whatmakes a hit?

Mojo
I`m with you on this one,often i write a song & think(foolishly)
hey thats not bad,so i put it out there because i`m kinda proud of it.
I`ve got a couple of friends that say kind things,but at the end of the day
nobody else likes it.
Not to worry though i`m having a ball and i guess thats what it`s all about.
If one person likes it, thats a real bonus, it`s all been worth while.
good luck & keep writing! keep the pickle juice flowing.

Mojo,  I agree with Bill. The " Hook" is what draws people into the song. It's snappy, catchy, easy to remember and sticks in your head. I  have  the same questions about why some of my less favorite songs are liked but the better ones are not. It's about what other people connect to in your songs. No two people think exactly the same, you just seemed to hit a spot with one song or another. It's like when you are playing a gig and you get requests for songs that are all over the board or by folks you never heard of.
But, they do connect to your songs and that's good. It just goes to show the ones you don't think aren't very good are good to someone else. Keep writing , that's the only way a real Gem with surface.

  Joe

Ditto!!

The majority of humans don't play a musical instrument, and some of us that do don't have a deep understanding of the structure of music itself.

So anything that's called "music" which is created for the masses has to have elements which they can relate to. It can't really be instrumental skill, creative counterpoint, multi-level harmonies, etc. The majority of people understandably wouldn't understand what they are listening to. That leaves a catchy piece of lyric, an easy-to-remember riff of a few notes, an infectious beat, or a theme which tugs at a pre-determined emotion in order to make appealing.

Then we have the making of a "hit" within the pop music industry, which Pink Floyd's song "Have a Cigar" parodies quite well. A producer and a would-be star come up with catchy thing they call a hit. They buy a contract with a radio network to play it ad infinitum, ad nauseum and promote it to the public as the latest hit from whomever. It's almost like an infomercial. This creates recording sales and concert bookings, and the "star" starts to make some money. If they've got some "shtick" to their performance (mostly looks & attitude) they will continue to make sales. It's a marketing ploy at it's base, and it's the image of the performer and their performance becomes the centre-piece, never the actual music. They're rarely called musicians, and usually referred to as "recording artists" ... an honest admission.

So that's the long way of saying, that the vast majority of humans wouldn't know truly good music if it hit them in the face. Personally, if I ever wrote & performed something that became a "hit", I'd be wondering what I did wrong ... seriously!

I had this discussion with my guitar playing buddy tonight, he goes with the catchy tune and hook theory, but I think funsters point has a lot of merit. I pointed out that any artist with a following could take a song that he or I wrote and make a hit with it. for instanced jimmy buffet could record a song from chordie and parrot heads would buy it just because jimmy recorded it. have you listened to country music lately? there are songs here ten times better than what's being passed as country music. because as funster points out they have the platform to sell it.

bottom line for me is I have zero musical training, no idea how a song  should be structured other than what I have heard on the radio my whole life.  so I write songs that I like and sound good to me.  some with a hook some with out. and now my pickle jar is empty so until my next post

I recall hearing the Jethro Tull album "Stand Up" at a buddy's house when I was around 12 years old. It belonged to his older brother, and I had just started dabbling with the guitar a few years earlier. The quality of the music stood out against what was playing on AM radio in those days, and ever since I've never looked to the radio to tell me what was good music. What I've heard from most of the Chordie family blows way the tripe on the pop music stations. The radio is something I turn on for news and weather, but never for music.

Thank you for the complements and kind words Zurf.  Over the years I've found different songs "resonate" with different people.  If I asked others who have heard me play my songs to make a list of 20 of their favorites, I'm sure the lists would be completely different. That's what so great about music - we all have our own tastes and favorite genres. Each genre having its own "style" which appeals to the listener.

Even if given a lot of air play, I doubt if a song that is not well-written will ever be a "hit". Fans of the singer/group that wrote it may listen to it, but they know its not the artist's best work.  The performers that stay at the top of their profession utilize the works of other songwriters to provide the gems which keep their fans buying tickets and merchandise. So what constitutes a "hit" song?

In my opinion its "prosody" - all four parts of a song's architecture working together.  The Rhythm (speed, 3/4 or 4/4 time, etc), Harmony (chord progression), Melody (what you would whistle after hearing the song) and Lyrics.  If just one of these areas is weak, the song seems to lack something. But when all four parts are well done they complement each other and work to make the song more than the sum of its parts. I think striving to reach that goal is what keeps us constantly writing new songs and trying to improve.  I admire those who seem to have the knack of cranking out great songs. The rest of us may not have that talent but just as writers/novelists have the need to write, we have the need to produce our own original music.

DE