Can you Produce a "Hit Song" ?

[killahjamez]

If we look at the music industry as a whole today we see the level of talent is dramatically lower than that of any other point in history. I believe this stems from a culmination of all the arguments set fourth before us on this forum. Record companies market shitty songs with great productions and great songs with shitty production and everything in between. when the mass latch on to a trend the record companies then run with it until its time for the next trend or fad...so you see anything can be disguised as a song much less a great one. the key is marketing and the preying on fickled minds.....Keep thinking

[dreamsongs]

I think we're mixing concepts...

Let's be clear, if a song sucks, it sucks, end of story...

It has been my experience in the last 20 years that some songs that maybe are not as strong melodically or lyrically can benefit from some production. And when I say production it encompasses everything. It could be a killer beat with some great riff or arrangements etc.

Jose mentions songs like "Yesterday" as wanting to just leave with guitar and vocals. I agree with that because that has become a classic now. But even that song has some production in it. The 4 part string section and counterpoint is part of the production. They could've left it with just Paul and the guitar but they didn't right ? That song was simple, yes, but also produced to some degree...

There are very few songs that stand up to just piano/guitar and vocal with nothing else. Think about it, very few. At the very least you're gona wanna put some strings or pad or light percussion at some point.

People have vey short attention spans when it comes to music. If you're going to present a song in that form, it better be f****g unbelievable from beginning to end.

Another point to remember is that certain songs from mega stars are accepted now with the acoustic/unplugged version and is a nice welcome to the overplayed versions of those hit songs.

I remember when I first heard the unplugged version of "Hotel California" from the "Hell freezes over CD" I thought "what the f**k ? But now I really like it for a bit of a change of pace from the original. But that is different, once you reach that status you can play your standards with a tin can and people will accept it...

The difference is like this - From a bad song to a good song it's like from the floor to the ceiling, but from good to great it's like from the ceiling to the moon...

Unfortunately, I think I only have one to the moon right now. The rest, I'm trying to produce the shit out of'em...

[djwayne]

Here's one that stands up, Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee." The acoustic version off her "Essential" cd, will make you cry.......seriously, when dj'ing I'd play that and people would literally cry.....it's beautiful. Just Janis and a guitar.

[lefthando]

There is more to a hit then a song.

There is more to a hit then production.

There is more to a hit then marketing.

Much of the appeal of pop music comes from the song, and much comes from the production.

When you talk about old songs or old styles being 'repackaged' it means being re-recorded with modern production and marketed to a different audience. The song is just as good now as it was then, otherwise a different one would've been chosen.

[dreamsongs]

I wish we could hear better lyrics and melodies then we wouldn't have to worry about anything else...

[Ruphus]

Originally Posted by djwayne

Here's one that stands up, Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee." The acoustic version off her "Essential" cd, will make you cry.......seriously, when dj'ing I'd play that and people would literally cry.....it's beautiful. Just Janis and a guitar.

( In that category try Alan Price´s "Ramona", or the "Concerto de Aranuez" by Juan Martin. They kill and you just don´t know how they do, but they will. Just besides.)

Ruphus

[bsteeve@ozemail]

I guess you can write music with marketing in mind, to fit a particular market, but at the end of the day, the only way to know if your stuff is a hit or not is to get it out there and see what happens. Sometimes great songs become hits and sometime shit happens. So many different reason for that....People have different taste... What taste shit to you might test good to an ANR manager who will make sure he/she'll find people of his/her kind that will like it as well. So Yes I believe some shit songs are consider hits by the masses. Art is for the artist and the people with integrity in their taste... and the rest is money making machine... nothing to do with music unfortunatly.

[djwayne]

The whole "hit" thing boggles my mind, after my experiences with the charts on Soundclick. Songs I wrote that I though would do good didn't and songs I wasn't too sure about did very well, way beyond any expectations I had. I never in a million years thought I'd have a #1 song in the Ensembles category of Classical music....that was a total shock and surprise to me. I wasn't even trying....It took me about 15 minutes to record the song and, poof, it shot up the charts like a rocket.

It's very difficult to predict what other people will like or not like. So what ya gotta do, is do the best you can, get it out there, and hope for the best, because you never know what the future will bring.

[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

[natpub]

sure, as long as i can modify the song at will, and use ringers :-)

[Bob Olhsson]

My understanding is that it has always been about being in the right place at the right time with the right song.

One thing the most successful folks seem to have in common is that they are remarkably prolific and have a huge backlog to draw on as they uncover opportunities.

[lordmiguel]

Originally Posted by scottromig

My 2 cents......

I think that a "hit" also requires timing in the market place.

thanks for the story. i really liked leaving town and prozak as far as market appeal. persoanlly i write stuff like that as well. i wish you the best and hope that you continue to write and make music, you never know where it could land. try to place some songs with artists that get arrested and pick fights in the media have horrid drug habits. spread your talent out, it can be a real crapshoot.

its going to be one of those mysteries why you didn't sell more, one of those things that baffles people who put money behind and produce such talent. look at the sales of magazines like us weekly and OK mag, look at who wins american idol, it can be a mind bender as to what people in this country like from year to year. image and appeal is an extremely tricky thing, the folks who sell things like cell phones and mp3 players are baffled by the same thing.

why do you believe they didn't release album 2 with prozak? was there a market test of just a change in label management?

keep rockin on man, its in your blood.

[dreamsongs]

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...

[dorisinger]

Originally Posted by dreamsongs

There are very few songs that stand up to just piano/guitar and vocal with nothing else. Think about it, very few. At the very least you're gona wanna put some strings or pad or light percussion at some point.

How about a whole album? Check out Jackson Browne's Solo Acoustic, Volume One. I can't wait for Vol. 2. This was the best album I heard all last year, only vocals and either solo guitar or keyboards. And most of these songs were new to me since I was never a big fan, so it's not like Hotel California or some other acoustic version of very familiar and popular songs. I can't imagine that extra layers of production would have improved these songs.

[dreamsongs]

Originally Posted by dorisinger

How about a whole album? Check out Jackson Browne's Solo Acoustic, Volume One. I can't wait for Vol. 2. This was the best album I heard all last year, only vocals and either solo guitar or keyboards. And most of these songs were new to me since I was never a big fan, so it's not like Hotel California or some other acoustic version of very familiar and popular songs. I can't imagine that extra layers of production would have improved these songs.

It's different with established artists with an established fanbase !

There are some artists who I love and respect that I would buy anything from them no matter what they did...

The question was more about selling or presenting new songs from a new artist or as a songwriter in today's market...

[u b k]

Originally Posted by Kestral

Yes, I go in there to record drums but when it comes to my own tracking, I like being in a smaller more comfortable space where I can chill out and do my thing vs. watching the clock running.

i recorded the drums for my last tune in a space that's smaller than many suburban closets. it had the 70's sound i was looking for, i felt completely safe, and i played my heart out on a great song.

best sounding tracks i'd ever recorded. i'm going back soon, the owner tells me he's putting carpeting on the walls thumbsup .


gregoire
del
ubk

[Jose Mrochek]

Originally Posted by dreamsongs

The question was more about selling or presenting new songs from a new artist or as a songwriter in today's market...

What sells a song is Melody, maybe lyirics for some people, and depending on the situation a good beat could make the day... But those are the two key elements. There is no ¨real answer¨ for your question. An awesome production will fool you on the first listen, or second.. but the third, and forth you will probably change the channel to a good melody. And that is why you have the flavor of the week phenomenon. They hit for a very short period of time due to ofcourse the great production and other elements. But the only true long lasting songs are the ones that have a good melody.

[Jazzy Alz]

I think a good song sounds good without production. All you need is a good singer, music and song, the rest is an optional extra. Some of my fav tunes are acoustic.

A crap song cannot be made into a great song with talented production. It will sound better but the music is the same, the same stupid chord changes and boring lifeless melodies.

A great singer sounds great even without a mic. I've heard people sit down with a $100 yamaha guitar and sm57 thru digi001 and it sounded amazing. What sounded amazing? The music and the musician. I still prefer the 70's sound to this date (I was not even around that time!).

Alot of todays engineers and producers like to feel that they are responsible for a great song but the credit belongs to the songwriters and musicians who created the song. Without them there is no music.

Like the good old chicken and the egg story, which came first.... The egg of course!

[Jose Mrochek]

Originally Posted by scottromig

My 2 cents......

I think that a "hit" also requires timing in the market place.

Cool story Scott, I wish you all the luck to have your next big break soon!!

I think Scott´s, myspace page where he shows the demo and produced version is a great example for Dreamsongs question. And to me, both are exactly the same song. I felt the same thing listening to either of the versions. The produced version did not move me a bit more or less than the demo one. It´s the same song.

About the timing, I don´t think it´s a major issue. As bands like Oasis or Coldplay would be doing pretty bad right now. Theres always a time and space for a good melody.

[celebritymusic]

Just my 2c worth...

To me a hit song is a hit because it successfully combines the emotion of the lyrics with the emotion of the music, delivering a message that most people feel strongly about. Then there are the extra emotions generated by image and marketing. And let's not forget artist talent.

I think today's music is more weighted towards the emotion of the music and image rather than the lyrics, music, talent and image - creating hits that give you an instant fix, but a fix that wears off pretty quick as there is no real emotional substance.

Yeah, production can take an average song to a higher level (nowadays), but if you have an average song, and a great song, and give them the same amount of production attention, I believe the great song will become the bigger hit. I mean, imagine if a song in the calibre of 'Welcome To the Jungle', 'Bad' from Michael Jackson, 'Under the Bridge' or any other of the massive great songs from 1-2 decades ago appeared in today's charts - it would massacre the competition.

I guess I look at songs as having a score out of 100, and that score can be made up off the various attributes of the song, production, talent, and marketing. I think that nowadays the threshold above which you have to score to have a hit song is considerably lower that what it used to be, making it easier to score a hit.

So what we have nowadays are a lot more instant hits, but hardly any that will go on to become classic hits.

[Jazzy Alz]

Where in Aus Gil?

[Tabnetic]

Originally Posted by cramseur

Just remember "The Macarena", "who let the dogs out", "I'm too sexy" and the countless other songs that were catchy but otherwise mediocre. The production...nothing special. but the marketing, ahh... those songs were everywhere! Coal into diamonds, indeed.

i think it's a pretty good confirmation of this argument that just reading those 3 song titles, i now have those crappy songs stuck in my head...

thanks a lot , cramseur

[Glenn Kuras]

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 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

Scott,
Damn I remember that song BIG TIME and honestly I really like the song A LOT! It seemed like at that time there was so much CRAP coming out that it was nice to have a song that I could listen all the way through without lossing my cookies.
Good luck in the future!!

Glenn

[HIGHENDONLY]

You want to make hits? Start thinking like the audience"consumer"

[joelpatterson]

Isn't there an inverse relationship between the gravity of the human pain someone feels and the quality of the song they write about it?

So-- put yourself through an incredibly painful experience!

[imaverysoundman]

hey guys...didn't read the whole thread,but it got me thinking about an irish charity album that came out a few years ago called "even better than the real thing"....basically an irish dj asked a few well known irish artists to do a live acoustic version of a "pop" song that they liked......all proceeds went to charity.
if you can, try to have a listen to it..a few of them friggin rocked and i really liked the idea of acoustic artists covering/re-recording pop songs (as it was usually the other way around at the time)....i know travis has done one and nick cave...(actually he's on the album doing "cant get you out of my head')
"sound of the underground" sounded amazing, i had never really listened to the lyrics before....great stuff.....
my point.....to me the "HIT" with all the cute bits o ass/production and snazzmajazz pre's etc was shit, but the unpolished turd version hit a chord with me.......fuuck

peace........

[chrisj]

Originally Posted by cramseur

"who let the dogs out"

Hey, nobody seems to notice that's a MONSTER HOOK.

It's so primitive it's almost not there, but that never hurts.

Are we thinking 'good' in songwriting has to mean 'complicated'? It's nice to have some sophistication, that will help keep it fresh over time. But you don't need it.

People will ALWAYS remember 'WHOLETDADOOOGSOUUUT!'. It's loud, it's mean, it's funny, it's in people's vocal ranges, the melody is uh not hard... :D

That's a hit song (or at least hook) right there. Not a fake any more than the 'You've Got To Hide Your Love Away' chorus is a fake.

[dreamsongs]

Wow, somebody resucitated this from a while back but always a current topic.

In all this time I still haven't changed my way of thinking. I'm still convinced that if you take a good song (not great but not crap either) you can turn it into a hit song. But it will take a great Producer because I've also seen many really good songs butchered and ruined by shitty Producers as well.

I'm not discovering anything new here since we hear it happen every day in the radio. I have lots of current Cd's of songs that are not that great stripped down but sound incredible after Production. I also must say that some songs sound better in their original state pre-production.

So to me the challenge is to take a pretty good song and try not to f*ck it up too bad. Sometimes I get it right and it sounds great and other times I've completely screwed it up and have to go back to the drawing board.

I've learned a lot listening to well produced albums and what makes what work. I'm less prone now to screwing any song up and much closer to putting out consistent good material.

So that's the real point of this thread. You can actually "produce" a hit song or at least a very good song if you line up all the ducks in a row and you know what you're doing....

[jahala]

My thoughts..

From what I've seen - a great production can get a "mediocre" song pitched to a big artist.. And if there is enough polish on the "turd", the song might be demoed by that big artist... And then - with the help of what that artist bring in terms of character and identity, label people might begin to hear hit potential in that "mediocre" song.... And before you know it, the "mediocre" song is a hit because of the artists strong identity and plenty of support from the label..

Regarding hits...
I think "hit songs" have their potential because they first of all have clear identities.. You can instantly tell hit songs apart from other songs, usually already at the intro.. It also helps if the average consumer can relate to it, or sing it, or hum it easily.. Seems most hit songs are in some way new, or unusual - either hook wise, lyrically or instrumentation/sound wise..

So these songs ultimately become hits because of the combination of some kind of memorable uniqueness in the song, identity of the artist and backing (marketing) from the label (and/or backing from a fan base)..

- J.

[dreamsongs]

Originally Posted by jahala

My thoughts..

From what I've seen - a great production can get a "mediocre" song pitched to a big artist.. And if there is enough polish on the "turd", the song might be demoed by that big artist... And then - with the help of what that artist bring in terms of character and identity, label people might begin to hear hit potential in that "mediocre" song.... And before you know it, the "mediocre" song is a hit because of the artists strong identity and plenty of support from the label..

Regarding hits...
I think "hit songs" have their potential because they first of all have clear identities.. You can instantly tell hit songs apart from other songs, usually already at the intro.. It also helps if the average consumer can relate to it, or sing it, or hum it easily.. Seems most hit songs are in some way new, or unusual - either hook wise, lyrically or instrumentation/sound wise..

So these songs ultimately become hits because of the combination of some kind of memorable uniqueness in the song, identity of the artist and backing (marketing) from the label (and/or backing from a fan base)..

- J.

Exactly...

And that's the producer's job, to get all those ingredients into that otherwise mediocre song and make something out of it.

I'd rather write great songs mind you, but I don't get upset when a "just OK" song of mine gets some action due to some creative production...