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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.