What Makes a Hit

https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/articles/projects/what-makes-a-hit/

by riskarb • 8 years ago

108 51 8 years ago

www8.gsb.columbia.edu

flabbergast• 8 years ago

What Makes a Hit

1. find a hit from the past you really enjoy

2. copy 90% of that song in terms of sound, structure, base melody etc..

3. just change a little of most parts so it doesn't sound like a straight copy

4. have a smart producer who can do this

5. have a great mastering studio to let it sound big

6. use the right channels for promotion (publishing, (radio)dj's, television, social media, etc)

7. have heaps of luck, right timing etc..

Most people in this world have no clue at all that this is what actually makes a hit. It's very rare to see a 'Hit' to come out of nowhere, although it does happen. It's an illusion that a talented musician can achieve this on his own without insane amounts of luck.

OzzyB• 8 years ago

Or, read "How To Have a Number One" by The KLF [0], which is very fun read and echoes your points.

[0]http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/

harel3• 8 years ago

It's a great little book. I had a copy which I gifted to a friend, thinking I'll just buy myself a new one... Turns out they go for over 100 pounds a pop...

harel3• 8 years ago

As side note, Drummond was doing this project a while back (maybe still does): http://www.the17.org

trash_panda4• 8 years ago

What goes behind the process of creating a hit is something that fascinates me, but, something I never had the time to really research.

Also, I've always been kinda bipolar on this subject; sometimes I'm 100% convinced that most popular hit songs are fabricated and sometimes I want to believe that there is real talent and creativity behind them; not formulas.

I find the following to be true most of the time for hit songs:

- The singer (male or female) is young, and most of the time good looking.

- The first time you listen to the song you hate it, but after they play it multiple times on the radio you start to like it.

- At a given time, you can see the radio/popular mediums pump up a given singer. For example, I noticed a rise in Cardi B songs, previously it was Camila Cabello. This makes me think there is actually a force pulling the strings.

- A lot of time they are one hit wonders, new "artists" appear and dissapear all the time.

- They usually sing about current hot topics: feminism, be yourself, love thyself, don't worry if you're fat, let's enjoy life. And usually with very bland messages to appeal the masses.

- The music: of course the beats are familiar and following a known structure that arouses emotions.

To my point, a friend once shared with me the following "parody" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBDNvlvR8vA which expresses better what I'm trying to say.

Don't get me wrong, I love music. I love listening to all types of music, from Merzbow to the #1 hit they're playing on the radio.

But as a geek, I love to also analyze the pop music phenomenon. I'm not really familiar with the process behind them, and would love if someone who knows could share it! I mean the process behind actual hit pop songs: Post Malone, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Drake, Cardi B, Dua Lipa, etc.

- Do they write their songs? How much they get censored?

- Are they good singers? I know some of them are really talented.

- How to they rise to fame so quickly? Casting? Personal contacts?

- Do they really have a say on the structure of their songs and the music behind them?

These are some of the things that don't let me sleep at night.

mrob• 8 years ago

Another possibility:

- A music video that goes viral

I don't think Gangnam Style is a good match for the formula, but the video was well produced and just weird enough that people would want to share it. I'm convinced it only became popular because of the video.

huntertwo• 8 years ago

I think it’s a little bit more complicated (and perhaps more “authentic” too) than you’re making it out to be. Labels definitely have strong influence in what gets played on the radio, but in your Cardi B example, Bodak Yellow was extremely popular on SoundCloud before it got any radio plays.

For your other questions, you can see in the credits of a song how many people are involved in radio hits. Labels invest money in creating hits so they can make money. The involvement and talent of artists varies from label to label and artist to artist but it’s generally not the organic process you seem to be hopeful about. At the end of the day, these artists have to perform not only in the studio but while touring, so they can’t be talentless hacks since some talent is required to be a profitable artist.

jkeat• 8 years ago

There's a video by the NYT chronicling the creation of "The Middle" by Zedd, Maren Morris, and Grey. [1]

It began with a girl who recorded a short demo on her phone. After a year of workshopping and 15 different vocalists, they finally had their radio hit.

It's like a blockbuster movie. Big money goes in, big returns are expected, and lots of suits are involved. It's fun entertainment that needs to sell, but there's real talent there too.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/music/100000005858557/wat...

EADGBE• 8 years ago

You'll find a lot of the songwriters are the same people, and the producers - who literally birth the entire song - are also the same people again and again.

212• 8 years ago

How to make a Eurovision hit parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tgnx6jTQ

hashkb• 8 years ago

Don't forget the unbreakable criteria:

<= 3:30; shorter is better

No more than three verses made of at most two straight-rhyme couplets.

Repeat chorus at least four times, more is better.

Keep all instrumental interludes short and simplistic. Cliche pentatonic guitar solos only.

Edit: almost forgot the most important one: be hot, use your body to sell the music.

6stringmerc• 8 years ago

While 1-7 is a pretty clever tongue in cheek perspective, it's not at all what Max Martin does. Arguably he's the king of modern Pop music hits - I mean, he's orders of magnitude more successful than second place. It's rare to find interviews with him but he does drop some hints at his methods and approach (balanced lines, extreme vocal comping detail work) which takes a lot of the mystery out of it.

Basically though #6 explains how acts like Cardi B can chart, because Pop music is a commodity, it's not art. Something like Gotye's hit definitely falls into #7 in that regard. "What's good isn't always popular, and what's popular isn't always good."

GrumpyNl2• 8 years ago

As the say in the composer world, we rather have good plagiarism then bad composing. ( freely translated from dutch, beter goed gepikt dan slecht gecomponeerd)

otreblatercero• 8 years ago

As the say in the composer world, we rather have good plagiarism THAN bad composing.

GrumpyNl2• 8 years ago

Thnx, but it is asTHEY say ;)

maroonblazer• 8 years ago

While the recipe isn't too surprising to anyone who has grown up with popular music I love how the authors brought this paper to life online.

Even better that they provide the source: https://github.com/colinmorris/atypicality

wpietri2• 8 years ago

Yeah, the presentation here is just fantastic. I love the combination of essay and dynamic illustration. It's the kind of thing that might be done as a video, but giving the user the control over the flow of time makes it vastly superior for me. I'm totally stealing this approach.

sametmax2• 8 years ago

"Popular success really is more art than science"

Given that the last decade of hits can be hugely attributed to only 2 people in the industry, I have a hard time buying this one.

Max Martin (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin) famously manufactured hits for Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Kesha and The Backstreet Boys. Between 1999 and 2016 alone, he was responsible for 21 hits. That's more than one a year without any pause.

Lukasz Gottwald (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Luke) did the rest

So unless karma made them really lucky, there is some kind of formula, and they figured it out.

Talent alone can't account for this, as they are, all in all, more successfull than the Beatles or Michael Jackson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

212• 8 years ago

You could say the same thing about Picasso, or Leonardo da Vinci. Did they figure out some kind of formula?

analog31• 8 years ago

They may have thought so. One approach to creativity is to invent a formula and then try to follow it -- perhaps to the point of failure. This is a way to get past the "too many possibilities" mental block.

And of course they're welcome to try a new formula when they get sick of the old one.

sametmax2• 8 years ago

Do you really put "i kissed a girl" in the same ball bark as gernica ?

I honestly liked the first and not the second.

However, there is nothing original about the first. The second one is a once in history landmark.

wpietri2• 8 years ago

I think there's more to the world than "formula" vs "talent".

Skill would be one possible explanation. As would focus. So too could be having an emotional distance from the performances.

Perhaps if Max Martin and Lukas Gottwald had formed a band in 1998 they wouldn't have a single top hit because they would have been putting their attention into performing, touring, and being celebrities. Instead somebody else might have been the producer whose narrow focus was tracking pop music, taking popular artists, and figuring out how to write a song that would take them to #1.

gxs• 8 years ago

This has always been an interesting question.

You can look at luck as someone's luck in particular, or people's luck in general.

The odds that any one person at a craps table rolls a 7 first are low, but the odds that someone at the table rolls a 7 first are a lot higher.

Same thing with success in the way you mention it.

gt2• 8 years ago

Couldn't those guys' track of success be due to cronyism in the music industry?

Their songs are formulaic. I'm sure many of these 2 guys' songs are played in this video that cycles through a long list of hit songs which have the same progression (transposed into the same key so the similarities can more easily be noticed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

So perhaps anyone can write the songs, but not everyone has access to the pop stars (or access to these 2 guys).

I'm not an expert song writer myself, but I am a musician and lover of music. Based on the fact that there's awesome music noone's ever heard of or that doesn't get as much play as some lesser quality music, I have to echo the common sentiment that the music industry is a fashion show/popularity contest with gatekeepers (still). Not saying it's not all a sham, I think the difference that comes from the human performing is huge, and I love to see and hear that.

mattnewton2• 8 years ago

I think there may be some gatekeeping but also I think there really is a formula that more people like- and by taking ideas and tweaking them to sound sweeter and more energetic you get more sales. The bigs guys are just walking around and either signing talent to produce ideas for the pop-filter-Machine, or stealing their riffs wholesale.

tabtab3• 8 years ago

I have to admit I find many of those Martin & Gottwald tunes "catchy" for whatever reason. Cronyism alone can't create catchiness. Hard to argue with success. Bring on the cheese! Note that many tunes which use the common pop chord progressions also fail.

mattnewton2• 8 years ago

Absolutely, imo the article missed who the pop music factory is copying. It isn’t always other pop artists, it’s other artists doing well in niches, that get pop-ified.

“”” ... The constant iteration of tracks, all produced by the same formula, can result in accidental imitation—or, depending on the jury, purposeful replication. Seabrook recounts an early collaboration between Max Martin and Dr. Luke. They are listening, reportedly, to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps”—an infectious love song, at least by indie-rock standards. Martin is being driven crazy by the song’s chorus, however, which drops in intensity from the verse. Dr. Luke says, “Why don’t we do that, but put a big chorus on it?” He reworks a guitar riff from the song and creates Kelly Clarkson’s breakout hit, “Since U Been Gone.” “””

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/hit-cha...

They had an inkling of that with their shape score thing when comparing Royals and Fancy at the end.

rhizome• 8 years ago

Pop music is a folk music, fundamentally dependent on its own history, but it just as fundamentally has to cannibalize the music underground in order to stay relevant.

bena• 8 years ago

That's a bit unfair of a comparison, both McCartney and Lennon have more hits than Max Martin. It's only when you look at the Beatles specifically does Martin have more success in terms of "hits".

And technically talent _could_ account for it. If there were some kind of formula, it could be discerned from the songs they wrote and you'd have a more even playing field as more people could figure out the formula.

mygo• 8 years ago

Talent alone can't account for this, as they are, all in all, more successfull than the Beatles or Michael Jackson.

Yes it can. They could simply have more talent than the Beatles or Michael Jackson when it comes to manufacturing hits.

Why couldn’t it be a combination of talent and formula? If it was solely a formula then more people would be having their success by following the same exact formula. Unless only they have the required ingredients. And whose to say their hit-manufacturing genius isn’t part of that recipe... in addition to the access to capital and access to market and brand recognition that makes popular artists choose to work with them for their best songs?

skookumchuck• 8 years ago

Movies famously follow a formula as well.

taneq• 8 years ago

there is some kind of formula, and they figured it out

Of course there's a formula: https://youtu.be/yBDNvlvR8vA (link is Pop Music 101 to save you a click if you've already heard it)

__david__• 8 years ago

Off topic, but while digging through the hits explorer at the end, I noticed a steep dropoff in the number of songs I knew. I expected it, of course, but it was much sooner than I expected. I could hear nearly every song in my head from my middle school years, and the first half of high school. But my junior and senior years there's a whole lot of songs that I don't immediately recognize. The fall off is fairly steep and continues to the present.

I think what happened is that midway through high school I started liking specific genres and diving deeper into those rather than just listening to the radio, because my music consumption only increased during that time.

What Makes a Hit

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