Read Between The Frets: The Philosophy of Rock Music

It goes without saying that most bands start their careers with  an eye on fame and fortune, yet so many bands fall well short of  the mark.  Still others make it past that mark with one big song,  but then burn out and are aptly named “One Hit Wonders.”  And  of course there are the elite few bands that produce hit after hit  and make it to the promised land of eternal rock stardom, but  what really makes these songs popular?  What determines what  we, as consumers and listeners, choose to play?  Is there a  formula for popular rock and roll? If there is one, is popular  music an art or just an industry?

Music is, without a doubt, a fine art.  Composers spend  lifetimes creating masterpieces that will evoke emotions in their  listeners  in a way that will just “feel” right.  However, few  people,  including the writers and performers themselves, would  consider today’s pop music a “fine” art.  Not many are known to sip fine wine in their mansion’s sun room listening to the gentle sounds of Audioslave or the magnificent crescendos of the Killers. Although many prefer popular music to classical, none doubt that classical music is fine art, while rock and roll is perhaps just regular art.  But if there is a way to manufacture pop music to insure “hit” status?  If there was, why has no one created a computer that manufactures a hit every few weeks.  Such a machine would be a cash cow for anyone that could do it.  But no one has figured it out yet.  There is no set method for releasing a hit.

While there is no way to ensure a hit, there are certainly some key components.  Strong beats and entertaining performers are believed to be important, but a large component is communication.  At this many  throw their hands up.  What about Britney Spears? What about “Umbrella-ella-ella?”  Of course communication is not always in  the form of deep messages that you connect to on a conscious  level. But when did I say anything about deep messages or  consciousness? When you think about it, you would not listen to  anything if it did not connect to you on some level.  Even the poppiest, most cliche hits connect with their listeners in one way  or another.  Perhaps they just feel comfort at those three chords  that they used on the five albums they released last year.    Perhaps that same breakup story from the last fifteen songs  really speaks to them.  There is a certain comfort that comes  from listening to good old predictable pop. There is some  subconscious level of communication that occurs between you  and the performer.  As a listener, we walk away with some  feeling from every song that we enjoy listening to.

A performer’s key goal should be to learn how to communicate, even on the most basic subconscious levels, with his or her audience.  That feeling of comfort that comes from listening to a good song can be an artist’s best friend, and it is certainly an art to find that feeling and project it through every song one writes. If an artist can evoke a comforting, satisfying emotion from enough of his or her listeners, the song is bound to become a hit, because as long as someone can find that personal solace in their song, there’s no reason for them not to listen to it, or buy it, or play it for their friends.  The popularity of a song can be found in the artist’s ability to give something that their audience desires.  That can come in the form of a conscious message that the audience wants to hear, or it can come from a totally subconscious feeling that the artist sends them through the music they enjoy.  The key is communication.