Hit songs production - surprising discoveries

[Dagge]

While listening dozens of hit songs stems I have been surprised how those arrangement instruments sound ordinary when listened isolated. I have read somewhere the same from a man that worked at Cheiron (but turned doctor). He was also surprised how ordinary those sounds and parts were when soloed.

On many hits, it is really a bunch of unimpressive licks that define production. All that fame about 'special' sounds they have used sounds somehow hyped. If we add the known theory that Cheironers constructed melodies like Lego blocks (take A part from one demo, try to add pre-chorus from another demo, put chorus from a third demo), it seems that writing hits has more to do with construction skills than with art, natural musicality, and inspiration.

[bugmenot]

Define art, natural musicality, and inspiration, please.

[Dagge]

Art and natural musicality are when you try to compose out of your head based on inspiration and your imagination. I am (subjectively) quite sure it is almost impossible to be inspired on the regular basis. There are countless one-hit wonders, while there are only a few long-term successful hit composers. Songs made by one-hit wonders are not worse than those made by long-term successful composers. So I don't think hit composers are so much more talented and inspired than others. I think they just found a method to avoid awaiting artistic inspiration to strike, and they also avoid being dependent on the variable quality of that muse.

I also think they use other people's music for inspiration (if that can be considered inspiration at all), combine learned proven rules, and invest time and effort without worrying much about which song will turn out to be successful and which will simply not fit. Probability law will do the rest. That's how both Stock Aitken Waterman and exCheironers worked to my knowledge, and some others were fair enough to admit it. A person that worked at SAW studio said to me that all staff had to go out when Mike Stock and Matt Aitken composed new songs, but all staff knew that those two will listen for the records and try to find interesting parts.

The same situation was in Cheiron when guys stayed at night trying to figure out what and how Denniz and Max have done things. After all their music was a quite similar sounding, I don't think so many persons with so different roots can have the same artistic profile and muse. And there were stories of people that knew people that knew...Cheironers sought inspiration from the sympho rock hits of the '80s.

What such composers need more than elusive artistic qualities is to be smart enough to use the above wisely, and to have a great work ethic in order to work hard until they find something useful. And then repeat endlessly, which Max excelled at.

Those are my subjective observations. Any thought that goes in the opposite direction is welcomed.

[bugmenot]

Well, my subjective observation is that a success in art is based on too many external factors that can't be influenced, calculated or predicted by an author, a performer, a manager or a record label.

To draw any conclusions from such FEW successful long-running authors is impossible from the scientific point of view. Just because they write in this way doesn't prove it can't be done in the completely other way.

I would recommend the book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by a physic Leonard Mlodinow. It has a lot about the "hits" in the show business.

[Dagge]

...
I would recommend the book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by a physic Leonard Mlodinow. It has a lot about the "hits" in the show business.

Regarding this rule in the show business, if you go to YouTube Music, there are a ton of top chart songs all over the world that follow all the same rules. The truth is they follow rules quite badly (or aren't very talented), but it landed their songs on the charts, for the lack of better music or whatever. Max at least does it with dignity and skill.

Re randomness in this business, there was a book by the ex-president of US ASCAP, where he nailed it very well. In short good 'expensive' melody almost ensures a hit potential, together with a strong rhythmic arrangement. His theories are as far from the artistic approach as they could be, and random isn't the word he uses. In conclusion, Max et gang beat others because they are more skilled, more disciplined, and have higher standards. It is not random, they know what they are doing and they repeat it with quite a successful rate. It has nothing to do with art, which isn't a bad thing. After all, it's the business of constructing popular songs. A good shoemaker will build blue shoes that the public demands, instead of red ones that he/she personally likes. Max and exCheironers are good shoemakers, very good ones indeed.

[j.fco.morales]

You know, being myself a self taugh songwriter and producer, it's all about catching the feeling.

It's all done. You talk, you write lyrics and melodies. You build sounds around it. You share it and hope someone connects with the message.
We all use the same tools, same softwares, same samples, listen to the same music, etc.

It's all about the feeling you get and how you make that feeling work.