Many new songwriters often make the mistake of simply trying to mimic songs that have already enjoyed chart success, instead of trying to add distinctive elements of their own to create something fresh.
Pharrell Williams firmly believes in the importance of not just imitating what’s already happening: “I feel like when you copy, you blend in, and when you blend in, you get lost,” he recently told Collider.com.
“If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say ‘That which is missing’ because I don’t want to copy everything that’s already happening,” he said. “When I make music, I try to make something you’ve never heard before.”
For new writers, though, it is equally important to make sure that your songs are not TOO different—otherwise you could end up writing in a form that many listeners just can’t understand. You have to strike a balance.
This is because there are specific conventions that are consistently found in the chord progressions, melodies, lyrics, rhymes and construction of all hit songs. Over the past 50 years in particular, listeners have subconsciously come to expect to hear these elements in all new songs.
To be sure of finding receptive ears in the music industry (and amongst record buyers), your songs therefore need to sound familiar—but not similar.
Previously unheard songs have to be easy enough on the listener’s ear to be commercial and marketable (which, at the end of the day, is all that record companies and music publishers are interested in). But instead of simply copying stuff that is happening, focus on taking what is already out there to a new level—whilst being careful not to make too big a leap that could leave a huge gap between you and your audience.
When someone once asked the legendary trumpet player Clark Terry what steps he felt newcomers should take to achieve success, he famously replied: “Imitate, assimilate, and innovate”.
In other words, listen to what’s being played on the radio and on streaming services, analyze the latest trends, absorb the key elements of current hit songs and emulate them—but carve your own niche by innovating and adding something new of your own.
As Pharrell Williams says: “Try to find that which is missing”…
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WRITING 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, Canada, the UK, 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 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).
British singer-songwriter Molly Smitten-Downes will represent the United Kingdom in the Grand Final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, with her self-penned song ‘Children of the Universe’.
The event will take place in Copenhagen on 10 May 2014.
‘Children of the Universe’ is described as “an anthemic, uplifting track specifically written with live performance in mind”.
Molly, aged 26, from Leicestershire, was discovered through BBC Radio’s BBC Introducing and was invited to compose and perform a song especially for the competition.
Molly has been singing and writing songs for over ten years and is well known within the UK live music scene. She was awarded Best Urban/Pop Act at Live and Unsigned in 2012, and in 2013 won ‘Best Song’ at the Best of British Unsigned Music Awards.
She has supported artists such as Jake Bugg, Tinie Tempah, Labrinth and Chase n Status.
“I’m so excited for everyone to hear ‘Children of The Universe’,” says Molly. “I’m so happy with it. To represent the United Kingdom in such a huge competition, not only as a singer and performer but as a songwriter is an unbelievable honour.”
Here’s a video showing Molly performing ‘Children of The Universe’ live…
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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).
‘Wake Me Up’ by Swedish DJ and music producer Avicii has now been streamed more than 200 million times on Spotify, making it the most-played song of all time on the platform.
The track has overtaken the previous record-holder, Imagine Dragons’ ‘Radioactive’, which has been streamed 183 million times.
The chord progression and melody for ‘Wake Me Up’ were written by Avicii and Incubus guitarist Mike Einzige, and the lyrics were supplied by LA-based soul singer Aloe Blacc who sings lead vocal on the track.
In September 2013, the Avicii hit became the fastest song ever to notch up 100 million streams on Spotify. It is now reportedly being streamed around 850,000 times a day on average.
The track has also accrued over 280 million plays on YouTube so far
Here’s the Official Video for Avicii’s ‘Wake Me 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).
The legendary songwriting team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff are set to receive the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s prestigious Johnny Mercer Award at the 45th Annual Induction and Awards ceremony in New York City on June 12.
The Mercer Award is the highest honour bestowed by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. It is reserved for a songwriter or songwriting team whose body of work is of such high quality and impact that it upholds the standard set by Johnny Mercer himself.
Philadelphia-based Gamble and Huff will join past Mercer Award recipients Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Paul Anka, Kris Kristofferson, Smokey Robinson, Hal David and Burt Bacharach, and Cy Coleman.
“It will be our pleasure to welcome Gamble and Huff into the circle of superwriters who have received the Johnny Mercer Award,” said Jimmy Webb, the Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman and a fellow recipient of the Mercer award. “They have met the standard with a series of indelible melodies and lyrics, and an enviable string of number one records and gold and platinum discs.”
Over the past 50 years, Gamble and Huff have written over 3,500 songs together, including 50 pop and R&B chart hit singles. They have won five Grammy Awards and 86 BMI Pop and R&B Awards.
In 1971, the duo set up their own record label, Philadelphia International Records, and went on to create ‘The Sound of Philadelphia’ with classic hits such as The Supremes’ ‘I’m Gonna Make You Love Me’, ‘Only The Strong Survive’ by Jerry Butler, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’ ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’, Billy Paul’s ‘Me and Mrs. Jones’, and ‘Love Train’ by The O’Jays.
Gamble and Huff were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1995.
This video charts the history of Gamble & Huff and The Sound of Philadelphia:
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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).
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).
Grammy award-winning US singer-songwriter John Mayer claims he isn’t worried about writing hits any more. He insists that he no longer obsesses about dominating the charts. He now believes songs should focus more on being meaningful rather than simply having a catchy melody.
“I’m not worried about pop hits; I’m not worried about sales or relevance,” he recently told TIME.com. “I only care about one thing: tell your story. Tell YOUR story. … Follow where the road takes you.”
However, when telling your own story it is important to make sure that your song is not too narrow and personal. Don’t be too insular. Ideally, the song should be written in a way that leaves the audience thinking the song is about them and their lives—not about you.
People don’t really want to hear about your problems. They might, however, want to listen if your songs are about experiences, hardships and situations that everyone can relate to—such as a broken love affair, a personal tragedy, or a song about concern for the environment.
As singer-songwriter Jackson Browne once remarked when describing his own approach to storytelling: “I’m not looking to describe something that’s only true of my own circumstances. It’s all about reaching inside to something that you have in common with many.”
By writing about something that everyone experiences in his or her own life, you can touch people’s emotions. If you can engage listeners’ minds and make them feel something, it’s the sign of a good song.
On the subject of writing good songs, John Mayer urges new writers not to worry too much about whether a song is good or bad when they are writing it. “Just write it,” he says. “The rule is: write bad songs, but write ’em. If you start writing bad songs, you start writing better songs, and then you start getting really good.
“If you try to get into the building on the twelfth floor, you’ll never make it. You have to get in the basement floor and work up from there.”
Take a look at this quirky lyric video for ‘Paper Doll’ from John Mayer’s sixth album Paradise Valley.
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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), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and Rakuten’s KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“How [Not] To Write Great Lyrics! – 40 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Writing Lyrics For Your Songs” is available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble as a US paperback, UK paperback and as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle Store. It is also available from Apple’s iTunes Store (Books/Arts & Entertainment/Music), Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, and Rakuten’s KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA), HERE (UK), HERE (Australia) and HERE (Canada).
“SURPRISING RHYMING” – The Alternative Rhyming Dictionary for Songwriters and Poets – is available from Amazon as a US paperback, a UK paperback, and across Europe. It is also available as an eBook from Amazon’s Kindle store in the United States, the UK and Europe, as well as Apple’s iTunes Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store and Rakuten’s KoboBooks.
Read a FREE sample of the book HERE (USA) … HERE (UK) … HERE (CANADA).
U2 have been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for ‘Ordinary Love’ from the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. This follows the band’s recent victory in the Golden Globe awards with the same song.
U2’s ‘Ordinary Love’ will be up against ‘Alone But Not Alone’ from the film of the same name (written by Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel), ‘Happy’ from Despicable Me 2 (Pharrell Williams), ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez), and ‘The Moon Song’ from Her (Karen O and Spike Jonze).
After receiving the Golden Globe award, U2’s Bono said: “This really is personal, very very personal. This man [Nelson Mandela] turned our life upside down, right side up. A man who refused to hate but he thought love would do a better job. We wrote a love song because it’s kind of what’s extraordinary about the film. It’s a dysfunctional love story.”
The Oscars will be presented on March 2.
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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).
U2 have won this year’s Golden Globe award for Best Original Song From a Motion Picture for their song ‘Ordinary Love’ from the Nelson Mandela biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
The U2 song beat Coldplay’s ‘Atlas’ from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, ‘Let It Go’ by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (from Disney’s Frozen), ‘Please Mr. Kennedy’ by Ed Rush, George Cromarty, T Bone Burnett, Justin Timberlake and Joel and Ethan Coen from Inside Llewyn Davis, and ‘Sweeter Than Fiction’ by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff from One Chance.
After receiving the award, U2’s Bono said: “This really is personal, very very personal. This man turned our life upside down, right side up. A man who refused to hate but he thought love would do a better job. We wrote a love song because it’s kind of what’s extraordinary about the film. It’s a dysfunctional love story.”
Meanwhile, Alex Ebert beat legendary film composers John Williams and Hans Zimmer to win the Golden Globe for Best Original Score for his work on the Robert Redford movie All is Lost.
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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) and HERE (UK).
SONGWRITING: THE HIT FORMULA 