I’m very excited to be on a few panels at this year’s Big Sound music conference at Brisbane. I was there last year as a punter and have to say it was a great few days.
The topics I’ve been asked to mouth off about are “The Song Is God” and “Making Records For The World”.
As a Militant Atheist I was slightly concerned when I first heard the title “The Song Is God”…
I guess the “Song” shares many qualities with this so-called God I’ve heard about. Both are mysterious, mean different things to different people. And many wise men have lost themselves searching for them. Though I’m not sure too many wars have been fought in the name of “Song” (Mods and Rockers, Brighton 1964 may disagree.)
What makes a great song? To be honest if there was a simple answer, life would be dull. I’m happy to admit there is NO formula. I’m a keen student of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty’s book “The Manual- How To Have A Number One Hit Single”, in which they propose a step-by-step formula of how to construct a sure-fire number one. It is an entertaining and humorous read though of course it’s flawed- there are no GOLDEN RULES. The rules are constantly being re-written and what works today, will not work tomorrow. And that’s what makes music continually exciting.
My job as a producer is to ensure the song is served to the best of its potential.
With a great song, this task is easy. You can give a great song a million different treatments and the song remains a winner. Equally with a dog of a song, you will never succeed. Polishing the proverbial…etc etc.
For me, it’s those songs that lie in the middle that deserve my time. Tweaking a song that starts out with limited potential by making arrangement changes, edits and other production ideas and ending up with an improved record.
“Making Records For The World” implies that one should tailor ones songs for international success. I may play the devils advocate on this one and suggest that aiming for overseas success is a mistake- in fact aiming for any success is a mistake. The effort should be make the band as good as possible. Success will follow. It’s a small world these days- good shit gets noticed. A huge amount of money is spunked on prematurely sending a band overseas.
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