Last February, Grammy Award-winning Pharrell Williams urged songwriters to buck the trend toward sad-sounding songs by writing more tracks designed to make people feel happy.
“I believe there’s a need to lift people up emotionally,” Pharrell said. “There’s something to be said for making music that is jovial. Songs for people who need a break. Songs to bring joy.”
Now, British singer-songwriter Rita Ora is following Pharrell’s lead by releasing a new single, ‘I Will Never Let You Down’, which has been described as “the ultimate feel good love song”.
Written and produced by Calvin Harris, the single will be released on 11 May 2014.
“I love the fact this is such an uplifting love song,” says Rita. “I’m in a very good place and I really wanted people to see how I felt and how I want other people to feel when they listen to it … happy!”
‘I Will Never Let You Down’ is the first single from Rita’s forthcoming second album. Her platinum debut album, Ora, debuted at number one in the UK in 2012 and spawned the Number One singles: ‘R.I.P.’ and ‘How We Do (Party)’.
And here’s Rita lifting our spirits with the video for ‘I Will Never Let You Down’ …
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![“HOW [NOT] TO WRITE A HIT SONG! - 101 COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID IF YOU WANT SONGWRITING SUCCESS” is available from Amazon as a paperback and also as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple's iTunes Store, and Barnes & Noble's Nook store](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=100&h=150)
“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Back in January, Sam Smith—the hotly tipped British soul singer-songwriter—urged songwriters to be “a voice for lonely people“. He pointed to what he sees as a gap in the music market for songs about “unrequited love”, instead of more common themes for love songs such as falling in love or breaking up.
Sam said he intended to focus on this kind of love song on his debut album, In The Lonely Hour, which is due to be released in May.
“I don’t think unrequited love is spoken about enough in music,” said Sam who came top of the BBC’s Sound Of 2014 list and won the 2014 BRIT Critics’ Choice Award. “I’ve been through unrequited love myself and I found it hard to find songs that were about that.”
Now, Sam is emphasizing his point by releasing a new single, titled ‘Stay With Me’, which is an epic ballad of unrequited love, designed to tug at listeners’ heartstrings.
Released on May 18, the new single is seen as the perfect pre-cursor to the release of his album, In The Lonely Hour, which will feature collaborations with Fraser T Smith, Two Inch Punch, Eg White, Disclosure, Zane Lowe, Tourist, and Sam’s long-time writing partner Jimmy Napes.
Here’s the official video for ‘Stay With Me’ …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK).
Dedicated songwriters who craft intelligent, perceptive songs—but are frustrated by record companies’ growing emphasis on “hit today-gone tomorrow” throwaway pop music—have found a new ally in 87-year-old Tony Bennett.
The 17-time Grammy-winning jazz singer has always nurtured the art of literate songwriting, but is dismayed by the state of popular music today.
Bennett has been making records since 1951 and has recorded songs by some of the greatest songwriters of all time. He has built a 60-year career on classic songs from the Great American Songbook—he calls them “the silver lining songs”—but he is dismissive of the quality of many of today’s melodies and lyrics.
“The songs that are written today, most of them are terrible,” Bennett recently told BBC Radio 4. “It’s a very bad period, musically, throughout the world for popular music.”
But Bennett doesn’t think it is necessarily the artists and producers who are at fault for not cutting better-quality songs. He blames money-hungry labels for setting much lower standards instead of backing songs that will stand the test of time. He believes record company bosses have become obsessed with making sure their releases generate money quickly.
The legendary singer also accuses record labels of ‘dumbing down’ by refusing to release music that will engage listeners on an intellectual level.
“They think the public is ignorant, so their attitude is, ‘Don’t give them anything intelligent, because it won’t sell’,” said Bennett.
He added: “I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that’s rather silly. They’re missing out on thousands of people that would love to buy records but they don’t buy them because they don’t have a lasting quality.”
And here’s Tony Bennett and the late Amy Winehouse showing just what he means by songs that can stand the test of time. ‘Body and Soul’ was written 74 years ago, with music by Johnny Green and lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton.
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Unless you’re collaborating with other writers, or writing for your own band, songwriting can be a solitary endeavor. It requires a lot of time alone. You’re left in your writing room day after day, night after day, fighting the twin demons of indecision and procrastination.
That’s why it can be very useful to have a songwriting buddy, says Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Lorde.
“If you are writing on your own, have someone whose opinion you really trust and who cares about what you’re doing and isn’t gonna judge you in a weird way,” the 17-year-old New Zealander recently told Rookiemag.com. “Send them stuff and ask them what they think.”
Lorde added: “I started out writing music with Joel [New Zealand musician, producer and songwriter Joel Little], who is still my co-writer. I never showed my music to anyone else … but if I hadn’t had him as a sounding board, it would’ve been difficult.”
As Lorde found with Joel Little, 31, your buddy can be a musician friend or a fellow songwriter you respect – someone who will give you a chance to think out loud and be a sounding board for your new ideas.
Alternatively, your songwriting buddy could be a special person that you trust and who will always give you an honest opinion. It could be your girlfriend, boyfriend, best friend, husband or wife – someone you can play a new song to without feeling embarrassed or self-conscious.
Ideally, though, your buddy should be someone who understands songwriting and whose encouragement, experience and insight will help you gain momentum and confidence in your own writing.
“As a young songwriter, I would put a lot of pressure on myself,” Lorde told Rookiemag.com. “I’d write a line and then aggressively backspace … I would just censor myself so heavily. I felt like there wasn’t room for me to write a bad song or write something that didn’t necessarily fit with my vibe or whatever.”
Many writers will admit that they’re often not the best judge of their own material, regardless of their level of experience or success. It is easy to get so close to a song that you can’t tell if it is truly finished or still has some weaknesses.
That’s why a songwriting buddy can provide unbiased feedback at the crucial re-writing stage – before you start spending time and money on making a demo. He or she can give you valuable criticism (or praise) from an outside perspective.
“At the same time though, try not to get too hung up on what other people think,” said Lorde. “At the end of the day, if you think something’s cool and everyone else thinks it sucks then you’ve still made something which you’re proud of.”
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
The IFPI – the worldwide music industry trade body – has launched an innovative video designed to highlight the huge and constant impact that hit songs have had on people’s lives over the past 100 years.
Titled Music Remains, the 90-second video is a race through time filmed at London’s famous Abbey Road studios. It features British rapper MC Pepstar performing lyrics about what recorded music means to him over a soundtrack that moves through iconic music tracks of the last 100 years.
Produced by music industry creative director Steve Milbourne and film director Martin Stirling of Unit 9 Films, the video features an amazing ‘Recorded Music Rube Goldberg Machine’ (remember those clever Honda TV adverts?).
Filmed as a compelling one-shot video, the unique machine shows recorded music technologies changing over the decades. It uses an ingenious chain reaction which cascades through the generations, beginning with a gramophone and ending with an iPad.
Here’s the Music Remains video, followed by a ‘behind the scenes’ video which looks at how the amazing Rube Goldberg Machine was created …
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
When your mother is a famous poet in your home country of New Zealand, it’s not surprising that 17-year-old Lorde (real name Ella Yelich-O’Connor) started out writing stories at a very early age. And she firmly believes it’s her background in writing short fiction that has made her the successful singer-songwriter that she is today.
“I’ve never written poetry, but I’ve written short fiction for a long time, and that’s the thing that I read pretty much exclusively,” Grammy award winner Lorde recently explained to Vogue magazine.
“Short fiction appeals to me because of the necessity of conciseness—having to make something big and get it into a small space,” she said. “That’s what writing songs is about, but times 20. I like people who can build something great and huge with a very limited amount of time or space. It’s difficult to do.”
As Neil Diamond once observed: “Songs are life in 80 words or less.”
Lorde—whose debut album Pure Heroine gained her four Grammy nominations—started writing her own songs as a 13-year-old when she was first signed to Universal Music. She realized at an early age that there are things you can do in a song that you can’t do in a short story.
“With songs, you listen to the lyrics and you know that not all the words and not all the details and not all the exposition have been included—you kind of expect to take leaps of faith, ” she told Rookie magazine. “One sentence can illustrate an entire experience or concept in a song, which I think is really cool.
“Whereas three or four years ago I would write a passage and then I would kind of have to fight to wrench it into the form of a song. Now when I have an idea [for a short story] and I write it,” she said, “it comes out naturally in the form of a song.”
In most hit songs, each verse tends to move the song’s storyline forward like a new chapter in a book, introducing fresh information and images that captivate the listener. The lyrics in each verse should be mostly descriptive (describing people, places and events).
The chorus, meanwhile, is meant to really drive home the whole point of the song—for example, by frequently repeating the title line like a catchphrase. The chorus lyrics should be mainly emotional (delivering a strong emotional reaction to what has just been described in the verse).
As Sting once remarked: “You’ve got to tell the story in two verses, a chorus and a coda and that takes some skill.”
Lorde’s chart-topping debut single ‘Royals’ won her two Grammy Awards for ‘Song of the Year’ and ‘Best Pop Solo Performance’:
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“How [Not] to Write Songs in the Streaming Age – 40 Mistakes to Avoid If You Want to Get More Streams” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, a UK paperback, a Canada paperback, an Australia paperback, and across Europe.
It is also available as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle store in the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, and across Europe—as well as Apple Books, Barnes & Noble and Rakuten’s KoboBooks.
Read a FREE SAMPLE of the book HERE (USA)…HERE (UK)… HERE (CANADA)… and HERE (AUSTRALIA).
“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“Through the connectivity of the internet, people are becoming so desensitized to all the tragedies and travesties [in the world], that we need to take audiences to a lighter place,” Grammy Award-winning Pharrell Williams told Collider.com in a recent interview.
“There’s a need to lift people up emotionally,” said Williams whose chart-topping song ‘Happy’ is featured in the animated comedy movie Despicable Me 2 and has been nominated for an Oscar. Williams will perform the song at this year’s 86th Academy Awards on Sunday 2 March 2014.
Williams added: “There’s something to be said for making music that is jovial. Songs for people who need a break. Songs to bring joy.”
By advocating a greater focus on ‘happy’ songs, Pharrell Williams is actually going against the tide of the last five decades.
In 2012, an academic study revealed that pop music has grown progressively more sad-sounding and emotionally ambiguous since the 1960s. The number of minor chord hits has doubled since 1965, the study found, and fewer hit songs are now being written in major chords.
Music psychologist Professor E Glenn Schellenberg and sociologist Professor Christian von Scheve analysed the tempo (beats per minute) and mode (major or minor) of more than 1,000 American Top 40 songs that charted between 1965 and 2012. Their study found that in the second half of the 1960s, about 85% of songs that reached the top of the charts were written in a major mode, but by the second half of the 2000s that figure had fallen to only 43.5%.
“Just as the lyrics of pop songs have become more self-referential and negative in recent decades, the music has also changed—it sounds sadder and emotionally more ambivalent,” Schellenberg and von Scheve stated in their study.
The researchers noted that unambiguously happy songs like ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’ sound “naive and slightly juvenile” to today’s ears. And whilst more recent songs in a similar style, such as Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’, can still enjoy huge commercial success, they’re usually seen as a guilty pleasure and savaged by critics.
Schellenberg and von Scheve suggested that emotional ambiguity in a song is a way for some acts to convey their seriousness and complexity.
But Pharrell Williams insists that songwriters and artists should not forget about the happier side of things. He recently told Stereogum.com: “This particular generation doesn’t think within the same boundaries as people did back in, say, the Nineties. They completely recognize their freedom to make any kind of music they want …
“I try to tap into that because I want to make people happy.”
And look, here’s Pharrell Williams trying to cheer us all up…
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Sam Smith, the hotly tipped British soul singer-songwriter, believes there is a gap in the market for songs about “unrequited love” instead of more common themes for love songs such as falling in love or breaking up.
Sam – who came top of the BBC’s ‘Sound Of 2014′ list and was nominated for the 2014 BRIT Critics’ Choice Award – recently told Emma Brown of Interview magazine: “I don’t think unrequited love is spoken about enough in music. I’ve been through it myself and I found it hard to find songs that were about that.”
He said he intends to focus on this kind of love song on his new album, In The Lonely Hour, which is due to be released in the spring.
“I’ve never been in love with someone who has loved me back,” he said. “So I wanted to write an album for people who have never been in love. I want to be a voice for lonely people.”
Sam explained that when he writes and records a song that lays out all of the raw emotion of everything he is going through, he often listens to the track at home when he’s feeling down. “And it somehow makes me feel better,” he said.
The great George Gershwin once described songwriting as “an emotional science” and there is actually a scientific reason why listening to sad songs can help to cheer us up.
According to a recent study by Japanese scientists, the reason we enjoy listening to sad music when we’ve had a negative experience is because it can actually evoke positive emotions in the brain.
In July 2013, researchers from Tokyo University of the Arts and the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan discovered that melancholy tunes can stimulate romantic emotions as well as sad ones.
“Sad music might even help to alleviate negative emotion if a person is suffering from an unpleasant feeling caused by real life events,” explained Ai Kawakami from Tokyo University of the Arts.
He said: “Emotion experienced by music has no direct danger or harm unlike the emotion experienced in everyday life. Therefore, we can even enjoy unpleasant emotion such as sadness, possibly because the latter does not pose an actual threat to our safety. This could help people to deal with their negative emotions in daily life.”
Sam Smith performs an acoustic version of his song ‘Not In That Way’, recorded at Abbey Road Studios:
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Because great song titles, themes and lyric lines can come from anything and everything around you, it’s important to make sure you grab them right away in case you forget them, warns British rapper Tinie Tempah.
‘My thing is to constantly take notes on my smartphone,” says Tinie whose debut single ‘Pass Out’ entered the UK Singles Chart at Number One in February 2010. He famously began his hip-hop career as a schoolboy, composing songs in class and telling teachers his lyrics were poetry.
“Most of my lyrics are inspired by my everyday life so I’m swimming in sources of inspiration,” he says. “Even when I’m out having fun with my friends, I’m always using my phone to make notes for new songs.”
He adds: “When I change country, when I’ve got a long and difficult day, when I spend a 100 per cent fun weekend, I’m still writing. I collect lyrics.”
It is also important to keep a note of these odds and ends in one place—such as on your phone—so that you always know where to find them. Coming back to them at a later date—and looking at them from a fresh perspective—can often result in a spark of inspiration that helps you finish the song. Sometimes the best songs just need to gestate a little in your subconscious before all the pieces fit together.
Tinie Tempah says he stores his lyrics until he finds a piece of music that he likes, then he tries to fit the right words to the beat. “When I hear a beat that speaks to me, I have a browse in my phone and piece it all together,” he explains. “It’s kind of like a construction game.”
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a paperback, or as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“It’s no use just singing about being famous, or rhyming ‘crazy’ with ‘baby’ a million times over,” Lily Allen recently told Q magazine. “I want to write about things that are relevant to other people. And I like to be frank whether it’s about sex or politics or feminism.”
Lily’s comments are especially pertinent to new songwriters. A common mistake among many aspiring writers is their use of over-elaborate imagery and ‘poetic’ lyrics in an attempt to show how clever and creative they can be. Far from being impressed, though, music publishers and A&R reps may view too much flowery language as a sign of inexperience.
Trying too hard to be ‘different’ and artistic can often result in lyrics that simply sound pretentious and self-indulgent. If your lyrics don’t come across as genuine, listeners may find it hard to connect with your song.
Lily Allen frequently achieves a personal connection by writing as if she’s having a one-on-one conversation with the listener, often making lines sound like they could be spoken naturally.
If a new song is likely to have any chance of success, it must be able to touch listeners on an emotional level and make them feel something.
That means a song needs to be about something that everyone is familiar with. And the lyrics should be honest, believable and heartfelt so that people can easily relate to them.
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“How [Not] To Write A Hit Song! – 101 Common Mistakes To Avoid If You Want Songwriting Success” is available from Amazon as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store, Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and from KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) and HERE (UK),
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 