| Down-to-earth Tips on Crafting a Hit-Song. By Luke Eddins A hit song is no accident. Chances are that the songwriting on the finished radio-ready product has been carefully “altered” by a voice of experience. Someone who knows marketability standards, typically a signed bands’ producer or A&R rep. Since the arsenal of an unsigned artist typically lacks industry veteran firepower, it needs assistance. So here you have it: to-the-point suggestions, in no particular order, that include tangible examples from bands that sell millions of records. Written by someone who finds hit-songs for a living. It just might save you a few years of trial and error. That Familiar Sound. Step away from music for a second. Shoppers are accustomed seeing certain presentation styles of consumer products at stores. You buy orange oranges, not blue ones. Similarly, radio listeners are used to hearing a certain “styles” of songs. Study the hottest songs in your genre. The vocals, chord changes, melodies, layers—all of it. You will never catch an A&R rep’s attention because you sound completely different. It will be because you sound familiar, only slightly different. A different shade of orange. Five for Fighting’s vocals sounds like a different shade of Dave Matthews’. They just sold 500,000 albums. Pete Yorn’s voice sounds like a different shade of Eddie Vedders. Coldplay is a different shade of Radiohead. Get over your ego of not “selling out.” Mold your artistic expression to the norm. Do not color your orange blue—no one buys blue oranges. Repetitive, simple melodies. Creed, U2, and Lenny Kravitz are three of the biggest bands in the world right now. Their melodies are extremely clever, but basic. Start humming their songs without lyrics. Something strange happens. There is a boatload of repetition, melody-wise. A breeze for any ear to follow. Familiar almost. This is purposeful. These acts have been around the block and know what sells to broad audiences. Non-complex melodies. They are proven masters at crafting catchy melodies, by keeping them simple. Simple repetition is powerful. Generalize. The goal here is to make it easy for people hearing your song to connect it to an emotional experience in their own lives, past or present. Whether they realize it or not. This means less specifics. Appeal to many, not just a few. If your song tells a story, leave out misleading details and paint a broad picture using vivid—but universal—words. Goo Goo Dolls are a perfect illustration of this. Like them or not, they sell albums. They color their songs with general words like “dreams, life, world, earth, angels, forever, touch” that are effective. Sarah McLaughlin is also an expert simplifier. Although her lyrics often descriptive, she strategically scatters universal words like “angel, life, cold, storm, church, ghost, snow, shadow, time, dream” in her songs. It pulls a listener’s emotional strings perfectly. Learn from Sarah: generalize masterfully. Speaking of lyrics, study up. This sounds strange, but it works. Hop online and print out lyrics from any ten bands in your genre. Pick multi-platinum selling acts, bands the industry respects. Now start reading, and play a little game: memory. Certain words will keep popping up over and over—it is shocking! Themes pop out too. Figures of time for example: Hanging by a Moment (Lifehouse), Stuck in a Moment (U2), 3 a.m. (Matchbox 20), Few Years Later (new Alanis). Themes that are easy to connect. Study lyric trends, they are no accident. They sell. Nothing comforts like a repetitive instrument. Pop in Dave Matthews “Space Between” and listen to the guitar line during the chorus. It is a melody that stays constant—allowing any ear to immediately connect with it—while the underlying chords change. The bass guitar line in Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” uses the exact same technique, endlessly repeating itself, while the keyboard leads the chord changes. U2’s guitarist Edge was notorious for this. Listen to the first 30 seconds of “Where the Streets have No Name” or “With or Without You.” The concept is brutally simple, yet ingenious. Give people something to latch on to, so that chord changes are then gentle and seem more natural. Madonna and the Police are also pros at employing this trick. Try it sometime. Give your listeners’ ears something to hold on to besides just vocals. Comfort their ears and they will want more. Take it up an octave. Look at a hit like Goo-Goo Dolls “Iris.” The verses are delivered so low vocally, that when the course hits (“And I don’t want the world to see you…”) exactly one octave higher, it grabs you. Or look at Madonna’s protégé, Michelle Branch, in the chorus of her crafted hit “Everything.” On the syllable “Ev” during the course she jumps an octave. The chorus is your chance to soar. Coldplay know how to soar. Show your range, and people will not forget you. Finally, the stripped down third chorus (or verse). I just mentioned Michelle Branch and her song “Everything.” This tune also does a superior job of stripping before the last chorus kicks in. You only hear vocals, light guitar and bongos, that’s it. How about Creed’s “When you are with me,” with only a flanged guitar and vocals the third time around? Or Nickelback’s enourmous hit “How you Remind Me” on the last chorus. These stripped parts are what make the hair on a listeners arm stand up straight. They pack a strong punch and most young bands could use that. Strip down baby. Founder of Luke Hits (www.lukehits.com), Luke Eddins helps local unsigned bands place their hit-song in Film/TV. Producers and music supervisors love his personal approach and selective ear for hit songs. He readily accepts—and listens to—hundreds of unsigned demos every week. Mail him a demo at http://lukehits.com/maildemo. |
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