You can fool SOME of the people SOME of the time. Yes, there is a large amount of people who will buy whatever they hear on the radio or see on TV. "It's on the radio; it MUST be good! What do I know if I think it stinks? Maybe I should give it a few more listens until I start to deny my own discernment?"
With ENOUGH money behind it you can make a great song or a crap song a hit. The great song will last and the crap song won't but both will be hits. So what is a hit? I had this conversation with Paul Atkinson and Bruce Lundvall back in 1980 when I was with Columbia records. They wanted our band to include a couple of songs on our 2nd album that were already proven hits in the past. We wanted to do our own songs instead. They said they weren't sure that our songs would be hits. I said "what do you mean by hit?".
Their definition was something that was already a charted hit. Well you couldn't argue with that! But there is a difference between a "Hit" and "Hit Material". You can have a great song with great production and only have 'Hit Material'. You need MONEY and PROMOTION to MAKE it a hit!
Columbia was the one with the money and the power and they were gonna back whatever they thought would be a hit. And by their own definition (above) our song could not be one because it wasn't one ALREADY! (Is this making any sense?).
So I said to them "So since you don't see our song as the hit, you won't back it and you will be proven right... it WON'T be a hit! Not without the backing! And we'll never know if it would've/could've been a hit.
I happen to be one who believes that you CAN make many, many people buy music through mass marketing. I'm not saying everybody, or even most people. But certainly many! I don't think many people actually KNOW what they like. There.. I've said it. So kill me!
