In my new video, I discuss some more thoughts on the modern music industry: my reactions to the Seabrook book, tepidly defending The Archies, and most importantly…an original song by Larsen and his lovely girlfriend Vita!
All this and more inside.
Anyway, the topic of modern music is so…nice…? I’m doing it twice. And boy do I have a treat for you people.
But before we do that, let’s discuss the book The Hit Factory by Seabrook—a hell of a read, I recommend it. While you can get the basic gist of the book’s thesis from reading an article reviewing it…or, y’know, listening to the radio for 5 minutes, it’s still worth getting the down and dirty, nitty gritty details of just how mechanized the music industry is, and just how perfectly they’ve gotten addictive, disposable pop fluff down to a science.
Plus, seeing how interconnected all these music industry figures are (reinforcing how connections often are more important than talent), and how..badly Lou Pearlman was stiffing the BackStreet Boys. Uh, stiffing them strictly financially, not sexually. Although I wouldn’t put that past him.
So anyway, the book goes into greater detail about the “riddim and hook” method of song writing, and how the songwriting sessions are really expected to have a radio ready song completed in the span of 5-6 hours.
So, know what? I’m gonna play your game. I decided to write my own crappy pop song—everything, the lyrics, the instrumentation, the rhythms, the hooks, the melodies. ANd I played all the instruments too, I did everything except sing because my singing sounds like a sperm whale having sex. The lovely Vita did the singing instead.
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