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Your Best Bet For A #1
Song

Songwriting

Posted by CapnZilog - Aug 21, 2003
@ 10:58:24 PM

Insight on radio hitwriting
(excerpted from Taxi newsletter)

This essay on "New Country" hit
analysis is good reading for anyone with commercial music
ambitions, regardless of style. It was part of a newsletter
that came in my mail box today from www.taxi.com, good free
advice.

-djh

YOUR BEST BET FOR A #1
SONG

By Ralph Murphy Vice President, ASCAP

Many
of our members already know ASCAP Vice President Ralph Murphy
because he's a fixture at our annual convention, The Road
Rally. Above all else, Ralph is the living embodiment of every
songwriter's soul. If Albert Einstein and Jed Clampett were to
mate and bear fruit, Ralph would be their progeny--part
genius, part country gentleman, all heart.

At last
year's Road Rally, Ralph did a presentation based on his study
that was done in conjunction with Belmont University. What
follows is the written version of Ralph's presentation. I hope
you find it as enlightening as we have. Enjoy.
--Michael

For a small business owner such as a
songwriter/publisher, knowing the market is vital. Budgeting
for success means looking at income (when it decides to come
in!) and making informed decisions about how to spend it most
effectively. Up near the top of the list of expenditures
(almost right next to eating) are demo costs. The financial
outlay for demonstration recordings has risen to $750 - $1,000
per song. So, if you write 30 songs a year and only have
$10,000 in your demo budget, you're going to have to make some
hard choices.

Let's say you've written this song about
a Chicken. You love it! Your mom loves it! The special person
in your life loves it! However . . . Radio is only playing Dog
songs. Fortunately, you've also written four Dog songs, which
everybody loves. Your dilemma? You only have enough money to
produce a three-song demo, but you have five songs (four Dog
songs and one Chicken song). What do you do? Now,
unfortunately, I have suitcases full of demoed Chicken songs,
so I know what the songwriter side of me says; however, I
noticed early on in life that food is a good thing and that
eating makes me happy. So, while grumbling and complaining
about how radio should be playing more Chicken songs, I demo
three of my four Dog songs so I can continue to support my
nasty food habit! In the frustrating war between art and
commerce, commerce wins.

Let's be honest. Though it
shouldn't, radio drives the "commercial" aspect of the
songwriting process. (Did I already mention that I like to
eat?) It affects just about every decision we make creatively.
In March, 1999, country radio did something seismic in nature,
which impacted songwriters and publishers dramatically. As an
experiment to maintain listenership, Country radio decided to
slow the progress of records going up and down the charts in
hopes of breeding the kind of familiarity that keeps listeners
coming back for more--commercials, that is. As a result, I
became curious and decided to try an experiment of my own. I
started by researching the Billboard Country chart for 1999
and found that a total of 18 songs reached #1. Taking a closer
look, I began to wonder: what type of song is reaching the top
in this brave new world of radio? A world in which, through
yet another ripple effect of deregulation, big radio chains
have been allowed to buy up and homogenize most o
f the
"mom and pop" country stations resulting in:

- Country
songs being slotted between jingles and musical links that
sound like they're written and performed by
Metallica;

- on-air personalities who, with rare
exceptions, really don't know (or care) about country music,
and

- an increase in the amount of commercial time that
effectively gets rid of two or three records per
hour.

But, I digress! What we began to see on the chart
before March is that records did indeed start taking longer to
climb and began to linger longer, that is, taking longer to
fall off completely. Before March, the total average time a
song spent on the chart was 26.5 weeks. After the March
changeover, that time increased to 32 weeks -- adding more
than a month to the life of a song! (In fact, Lonestar's
"Amazed" was on the chart for more than a year.) What kinds of
songs enjoyed success? Let's look at a few dynamics . .
.

Anything in common?

Common characteristics for
the 18 #1s were that all of them were contemporary
pop/country; 4/4 in tempo; romantic, primarily humorous, sad,
and heartfelt. Half were stories; half were conversations. The
average intro was 13.2 seconds.

Tempo

Let's
examine the producer/A&R, mantra--"We are looking for mid
to up-tempo positive love songs." Yes, you can say it in your
sleep! Surprisingly, though, ballads accounted for 50% of
1999's chart toppers, followed by up-tempos at 33% and
mid-tempos at 17%. Now, before you crown ballads king, let's
look at the amount of time spent at #1. Even though more
ballads made it to #1, they tended to fall off quicker. In
fact, up-tempos spent 49% of the year at #1, followed by
ballads at 31% and mid-tempos at 20%. So, even though mid- and
up-tempos combined accounted for only half of the #1s, they
spent a combined 69% of the year in the top spot. Strangely
enough, you had a slightly better chance of having a #1 with a
ballad, but spent significantly less time at #1 and on the
chart.

Melody

75% of up-tempos went from a
linear melody in the verse to a soaring melody in the chorus.
Which means, basically, the listener got a story [linear--very
little motion, few chord changes] and something to hum at the
supermarket [soaring - significant motion and chord changes]
in the same song and apparently liked that a lot! It is almost
impossible to tell a story over a soaring melody because the
human animal can only hear one moving part at a time and,
given choice, will always defer to melody. So, wherever the
writer wants to tell a story, the melody is kept to a minimum.
As for ballads, five of the nine went from linear to
soaring.

Form

Since you were born, radio has
given you songs in any one of six variations. As the writer
leads listeners through a song, he or she creates an
expectation in the audience's mind that they are being led
through the story to a hook (conclusion) in a way that they
are familiar with. The writer can alter the format slightly
only as long as the listeners feel informed, included and
satisfied (once delivered to the hook/conclusion). If that
effect is not achieved, the listeners simply reach for the
dial and tune out. The writer has failed structurally. That
being said, the 18 #1 records in 1999 used only three of the
six forms:

2nd Form: Verse-(Verse
Opt.)-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Instrument-Chorus-Etc.

3rd
Form: Verse-(Verse
Opt.)-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Instrument-Chorus-Out

4th
Form: Verse-Lift-Chorus-Verse-Lift-Chorus-Instrumental-(Lift
Opt.)-Chorus

Five of the six up-tempos and 50% of all
#1s were written in 3rd form. The exception to this in
up-tempo was Terri Clark's "You're Easy On The Eyes," which
was in 2nd form. This is significant because 3rd form is known
as the most forgiving form because you can have a weak line or
two in a verse but still have a huge chorus to save you. Plus,
there's a bridge to add information or show the listener the
other side of the coin. With mid-tempos, all the forms were
equally represented. As far as ballads go, we find that four
of the nine ballads were 3rd Form, followed by three in 2nd
Form and two in 4th Form.

Person &
tense

100% of up-tempos were written in first person
(I/Me/My). Additionally, 72% included the second person
(You/Your) and 39% used the third person, generally as a
device for conflict. As far as tense goes, 83% of up-tempos
were set in the present, with 27% in the past and only 15% in
the future. As for ballads, 89% used the first person, 89%
included the 2nd, and 33% added the third person.

The
artist

Let's add one more dynamic to this mix. Six of
the 18 #1s were written or co-written by the artist, with five
of the six being ballads. So the old A&R belief that
ballads are artist-driven gains some credence given this
information.

Your best shot

So. you have Dog
songs and you have Chicken songs. Where do you spend your demo
dollar? Your best shot for getting a #1 record is to
write:

- mid- to up-tempo

- romantic/humorous or
sad/heartfelt theme

- 4/4 time

- contemporary
pop/country style

- story or conversation

- 1st
person or 2nd person

- 3rd form

- linear melody
with a story to a soaring chorus

- 13 second
intro

So much for Chicken songs!

I would like to
acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Phil Goldberg and
Chad Green indulging my "need to know" in helping research the
above information. Most importantly thank you Mark Ford for
massaging and editing my lunatic fringe ramblings into a
coherent form.

6 comment(s) | viewed 315
time(s) | |

Your Comments

Commented by GtrZan - Aug 27, 2003 @ 09:29:16
AM

I like chicken
:)

Commented by radne - Sep 08, 2003 @ 09:30:48
PM

I like liver

Commented by CapnZilog - Sep 26, 2003 @
02:14:01 AM

I like tuna meow meow meow
meow

Commented by HANDSmokin - Apr 16, 2004 @
02:25:51 PM

poor chickens

Commented by Elvis Notargiacomo - Jan 25, 2005
@ 06:40:43 PM

I like "Run Chicken Run" and
"Chicken Pot Pie".  Do you think these radio assessments
resemble the voting on guitarwar.com ?

Commented by CapnZilog - Jan 30, 2005 @
05:02:09 AM

...Probably not. Which may have
something to do with why you don't often hear GW songs on the
radio! 8-/

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