Apr 25, 2018, 04:00 PM
Japov,
The process of someone getting attention from people in the industry is a fairly involved one, and takes a good while. Usually the thousands upon thousands of artist and writer wanna be’s are around for a few years by the time they come on someone’s radar screen. And they are usually passed on several times before things start clicking. And as has been mentioned, many, many (far too many) artists and songs are barely mediocre to begin with. It is easy to say “How did they get on there?” But the main reason they do? SOMEONE BELIEVES IN THEM.
Have you never seen artists or heard songs that you just thought THEY CAN’T MISS. Some really hot girl or guy, who seem to have it all. Or someone with so much talent it just blows you away. Or a song that sticks in your ear like an earworm and you think “THIS HAS GOT TO BE A SMASH?” And then NOTHING happens with them. At the same time, the radio and labels are FULL of people so average it makes you scream at the television, Internet or radio every time you hear them? Not only does someone believe in them, but usually TEAMS of people believe in them (everything is done by committee) and SOMEONE is engineering MONEY (about $4.5 million dollars to launch the FAILURES as well as the SUCCESSESS. Back to batting averages. You strike out a LOT more than you get a hit.
Today, usually the people who DEVELOP the artists of tomorrow are the HIT WRITERS or artists of today or yesterday. As they morph from being their own artist or hit writer, they go into developing other songs, artists or writers. As they have climbed the ladder, and earned BACK their publishing on their songs (renegotiation is everything, and when your hot, people want to keep you.) This comes from the “RAP world.” Rapper comes on the scene, brought forth by some former rap star (Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Snoop Dog) and that leads to their own “POSSE”, get their liquor and car company endorsements, and then bring in their protege’s 50 Cent, Eminim, etc.
Country more or less has followed that model. As the value of songs have gotten less and less, ARTIST BRANDING has become more and more predominate. So the hit writer will write songs around the artist, send them around to all the other hit writers, their friends and contacts. If they are signed to someone like SONY, WARNER BROTHERS, UNIVERSAL, all THOSE STAFF WRITERS get first shot. And of course they have their own songs they have written over the years, songs of friends, producers, independents, etc. You meet hundreds of people a year and those contacts mean songs, songs songs. Everyone is trying to get on the ground floor.
The actual “DEVELOPMENT” process usually is about 3-4 years. They are trotted out at parties, writer retreats, festivals, going on promo tours. And at any one time, these same hit writers are doing it with several artists, duos, bands, etc.
So where do they get songs? Sometimes they might have favors they owe to someone who helped them back in their early days. There might be a private person or persons with financial interests, and they get songs in the hopper. The hottest writers, producers, (who are hit writers themselves and have their own publishing and production companies) all are trying to jockey for position. Somebody with the latest number one, finds themselves getting tons of cuts all at the same time. Some of those may have been written, cut and ready to go for a couple of years, but then the time is just right. When it rains it pours.
But yes, all music is subjective. Again, don’t you have songs that you think Eh. “It’s okay, but I really love THIS song.” But other people think THAT IS THE SONG THAT IS THE BEST THING YOU HAVE EVER WRITTEN. Well that’s the same way with these people. They write a lot of stuff and some things they really believe in. But no one else does. And vice versa. Some things OTHER PEOPLE BELIEVE IN but THEY DON’T.
I could name you a dozen songs of friends of mine they thought were PIECES OF CRAP, but went on to become standards. “LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO”. “EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOME TIME.” “THE GAMBLER”, “WIND BENEATH MY WINGS,” were all considered “throw away songs” by their writers. And it was just chance they were ever recorded at all. The Industry is full of songs like that.
And of course now, there is a LOT of complete garbage out there. It is what I call “The bad cassette dub” era of music. Back in our day (I’m pretty sure we are about the same age) you would do everything on Cassette. Then some friend would love some band or song and you would make a cassette dub of that. And they would make a cassette dub of that. And so on and so on. With each successive generation, the quality got worse and worse. Nobody noticed as much because many of them sounded just as bad.
Today’s artists are usually influenced by people just a couple years before them. And many of THOSE artists were pretty mediocre. And people’s standards get less and less. So what we would have thought of as complete crap, members of the public think it’s fine.
Of course, remember, music now is no longer in the FOREFRONT of our lives. It is in the BACKGROUND of our lives.
But that is no reason to go for the lowest common denominator. Crap gets out there. But don’t aspire to be “just as good as the crap.”
MAB