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Originally Posted by scottromig My 2 cents......
I think that a "hit" also requires timing in the market place.
I have experienced this from many artist angles. In 1999 my band, Dexter Freebish, was an unsigned band in Austin Texas. We won the Grand Prize of the John Lennon songwriting contest for our song "Leaving Town." The song was recorded during a demo deal with MCA records and produced by a local producer named Dave Mcnair. The demo recording was done with 3 other songs over a 4 day period here in Austin. After winning song of the year we were signed by capitol records and went on to record our Debut Album "A Life of Saturdays." Most of the the album was co-produced with John Travis. But "Leaving Town" was co-produced by John Shanks.
For the Album version we did drums and vocals at Sunset Sounds with overdubs at Shanks' home studio. Tom Lord Algae mixed "Leaving Town" and a couple of other tracks with Chris Lord Algae and Jack Joseph Puig mixing the others on the album.
We spent around $500,000 on the album with another $300,000 on the video. Capitol spared no expense on the radio promotion or marketing. In the end "Leaving Town" was a moderate succes.
We made it to #10 @ AAA, #24 @ modern rock, and #33 at top 40. Moderate VH1 airplay and sold somewhere around 100,000 albums after touring our butts off for 15 months.
In 2000 you will recall that the airwaves were filled with the likes of Britney Spears, Nsync on the pop side and KORN, Limp Biscuit, etc on the rock side. There was not a whole lot of airplay being devoted to alternative/pop/rock.
We had a heck of a time getting any momentum at radio and in the end was shelved when a new label head came to capitol.
Now......maybe "Leaving Town" was a mediocre song OR maybe it had "hit potential." All I know is that the marketing $$$ were flying and yet in the marketplace we were unable to gain a strong foothold.
In the interest of furthering the dialogue I have created a myspace account and posted the demo version and Album version of "Leaving Town" for your listening enjoyment at http://www.myspace.com/motherofdestiny. please download as the streaming quality sucks.
Where are they now?
Capitol payed for us to record another album in 2003. We used Matthew Wilder as producer and worked with Mike Shipley as mixer.
After recording "Tripped into Divine" capitol dropped us because we still did not fit into the radio marketplace and they had no idea how to "market" us.
We ended up putting out the album independently and won another john lennon songwriting contest for the song "prozak" yet were unable to generate enough airplay to "pop"
Since then....the band has folded. I am currently writing/producing/playing alot of guitar, leading worship and waiting for the next "Big Break."
Regards,
scott romig |
I hear you...and I can definitely relate to this. I had a band back in the mid-eighties that was semi-successful and although we never landed a big label contract, there was a lot of interest. Then we broke up and I've been writing and publishing ever since. "Life after the Band"...
I got tired of the touring and traveling and I also got married soon after that, had kids and got a life. Once I got married and had kids, that became my life. I became a completely different person. But I loved music and writing and had to do something that didn't involve performing and traveling.
Forward to '06 and here I am. No matter what you do, you will never give up music and neither did I.
As far as hit songs, who the hell knows. I also had 3 top 10 songs in Broadjam. Actually, the ones that were not my favorites were the ones that people liked the most...go figure.
Like one poster said and I agree, you have to get your material to as many people as you can. Because this is a very subjective business and it all comes down to taste. One guy likes it and the other doesn't, so you have to obviously go with that guy and see what he can do for you.
I work with 3 different Publishers who are well conected. When one doesn't want to take something, I give it to the other one. Simple as that...The rest is in God's hands...
You have to write and sometimes produce the songs to the best of your ability and roll the dice. Sometimes you can get lucky...
