Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) – the UK-based organization which licenses recorded music that is broadcast or played in public – has released an official chart of the ‘Most Played Love Songs of the 21st Century’.
Based on PPL’s exclusive UK airplay data, the chart collates songs about love, longing and adoration played on UK radio stations between 2000 and 2015.
Snow Patrol’s 2006 Grammy-winning song ‘Chasing Cars’ tops the list, followed by ‘Rule the World’ by Take That (pictured) in second place and ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ by Kylie Minogue at number three. Power ballads, romantic film soundtracks and up-tempo dance tunes all feature on the list.
Here’s the full list of PPL’s ‘Most Played Love Songs of the 21st Century’:
1. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
2. Rule The World – Take That
3. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head – Kylie Minogue
4. Crazy In Love – Beyoncé Feat. Jay-Z
5. I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing – Aerosmith
6. Livin’ On A Prayer – Bon Jovi
7. I Wanna Dance With Somebody – Whitney Houston
8. Bleeding Love – Leona Lewis
9. Rather Be (Feat. Jess Glynne) – Clean Bandit
10. Just The Way You Are – Bruno Mars
11. There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) – Eurythmics
12. (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life – Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes
13. Haven’t Met You Yet – Michael Bublé
14. Drive By – Train
15. Someone Like You – Adele
16. Truly Madly Deeply – Savage Garden
17. Lady (Hear Me Tonight) – Modjo
18. Heaven Is A Place On Earth – Belinda Carlisle
19. Mirrors – Justin Timberlake
20. Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
21. Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s
22. Can’t Fight The Moonlight – Leann Rimes
23. Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love) – Spiller
24. She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5
25. You To Me Are Everything – The Real Thing
26. True – Spandau Ballet
27. You’re Beautiful – James Blunt
28. It Must Be Love – Madness
29. She Moves In Her Own Way – Kooks
30. Stars – Simply Red
31. I Say A Little Prayer – Aretha Franklin
32. Wherever You Will Go – The Calling
33. The Power Of Love – Huey Lewis And The News
34. If You’re Not The One – Daniel Bedingfield
35. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart – Elton John & Kiki Dee
36. Stand By Me – Ben E King
37. Uptown Girl – Billy Joel
38. With Or Without – You U2
39. We Found Love – Rihanna Feat. Calvin Harris
40. When You Say Nothing At All – Ronan Keating
41. Hero – Enrique Iglesias
42. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – Police
43. You Give Me Something – James Morrison
44. I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) – Aretha Franklin & George Michael
45. You Can’t Hurry Love – Phil Collins
46. Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
47. When You’re Gone – Bryan Adams
48. Life Is A Rollercoaster – Ronan Keating
49. Take My Breath Away – Berlin
50. Everlasting Love – Love Affair
51. Son Of A Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
52. Dreams – Gabrielle
53. Ain’t Nobody – Rufus & Chaka Khan
54. Never Too Much – Luther Vandross
55. Oh, Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison
56. She’s The One – Robbie Williams
57. If There’s Any Justice – Lemar
58. Thinking Out Loud – Ed Sheeran
59. Love Is All Around – Wet Wet Wet
60. Halo – Beyoncé
61. Eternal Flame – The Bangles
62. Up Where We Belong – Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes
63. Fill My Little World – The Feeling
64. Yellow – Coldplay
65. Lovely Day – Bill Withers
66. Dilemma – Nelly
67. Grenade – Bruno Mars
68. Thank You – Dido
69. Kiss From A Rose – Seal
70. I Wanna Be The Only One – Eternal Feat. Bebe Winans
71. Best Of My Love – The Emotions
72. Run To You – Bryan Adams
73. Lego House – Ed Sheeran.
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=121&h=182)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
An all-new app from Apple called Music Memos will allow songwriters to quickly capture, organize and develop musical ideas on their iPhone. At the same time, a major update to Apple’s GarageBand for iOS on iPhone or iPad has introduced several new features, including Live Loops.
Many musicians and songwriters already use the Voice Memos app on their iPhone to quickly record ideas. According to Apple, the new Music Memos app is inspired by Voice Memos and takes the functionality even further by adding musician-friendly features designed specifically for songwriting and developing musical ideas.
With Music Memos, says Apple, you can record any musical instrument through the iPhone’s built-in microphone in a high-quality, uncompressed format, then name, tag and rate it to start building a library of your ideas. The app can analyse rhythm and chords of acoustic guitar and piano recordings, and instantly add drums and a bass line to provide a virtual, customizable backing band that plays along to match the feel of your song.
Apple says Music Memos can even provide basic notation that displays the chords that were played. With iCloud, Music Memos will automatically be available across all of a songwriter’s Apple devices – so the memos can be opened in GarageBand or Logic Pro X to further develop new songs.
“The innovative new Music Memos app will help musicians quickly capture their ideas on iPhone and iPad whenever inspiration strikes,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “GarageBand is the most popular music creation app in the world, and this update helps everyone easily tap into their musical talent with the powerful new Live Loops and Drummer features, and adds support for the larger iPad Pro screen and 3D Touch on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.”
Singer-songwriter Ryan Adams (pictured) says he is already a big fan of the new Music Memos app. “Sometimes ideas come faster than I can get them into my notebook so I’ve used Voice Memos and Notes to quickly capture songs before they’re lost. Music Memos is like if those two apps came together to form some kind of superpower for songs.”
He added: “It quite literally blew my mind how Music Memos could transform a single guitar idea into a whole composition with a virtual drummer loose enough that it felt like you were having your mind read by some A.I. musician and a choice of stand-up or electric bass accompaniments.”
Music Memos is available for free on the App Store and is compatible with iPhone 4s and later, and iPad 2 and later.
For more information about the new Music Memos app, visit: http://www.apple.com/music-memos.
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=124&h=186)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
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“I just go to the studio and there are 24 lyrics [from Bernie Taupin] waiting for me and I look through them and see which one I want to start with, and then I try and write a song. I never, ever know what the lyrics are gonna be upfront.
“When I first started writing with Bernie [49 years ago this year] it was exactly the same as it is now: I would get a lyric, I would go away, and write the melody and play it to him … then the band come in and learn it and we put it down.
“I don’t try to analyze it. It’s a strange approach, but it works.”
— Elton John (during an interview on ABC TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! show)
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=129&h=194)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
According to Spotify’s latest annual music rankings, Drake was the world’s most streamed artist in 2015. He has racked up 1.8 million streams this year on the platform and reached 56 million listeners.
Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran was named the most streamed artist of the year in the UK on Spotify as well as being the most streamed artist of all time on the service. He has more than three billion streams to date.
The most streamed female of 2015 was Rihanna with over 1 billion streams and 57 million listeners.
Justin Bieber set the record for the most streams in a single day with 36 million streams on November 13.
Here’s the full list of Spotify’s 2015 rankings:
Global Results
Top Five Global Artists (also Top Five Global Male Artists)
- Drake
- Ed Sheeran
- The Weeknd
- Maroon 5
- Kanye West
Top Five Global Female Artists
- Rihanna
- Ariana Grande
- Nicki Minaj
- Beyoncé
- Ellie Goulding
Top Five Global Tracks
- Lean On (feat. MØ & DJ Snake) – Major Lazer
- Cheerleader – Felix Jaehn Remix Radio Edit – OMI
- Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson
- See You Again (feat. Charlie Puth) – Wiz Khalifa
- Love Me Like You Do – From “Fifty Shades Of Grey” – Ellie Goulding
Top Five Global Albums
- Beauty Behind The Madness – The Weeknd
- If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake
- Peace Is The Mission – Major Lazer
- Stories – Avicii
- Title – Meghan Trainor
Top Five Global Viral Tracks
- Sugar (feat. Francesco Yates) – Robin Schulz
- Hotline Bling – Drake
- Ain’t Nobody (Loves Me Better) – Felix Jaehn
- Can’t Feel My Face – The Weeknd
- Here – Alessia Cara
Top Five Global Playlists
- Today’s Top Hits
- Afternoon Acoustic
- Baila Reggaeton
- Hot Country
- RapCaviar
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=157&h=236)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Adele has unveiled a brand new song—titled ‘When We Were Young’—which was co-written with Canadian singer-songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr. The song is taken from Adele’s new album, 25, which is available from November 20.
Jesso’s music has been compared to singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s such as Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson and Emitt Rhodes.
Commenting on teaming up with the 30-year-old Canadian, Adele said: “I loved Tobias Jesso Jr’s song ‘Hollywood’ and I reached out to him when I was working on 25. I say I reached out… I got my manager to contact his manager. I’m pretty behind on social networking culture, I’d have no idea how to do it. Also I didn’t want to ask and have him say, “Absolutely not, I think you’re shit.” At least if my manager asks, he can absorb the rejection and just never tell me. Anyway, he was well up for it.”
And here’s the stunning result of their collaboration…
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=138&h=207)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“In order for me to feel confident with one of my songs it has to really move me. That’s how I know that I’ve written a good song for myself – it’s when I start crying. It’s when I break out in tears in the vocal booth or in the studio, and I’ll need a moment to myself.
“You have to write about real life because otherwise how can you be relatable?”
—Adele (in an interview with New York Times)
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To pave the way for a remixed, deluxe edition of his classic album Pipes of Peace, Paul McCartney has released a new remix of his 1983 hit with Michael Jackson, ‘Say, Say, Say’, which was originally produced by George Martin. The song became Jackson’s seventh Top 10 hit in a year.
In the video below, McCartney talks to Manic Street Preachers’ frontman James Dean Bradfield about what it was like to write songs such as ‘Say, Say, Say’ with Michael Jackson.
McCartney reveals that the song was written quickly, with Jackson and himself face-to-face around a piano in the former Beatle’s London office.
“It came very easily because I was excited to be writing with him and he was excited to write with me,” said McCartney. “We just popped off each other.”
![“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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=119&h=172)
“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), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
Since the 1980s, a debate has been raging about whether an artificially intelligent computer system could ever be truly creative. Could computer algorithms ever be used to write a ‘real’ hit song – even if the machine was programmed and trained just like a human songwriter … and given enough data and fed hundreds of chart hits by its programmers?
An old adage says that a monkey sitting at a typewriter could eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. By the same token, could a computer ever create a work of art that could match the creativity of Beethoven or Mozart? … Or Bob Dylan?
IBM has cleverly used this debate as the basis of a new US TV commercial for its cognitive system IBM Watson – an artificially intelligent computer capable of answering people’s questions posed in natural language.
In the TV ad, IBM’s ‘Watson’ is seen discussing songwriting with Bob Dylan …
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Photo: Eva Rinaldi
“I’ve only ever written songs from the heart. I don’t really see the point in making music if it’s not an expression of self or a form of therapy.
“I could go three months without writing a single song and in one week I’ll write twenty. But I never want to write a song just to have a hit. I write a song because I want it to make me feel better. Other people have different ways of letting off steam. Mine is writing songs.
“It’s like when you’re angry with someone and you write an email or a letter to that person, and you write everything down … but you don’t give it to them. Songwriting is my way of getting out anger, aggression, happiness and love. It’s just about getting it out – and making you feel better.
“So it’s never been about the audience or pleasing people, or trying to fit in. It’s just been about myself and my love for music.”
—Ed Sheeran (in an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS)
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=121&h=175)
“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, a 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)
Country superstar Garth Brooks recently learned the hard way that if you’re going to record and store song ideas on your phone you have to make sure you always keep the phone backed up … otherwise you run the risk of losing everything.
And that’s exactly what just happened to Garth Brooks. He lost six months’ worth of new music ideas for his next album when the personal cell phone on which he’d recorded them decided to stop working.
“All the new stuff I’ve been working on for six months was on a phone that’s been fried, and I can’t get the phone to come back up,” said Brooks. “It’s like losing your briefcase back in the Nineties! This is what happens when the old guy gets into technology …”
Brooks says he’s now counting on an IT tech specialist being able to somehow extract the memory from the dead phone and rescue his ideas for what would become his tenth album. Brooks fears the fried cell phone may have set back production on the new album which is intended to be the follow-up to 2014’s Man Against Machine.
The country legend’s experience is similar to that of Metallica’s longtime lead guitarist Kirk Hammett. He recently lost his iPhone which contained more than 250 unused Metallica song ideas and riffs for the band’s next album. “I was crushed. It didn’t get backed up,” said Hammett. “When it happened, I was bummed out for about two or three days. I’m still looking for it to this day …”
Hammett added: “All you musicians out there who use your phone, make sure it’s backed up, right?”
In 2013, British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran lost a phone which contained the only recording of his new, unreleased album (later released under the title x). Fortunately for Ed, the missing phone was eventually found in the back seat of a limo that had transported him to an awards ceremony in London.
So new songwriters beware!
If that potential hit song you’ve just written has been entrusted to digital media, make sure it is backed up. And if it’s the only copy of what could be your breakthrough song, play extra safe … and back it up more than once!
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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, Barnes and Noble's Nook store, and from KoboBooks.com.](https://thehitformula.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/how-not-to-write-a-hit-song-smashwords-cover-blog-widgit-188x282.jpg?w=108&h=162)
“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), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 