Why Should Anyone Listen to Your Music?

If you are not paying attention, you are going to crash right into that tree…and no one is going to care, and you can’t expect anyone to.

I’ve always been a musician, and I’ve always thought I was good at it. Good enough to “hold-my-own” at least. You probably feel the same way about yourself, or you probably know that you’re extremely good and everyone is craving your music. That’s great…but we are no longer in the age where people have to care and listen to your music. I want to say that again — No one has to care about your music and here’s why.

There are just too many choices. Anyone can get anything they want at the drop of a hat. Either you deliver a product that’s worth listening to, or you will be stuck with your family and 10 friends as your listening audience. A product that’s worth listening to has three elements that you are probably overlooking:

• Similar
• Unique
• Dramatic

Now before we get to deep, here’s the tricky part. It’s kind of conflicting because you never know when the current trend will fade away, but it’s still important to know and try to keep up with what the people are demanding. You have to try to figure out the difference between a trend and a fad.

When I look at the billboard charts you can see that it is really kind of smooth. Not dominated by hip-hop or R&B, and while this fluctuates – that is not what you see here in these charts.

Analysis

Similar

Is it FAD or coincidence that the top two songs on the billboard start with a fingered guitar, and are mostly dominated with soft fingered guitar as the main instrument. Both of these songs are really soft, the kind of songs you could play while you lay cozy in bed at night staring at the ceiling…with the window open and feel the warm summer breeze sweeping gently over your skin on a mid-summer night.

The point is that (more than likely) in every song that makes the charts, there is always some element to similar. Even though it is unfortunate and even though some say it is ruining the state of music; it is the way things are. Every now and then a big song will come along and sound totally off the wall… like the Diddy & Keyshia Cole song “Last Night”, but that is rare.

Unique

The second item is to observe that although there is similarity between the top two songs in the billboard, they are very unique. The element of unique still has to be there; otherwise it will be boring and no one will listen.

Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry is not just soft and smooth, but it’s still good pop. It still has that grove to it in case you want to dance… (or at least you won’t fall asleep while driving). You want more examples of Unique? You probably would want to look at the lyrics with a side by side comparison, and look at things like the tempo, mood, key, and overall feel. This isn’t rocket science but these are little things that can make the difference between

• getting your song placed on an album
• getting your song placed in film/TV
• Continuing to be a starving artist
• Releasing a song/album that goes platinum
• Releasing a song/album that will only ruin your chances of getting paid/fame

Drama

Is building up and adding intensity to the song. Dramatic is when Fergie goes from the chorus into the hook. People don’t get hooked to anything unless they feel some aspect of drama to the presentation. That’s why Law & Order is so popular, same reason why we’ll never forget 9/11, the same reason why we hate George Bush (oooops!).

Even a soft song like Delilah can have drama. When there aren’t alot of instruments, the drama is more than likely to come from the lyrics. Obviously there’s only guitar and vocals…so it places the emphasis primarily on the lyrics and vocals. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, your lyrics are weak, and your vocals are scratchy, and you can’t hit any notes above middle -C, then this type of song is NOT for you.

Conclusion

So what you have here is a kind of outlook towards the top two songs on Billboard. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it and I’m not at all saying you should run out and buy a guitar, neither am I saying you should start doing pop… what I am saying is that the Billboard serves a huge purpose in your music career and it will probably become one of your best friends. It’s easier to sell when you know what’s selling, what people are listening to – and what’s not selling, and what people aren’t listening to. So you can take these elements and plug-them into any style of music you’re working on – even if it’s HIP-HOP.

If Fergie uses volume in her pop song, then you can do the same in a hip-hop song. Kanye West did it in “Jesus Walks” where he built up and got louder as he got closer to the Chorus/hook. Even if you’re doing Film Music, you’re going to need the element of drama to keep people’s attention. If all you do is play and sing loud all the time – your album is going to be…

Let’s just say that it probably won’t sell. And you will notice that albums are not just albums anymore, they’re just all hits; I think we’re moving away from album-fillers; because obviously no one is buying albums anymore. We buy individual songs, individual ringtones, individual ring-backs; which means that low-level artistry and songwriting is going to be less profitable these days.