Re: Do you aim to please (in composing?)

DeeAa wrote:
Just for discussion's sake.

I made a song a little while back, and a friend remarked it 'was good
but too much of a hit song'.

I stopped composing it further. Begun thinking once again how funny it
is that it is so strange how, as a composer, I like most people I
know, kind of strive for that elusive goal of making music that would
be appealing to many people - I mean, what's the point of making stuff
nobody likes - but at the same time viciously shunning the idea of
making a 'hit' song.

It just feels like it'd be selling out to make songs that would have
that 'instant appeal.'


I can't think of a worse idea. If you have two songs of equal
artistic merit, and one is more commercial, how can the second
one *not* be superior to the first one?

If it's a commercial hunk of crap, it's still a hunk of
crap. But you'd rather not have written, say, "Ring of
Fire"? Or "I Wish"?

Almost all my favorite songwriters wrote stuff that's
*HIGHLY* commercial. Very few "songwriters for its own
sake" out there. If Alan Jackson covered Guy Clark's
"Black Diamond Strings", I bet it'd sell.


You know what I mean. All you need to do a great poprock hit for
instance is lock into a nice groove with D, C, G etc. and play a happy
catchy melody on top, and thrown in some nice vox and then it's just a
matter of getting a pretty and marketable presenter for it, and voila.

So where does the border lie therein? It's very hard to define, isn't
it? Sometimes you just make a song that has that great catchy
progression, and you just have to throw in some dim chords and maybe
add an obtrusive or aggressive passage, so it won't be too 'sellout'.


I think there's a lot of people who write great songs. There are a
much smaller set of those people who can write a hit.

Don't start "but Britney..." on me - that's not the same thing,
and you know it.

It's like this band I know, they got a recording contract with this
great demo, which had like 8 songs and 4 of those were really catchy.
I saw them live a year after that, and shouted for one of those songs
from the audience and the singer said into the mike: 'sorry we sold
those songs to other bands, they were too fucking commercial'. And the
crowd went wild with YEAAAHHH! Keep it real guys! etc. And now they
have this fanatic following, but remain very obscure to the great
public. I'd prefer that to fame, would you?


I would rather cut my head off with a chainsaw than be famous. But no.
I would love to write songs that are completely and totally
commercial in every respect. Not because I would like to make
money off of 'em, but because I believe that's better.

On the other hand, it's often somehow OK to make hit songs too as long
as they're not completely 'hit' and include decidedly non-hit parts
etc...making 'em sort of mockery of the whole idea of a 'hit'.

Like that BYOB song by System of Down - a really great tune bordering
of being too 'hit'. But just saved by having those aggre parts that
are basically saying : this ain't no hit crap tune, man! to the
listener. I can dig that. or 'Artschool Girl' by Stone
temple...excellent hit, but saved by that throat-destroying punk part
from becoming a hit.


See Dave Chappelle - "when keepin' it real goes wrong."

Anyway, maybe this is an interesting issue for people here? (too much
spare time @ work here...:-)

Cheers,

Dee

--
Les Cargill
.

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