It's a long read

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/26/120326fa_fact_seabrook

but it's an incredibly fascinating look at how a lot of Rihanna and other pop singers (Pink, Katy Perry, etc.) songs get made. All new information to me.

I found it particularly sad for a couple of reasons:

1. These folks are block buster singles oriented and don't seem interested in making full epic albums.

2. Because the songwriting (lyrics) are driven by the beat, the lyrics are almost secondary and just sounds to compliment the beat. No real thought whatsoever. Don't expect a ballad of Dorothy Parker coming from these folks.




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Peace to the Gods.

2. i appreciate acts like Rihanna focusing on singles. she and her ppl are great at churning them out. i'm not interested in hearing navel-gazing album filler tracks from her. i don't want her putting journal entries to music. based on reports of her Twitter posts, she has 0 to say that i'm interested in hearing. i don't care for her opinions on world events or history or politics or religion or anything like that. but i do want to hear her warble over a cute Pop-Dance beat. as long as i can dance to it. and if she strikes cute poses in the accompanying music video that's all good too. i'll look to other acts for depth and meaning and art and whatever.

...and now i'll read the article. lol

fuck you.

nowadays. I feel that Ciara, Trey Songz and Estelle should just release a song and music video every month like clockwork and have them make the rounds on blogs and clubs and tour off those attempts at hits.

However I feel that when you get to the top of the hill like Rhianna is, she needs to make a couple 'statement' albums that put her in another tier, not just for romantic, artistic reasons, but more to justify higher ticket prices, TV Specials etc.

You are right that she has nothing substantial to say, but that shouldn't prevent Pop stars from making a concentrated effort with forward thinking, risky production. I'd take a focused, hooks laden concept album about how she wants to be with Chris Brown but the world won't let her anyday. I can stand most singers being singles artists, but some must have ambition once in a while.

-------
http://adevotedappraisal.tumblr.com - Essays, reviews, short stories and free writes on music, film and life around us.

But I guess I am saying I think it would be a bad thing if the single oriented artist crowded out the artist who still practice the art of making a complete album.


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Peace to the Gods.

i dunno if there's room for all of them on major labels though.

fuck you.

>2. Because the songwriting (lyrics) are driven by the beat,
>the lyrics are almost secondary and just sounds to compliment
>the beat. No real thought whatsoever. Don't expect a ballad
>of Dorothy Parker coming from these folks.

I know a lot of great artist hear a melody or beat that inspires them to write specific lyrics.

I am specifically talking about the process described in the article. I think its a slightly different process of just finding sounds that fit the beat.

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like she'd take phrases she'd heard thrown around @ the beauty shop or the cafeteria lunch table and turn them into lyrics.

hell, i'm sure Ester ain't the 1st songwriter to do this, of course. this practice likely reaches way back to the wayback.

fuck you.

I always heard the story that when McCartney first came up with the melody of yesterday, he would sing "scrambled eggs" until he came with more suitable lyrics. Wikipedia says the original lyrics were "Scrambled Eggs/Oh, my baby how I love your legs".

If the Beatles took the approach of the song writers in this article, they wouldn't have bothered to write the beautiful lyrics for yesterday and just been satisfied with scrambled eggs.



**********
Peace to the Gods.

-------------------------
“The other dude after me didn’t help my case. It was just like…crazy nigga factory going on.”
Dre makes no apologies for his own eccentricities. “I was young, and searching, trying to find myself,” he says. “Never did.”-- Andre B

the article didn't say Ester & Stargate stick w/whatever gibberish she comes up with in the booth.

fuck you.

“Boom, badoom, boom / boom, badoom, boom / bass / yeah, that’s that super bass”



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Peace to the Gods.

beating like a drum and it's comin your way

can't you hear that...

^ that's not gibberish.

and Stevie Wonder likes his 'La la la' 'Do do do' etc lyrics too, you know.

fuck you.

**********
Peace to the Gods.

well, now i'm not surprised that Ester's lyrics sound like they do.

*smh*

LOL

fuck you.

points. I don't think dope lyrics are vital. But then again, I really like 70% of Rihanna's post-beating output.

"'It’s not enough to have one hook anymore,' Jay Brown, the president of Roc Nation, and Dean’s manager, told me recently. 'You’ve got to have a hook in the intro, a hook in the pre-chorus, a hook in the chorus, and a hook in the bridge.' The reason, he explained, is that 'people on average give a song seven seconds on the radio before they change the channel, and you got to hook them.'"

We are goldfish. Jesus Christ.

--

<--- Big Baller World Order

>

<--- Big Baller World Order

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this is what im talking about.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/05/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song

<--- Big Baller World Order

is that the New Yorker articles says that Ester can make 1M on a hit track. That number sounded super high to me. the article you mentioned more of a number like 25K.

I wonder which number is right.


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Peace to the Gods.

1m off publishing not upfront
the 25k is the "fee"

Double 0
DJ/Producer/Artist
Producer in Kidz In The Hall
-------------------------------------------
twitter: @godouble0
IG: @godouble0
www.thinklikearapper.com

so leave them to the singles/iTunes for .99/bum a loosie MP3 crowd.

put them together in a collection, without them sounding like they were thrown together to make space... they good

a lot of mixtapes out there are pretty much albums proper

while the actual albums... well, suck

darts, pin the tail on the donkey, color in the numbered areas, and building a car in an auto plant.

it's also a function of the lessening attention span of this country. it's working for now, and probably will for the foreseeable future.

https://twitter.com/chuck4prez

Rihanna is often described as a “manufactured” pop star, because she doesn’t write her songs, but neither did Sinatra or Elvis. She embodies a song in the way an actor inhabits a role—and no one expects the actor to write the script.

desperate to maintain their lifestyle in a collapsing industry. It's clear as day when Ester starts talking about label heads viewing her as "a check".

the average music fans only like what they are shown but those channels and their gatekeepers are constantly evolving. In time, this will change the creation aspect as well.

aka...this is really nothing to get riled up about.

>desperate to maintain their lifestyle in a collapsing
>industry. It's clear as day when Ester starts talking about
>label heads viewing her as "a check".

that's what kind of sucks about a lot of music because it seems so transparent.

even when artists (mostly rappers) talked about "the business side" it still seemed like the 4th wall was up

I mean, this has always existed.

They write some catchy dance-pop songs together. There's room for all that shit.
I enjoy it.


http://twitter.com/collazo
http://www.reverbnation.com/livesociety

it's just that the quality of the songwriting as well as the music has gone down considerably

￭￭￭￭

maybe that's just pop music in general.
but its a shame.

---
www.ikirejones.com
FW16: After Migration.

...but it sure seems like its got way less creative on the pop level over the years

That's actually good songwriting. The lyrics and the music should match the same vibe. That said, there is something artful about being able to pack meaningful lyrics into a strong melodic structure. However, that's more the exception than the rule...in any genre. People always indulge in revisionist history in these posts.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

I wonder how many hit songs were written to the beat vs the beat being made after the song was written?

I know in the last 10 years it's beat first and then lyrics... which is probably why we only connect with them for a hot minute. I wonder if hip hop changed the game because the beat is damn near always made before the verses and chorus.

it is a little sad. Maybe it's jealousy as well... LOL. I know Elvis and Sinatra and others all had songwriters at least the artist had "star power" when they hit the stage.

When I watch Katy Perry in a live performance.... I don't see it. It looks like a soccer mom dressed in a weird outfit faking it for 3 minutes. Same with Rhianna and even Britney Spears...

Rhianna has some great singles but when she performs it's cheezy. She doesn't even try to entertain or lip sync half the time.

>it is a little sad. Maybe it's jealousy as well... LOL. I
>know Elvis and Sinatra and others all had songwriters at least
>the artist had "star power" when they hit the stage.
>
>When I watch Katy Perry in a live performance.... I don't see
>it. It looks like a soccer mom dressed in a weird outfit
>faking it for 3 minutes. Same with Rhianna and even Britney
>Spears...
>
>Rhianna has some great singles but when she performs it's
>cheezy. She doesn't even try to entertain or lip sync half the
>time.
>
>


i always wonder how it feels to be manufactured like that. its gotta be a crazy internal struggle.

to me, as an 'artist' it would be hard to be proud of something that i didnt create.
going to the studio to recite someone elses lyrics, to a formulaically crafted song, in clothes that a stylist picked out, under the guidance of management and who knows how many other handlers. all for what? for fame? not being able to walk down the street? not being able to go out in public without causing some sort of pandemonium? i really dont see the appeal of it all.

I don't think that's a big deal. Alot of the great singers were not songwriters and I wouldn't expect them to be.

I am just disappointed that the songwriting has seemed to have become such a diminished aspect of it all.


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Peace to the Gods.

>I am just disappointed that the songwriting has seemed to have
>become such a diminished aspect of it all.

but its like chicken and egg for me, did the listener lose interest in hearing a story or did the lyrics start to take a backseat to a nice beat that we could groove to?

It's ridiculously hard to force predetermined lyrics into an unrelated melody. If you talk to any songwriter (other than rappers), the majority of them have the melody that they're going to use before the lyrics. Why? Because the melody and the lyrics need to match the composition. Every once and a while you'll see someone use juxtaposition to make a point. However, most of the time if the beat is happy, lyrics are happy. If the music's sad, the lyrics are sad. Let's not act like this is a new phenomenon. Now I'll agree that a lot of popular songwriters today are lazy and could be more artful with their execution. But the music almost always exists before the lyrics. That's usually how it's done and that ain't new. The only exception I can think of is rap, which has influenced songwriters to step away from melody and put more focus on punchlines or using too many words, i.e. Mariah's tinging. I actually wish more people wrote melodies first, because the adverse results in the monotone R&B/Pop that I hate.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

cause guy just said fuck it and gave us the reference track on purpose


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X522NTrUx4M


bonus points for getting Youtube ladies all up in arms over whether there are real lyrics or not and battling each other over best transcription videos


~~~~~~~~~
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I think back in the day the lyrics were written first and then the music was arranged around it...

You may have an idea or concept of what the song's going to be about first, but the music always comes first. Lyrics without a melody in mind are poetry. Can you convert a poem into a song? Sure, but it's not common in any genre other than rap. Most lyricists write with a melody in mind. Even if the music is in their head, they usually have an idea of how the basic melody is going to go. Now, in the production process more instrumentation may be added or use of dynamics may be employed to enhance the lyrics, but, again, the basic melody of the song is almost always in place.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

miss ester dean u can get it - weezy

i was feeling that single...wondered what happened to this chick


do or die

those economics don't make any sense to me.

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Peace to the Gods.

album sales, etc. i'm not saying it's a milli, but it's a very, very good chunk of change.

https://twitter.com/chuck4prez

They do not know enough to demand better.

lotta rihannas shit just hits that aural sweet spot

will ppl be playing her whole album in 20 yrs no

but you WILL get your old ass up @ the family reunion in 2050 (if u live that long) when the DJ throws that shit on to show the young ppl how they played it back in YOUR day


do or die

but that is the mode of the day.... when the hip hop template was placed over R&B music this is what you got..... to me it seems like it went to far when you have "beats" dictating lyrics...in R&B

Writing lyrics with no melody is Hip Hop's influence. Now the quality of the lyric have become subpar, but having the music or a melody first has ALWAYS been the process.

http://soundcloud.com/forestbrooks

riting lyrics to original melodies or as part of musical arrangements that involve musicians...especially in a context where what is being said in the lyrics have some value...and is part of an overall product(album).....to me you bred an environmehnt that had better and more comeplete "songs" that aged better. When we are talking about writing lyrics to beats in r&b to me that is putting more emphasis on how the words being said flows with a beat as opposed to the words having meaning in the context of a complete song.

I give it a 15%

if people still want hits from her.... they are gonna put her out.. lol she commands too much importance... Esther IS the Rihanna voice.. and on the pop side she is Nicki's voice..

Double 0
DJ/Producer/Artist
Producer in Kidz In The Hall
-------------------------------------------
twitter: @godouble0
IG: @godouble0
www.thinklikearapper.com

If Rock City (now planet IV) couldn't get a release date I don't see how she does.

Because of WrestleMania I have to hear her hook on MGK's "Invicible" and it's grown on me.

phemom's the name, all-star writer/
searching 4 journalistic fame, mindframe igniter....www.twitter.com/hayabusaage

but it's possible... all she has to do is save one of these mega hits for herself... Keri's first album seemed like it was due for a nevruary 31st release date after a few singles flopped then "knocks you down" became a huge hit, called in a few faves (neyo and kanye) and she was set

friends with my lil' bro during middle school.

weird to see her walking the red carpet at the Grammy's.

as for the article: not anything i didn't already understand...although the Stargate background was most interesting to me.

the whole 'pop factory' aspect? *shrug* i expect radio hits to be catchy drivel that i will inevitably ended singing even though i don't want to.

A friend of mine is a song writer and I met her at his hotel in NYC. 2 years later she was on the red carpet.

I would have never expected her to be "that chick" when talking about a hit songwriter.

It's an inference I drew from the article (that and her seeing herself in a Missy Elliot Lane).

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Peace to the Gods.

every since Producers and there sound dominated the airwaves well this is to be expected.

anytime a sound becomes the in thing well chances are greater that a sound is going to be more remembered than the songs and this has happen for many a year.

in truth what makes Rihanna's domiance anymore different than Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Jeinnifer Lopez and other acts especially during the disco era til now where a voice over a track been used.

I mean exactly how is what Rihanna is doing different than how Zelma Davis was used for C&C Music factory? aside from the fact that Davis didn't really sing on those records, however still you get the picture of selling the Beat and Groove and the songwriting rides backseat and some would say in the trunk

mistermaxxx R.Kelly, Michael Jackson,Stevie wonder,Rick James,Marvin Gaye,El Debarge, Barry WHite Lionel RIchie,Isleys EWF,Lady T.,Kid creole and coconuts,the crusaders,kc sunshine band,bee gees,jW,sd,NE,JB

Miami Heat, New York Yankees,buffalo bills

THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS.

Like everyone said above, this has been going on forever. However it's interesting how the roots for the current wave is euro-techno

For a dude I never heard of, I was wondering how he got on such a blockbuster sounding beat.


**********
Peace to the Gods.

Lesson, I'm disappointed...

--me--
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