn’t grasp the significance, but when he excitedly suggested it might reach a million streams within three months,