Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Hits are made by playing and singing....well.. "hit" stuff!!!

kevinc · 17th May 2004

Nice one Bev.

The one thing I`m not to sure about is how you would go about tailoring a band to sound more commercial.

That can be looked at in a couple ways.

One way is simply taking a rough song and make it a lot better by refining certain apsects which makes it more appealing. That`s good.

The other way that`s not as good is to take a set of songs by a band and basically try to make them fit the current mold for what`s making hit`s on the radio. A lot of that sounds like it`s done in production to me and doesn`t reflect what a band could sound like if a different approach was taken.

They end up sounding like they`re copying other bands instead of doing their own thing. Obviousley we`ve all seen people get famous that way but I don`t think it`s a good thing for music overall.

Record companies should be more interested in finding bands that break the mold instead of finding more and more bands that they can fit nicely inside the mold.

Nirvana didn`t have much to do with the huge success they had. They were just good songwriters and as I said before there were hundreds of bands around playing similar music at that time.

The record companies broke the mold with Nirvana than all of a sudden they had a new mold and started signing anything that they could fit into that.

The same goes with the current trend for soft, dark, moody, female singers with a slower James Brown Beat (how the **** did that get in there) and moody background musicians.

I actually dig a lot of those tunes but theres about 30 different artists playing shit like that on the radio right now and I honestly can`t tell them apart.

The songs are good but the "formula" sucks because it`s been done 5000 times allready and shows no sign of slowing down until people decide they hate that music.

As I said before the reason these bands sound like this is not because they are influenced by certain music. You can`t write music without influence.

It`s the production that`s making everything sound alike and that`s something that could change for the better I think.

17th May 2004	#28
kevinc Lives for gear Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Beantown Posts: 2,462	Nice one Bev. The one thing I`m not to sure about is how you would go about tailoring a band to sound more commercial. That can be looked at in a couple ways. One way is simply taking a rough song and make it a lot better by refining certain apsects which makes it more appealing. That`s good. The other way that`s not as good is to take a set of songs by a band and basically try to make them fit the current mold for what`s making hit`s on the radio. A lot of that sounds like it`s done in production to me and doesn`t reflect what a band could sound like if a different approach was taken. They end up sounding like they`re copying other bands instead of doing their own thing. Obviousley we`ve all seen people get famous that way but I don`t think it`s a good thing for music overall. Record companies should be more interested in finding bands that break the mold instead of finding more and more bands that they can fit nicely inside the mold. Nirvana didn`t have much to do with the huge success they had. They were just good songwriters and as I said before there were hundreds of bands around playing similar music at that time. The record companies broke the mold with Nirvana than all of a sudden they had a new mold and started signing anything that they could fit into that. The same goes with the current trend for soft, dark, moody, female singers with a slower James Brown Beat (how the **** did that get in there) and moody background musicians. I actually dig a lot of those tunes but theres about 30 different artists playing shit like that on the radio right now and I honestly can`t tell them apart. The songs are good but the "formula" sucks because it`s been done 5000 times allready and shows no sign of slowing down until people decide they hate that music. As I said before the reason these bands sound like this is not because they are influenced by certain music. You can`t write music without influence. It`s the production that`s making everything sound alike and that`s something that could change for the better I think. __________________ - Kev