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Hit Record Formula

MIchael Stavrou has a chapter in his book "Mixing With Your Mind" titled "Hit Record Formulae" which begins by telling you that he can't overtly tell you what the secrets are because of political reasons, but he can tell you how to obtain them. The rest of the chapter outlines guidelines and hints to find at least 7 different properties that hit records have.

The idea for finding these qualities begins with listening to popular records of course, and he recommends listening to the top 10 albums from the last ten years according to billboard. The albums are used to compare hits to non-hits, with all of the same accompanied production values and marketing.

The big question is: "Are there rules - or common denominators - that all major hit records abide by? A rule by definition, has no exception."
He elborates a bit more: "...are there essential ingredients in hit records that, without just one of these ingredients, the potential success of that record is dramatically reduced? By 'dramatically reduced', I mean that these ingredients are so essential that you will never find any member of the Top 10 records of the year missing this ingredient - no exceptions...ever - in any decade of hit music analysis."

*with the text upside down* "Hint: there are at least seven[factors]!"

"This[A hit record forumla] would explain why such a broad range of musical styles has occupied the number on slot over the years. IT would also explain the one-hit-wonders of individual artists and why - although a band may retain their 'rules of music' - they cease to have hits without apparently any drastic changes."

"quantifiable factors will come to mind that are exclusive to the 'A-sides' and all major hits, even Beethoven's 5th Symphony. To eliminate false hopes early I would test the theories against two or three massive hits of completely opposite styles, like Beethoven's Fifth against, Let It Be and an absurdly bubblegum massive hit like Sugar Sugar by the Archies."

One of the most important notes is this:

"But if common denominators of hit records do exist, they may not be in the 'language' you expect, after all, musicians have been looking for them for hundreds of years. By this I mean, the common denominators may not be expressed in musical terms, which would explain why skilled musicians do not see them.

My conclusion is that these common factors are not defined in musical terms, but instead psychoacoustical ones, and that music is just a tool to generate a vareity of subliminal conditions."

He does drop hints in other parts of the book, but I'm not going to type all of those out. If you have read it and want to discuss it, send me a PM.

I was wondering if you guys had any ideas? I looked up a thread discussing this on the Gearslutz forum, and all of the replies were not thought out.

Beethoven's Fifth was not a hit when it premiered anyway. Took a while to catch on.

What hits has Michael Stavrou written? Never heard of the guy.

Sounds like spam for me.

i always though of him as an engineer , not a song writer.

quote:

which begins by telling you that he can't overtly tell you what the secrets are because of political reasons

no its because he doesn't have a clue. seems like a rubbish person with a rubbish book containing nothing.

I'm sick and tired of these idiots writing books like this. Like that book from the 80s "How to write a hit record" or something like this. If anyone would somehow discover this secret they would a) be making hits and b) not letting us in on it.

Fact of the matter is that any hit song from the past 60 or more years, is essentially following the same set of rules as every other (non-hit) track. I.e. around 4-5 minutes, simple intro-verse-pre chorus-chorus-verse-pre chorus-chorus-solo-chorus song structure, a hok of some type, etc...
For example just look at trance songs; they all follow the very same arrangement - sometimes even down to the bar. But only a handful will become hit records.

And that guy is an idiot; you can't take Beethowen's Fifth and compare it to today's music. If that would be released today I highly doubt it would get the status it has now.
Furthermore, there are even composers and artists that make extremely quality music and are unknown to the public.

When something like this comes up I always bring up Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Metallica's Black Album. Imagine someone releasing DSOTM today. It would get praise from the critics no doubt about that, but I _highly_ doubt it would become as big of a commercial success as it was back then. Times change and the music with it. Same goes for Black Album. Sure it was a cool album, but you couldn't get kids today to go wild for it as they did in 91. It takes way more than just good music for a hit record.

Also, the author suggests that there are some sort of rules that hit songs follow - I agree that all popular songs follow the same set of rules, not only hits, but also every now and then a song becomes a hit record for no apparent reason. If you're from Europe you'll remember a few years back when all of a sudden a completely retarded piece of shit that went something like "Ich bin Schnappy, Schnapy krokodile..." or something like that. If you would have given this song to this author he would instantly (and every other sane person for that matter), dismiss it as a potential hit. Yet this piece of shit was played everywhere for some times. Little girls went crazy...
And there are many, many even more retarded examples like this.
edit: for our US readers, replace Schnappy with "Krank Dat"


My advise to the thread starter. Just stop reading these kinds of books and turn on MTV. Every #1 song sounds the same. You think you'll be doing something original and amazing if you read those books, but in the end you will come right back to the start - simple arrangements, familiar chord progressions, etc... There are no special ingredients of a hit record. Most of it trend (the artist who's "in"), some of it is hype, some of it marketing and sometimes a very small part of it is innovation.


p.s.
Another very important factor to remember. Never underestimate the stupidy of the general public.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes I'm sick and tired of these idiots writing books like this. Like that book from the 80s "How to write a hit record" or something like this. If anyone would somehow discover this secret they would a) be making hits and b) not letting us in on it. .

he didn't write a book about it, just a chapter. And I did read his book a while back. It isn't a bad book and was one of the few out at the time.

And he does seem to have some solid references.
Its just a book, relax.

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes I'm sick and tired of these idiots writing books like this. Like that book from the 80s "How to write a hit record" or something like this. If anyone would somehow discover this secret they would a) be making hits and b) not letting us in on it. Fact of the matter is that any hit song from the past 60 or more years, is essentially following the same set of rules as every other (non-hit) track. I.e. around 4-5 minutes, simple intro-verse-pre chorus-chorus-verse-pre chorus-chorus-solo-chorus song structure, a hok of some type, etc... For example just look at trance songs; they all follow the very same arrangement - sometimes even down to the bar. But only a handful will become hit records.

Are you saying it comes down to the luck of the draw? It comes down to how much word of mouth a track gets and how effective the marketing is?

I know that peer pressure does play an influence to popularity, but can you prove that it all comes down to that and has nothing to do with the sonic characteristics of the track and the engineering? Was most of the work done on Thriller, the best selling album of all time, simply in vain? Was Thriller simply just another pop album that lucked out by being on the top of the bell curve?

quote:

Originally posted by vikernes If you're from Europe you'll remember a few years back when all of a sudden a completely retarded piece of shit that went something like "Ich bin Schnappy, Schnapy krokodile..." or something like that. If you would have given this song to this author he would instantly (and every other sane person for that matter), dismiss it as a potential hit. Yet this piece of shit was played everywhere for some times. Little girls went crazy...

I think the song is pretty catchy, but I wouldn't be caught listening to it; it would ruin my street cred.

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