Originally Posted By: Guitarhacker
Originally Posted By: Henry Clarke
No offense guys but I think I'm in my own lane on this one. It seems like a lot of folks in the forum think a "good" song is a "Sad" song. In my view nothing is further from the truth. I think a good song is a song that resonates with the audience. Generates a "connection" whether that be Happy, Sad, Argumentative, introspective, etc... When you've written a song where the listener sings the "Hook" subconsciously as it's playing. Not the verse but the hook. There are lots of uptempo songs that are GREAT songs played worldwide. Think Earth Wind, Fire, Chicago, Hall and Oates, etc... Those musicians still generate thousands in royalties every year because they make folks feel good when they hear them. And "NO Pianobilly, I respectably disagree. I think you need more than a pencil and paper and musical education to write a good song. That may work in your genre but there are lots of genres where its just not the case. Some songs are great because of the drum beat, guitar riff, horn section, etc.. and of course if the song is vocal driven nothing makes a song resonate like a great vocal performance. You can have the best lyrics in the world (which few listeners really care about) but if the vocal stinks the song stinks. That's just sad but true. There's that old American Bandstand adage ... "It's got a good beat and you can dance to it" :-)

I have a song that's trending worldwide on iTunes, Deezer, and Amazon and Spotify right now. It's not BIAB. The vocals are flat and not balanced, the mix is average, the song is a bit silly but it's resonating purely because of the hook and the positive energy. I've received a lot of great comments. I thought the song was ok but audiences are connecting and telling me they think it's pretty good.

http://itunes.apple.com/album/id1454291240?ls=1&app=itunes

https://www.amazon.com/Roll-With-It/dp/B...lMMIbLzEEbkZmyw

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZVYqEGzUOJTgGyOcWEE6q?si=4a1f8327225c4f3b

Because of the response I "think" I've written a good song :-) Hope this message doesn't rub anyone the wrong way. It's just an opinion from another perspective.




The funny thing Henry is.... I went to a songwriting forum in LA back in 2009 I think it was....it was put on by TAXI and it's done yearly. It's called the Rode Rally and one of the things they did in one of the many classes there was to examine the hit, meaning #1 songs of the past year. They broke them down by tempo, key, topic etc.... to get a feel for what the people were listening to and liking, so that we as writers had a better idea what we should be writing.

For years, I've heard it said.... you need to write uptempo happy songs. Stay away from the sad slow stuff and especially the ballads. Don't write ballads because no one wants to sing them or listen to them. Well, this survey decided that the majority of the last years #1 hits for that year were in fact over 50% ballads and a number of those were sad songs.


Herb, I don't disagree with you. I'm sure you're totally correct with what they said. But that was 2009. Also I would like to say that (and this is a guess) even if over 50% were number 1 I'm willing to guess that the majority of the top 10 were not. I did a quick check on Top 100 singles for 2009 and the chart was dominated by people like Black-Ryed Peas, Kanye, Beyonce, Lady GaGa, Flo Rida, etc.. Not exactly ballad folks. For example (and I know this is Billboard) but of the top 100 longest leading number one hits of all time only 3 were ballads (Mariah Carey, Adele, and Elton). For 2020 of the top 10 songs (Billboard) I think only 2 were ballads. My comment was not about number one songs but more based on the performance of songs overall.