Get Your Radiohead On

Hello all you lovely One Love folks. It's been an age since i've blogged something about songwriting so here's another pearl of wisdom (or possiby oyster of stupidity) from my fevered imagination. 

And by this I don’t mean the critically acclaimed-Oxford-born-post-rock doom-mongers, I of course mean the radio itself. Now, by the way, I am a huge fan of Radiohead, but i don’t hear them on the radio much. After a 3 hour stint of scanning Radio 1 and Capital radio today I can tell you what’s on the wireless (I’m so current!). R & B, Urban and a few pop and rock songs. By this I mean A dollop of Tinchy Stryder, a smidgin of Jordin Sparx, a sprinkle of Kelly Rowland and a pinch of Kings Of Leon. Then repeat, ad infinitum.

If you don’t want to get a song on the radio then please stop reading now.



One common complaint I have from new writers is ‘there’s a load of crap on the radio so I don’t listen to it’ closely followed by ‘how do I get my stuff on the radio?’ This blog will attempt give you some answers to this conundrum.

Firstly-If you want to get a song on the radio- LISTEN TO THE BLOODY RADIO! The songs you hear are what the public at large likes at the moment. There, I said it. Logic can be devastating to the artistic community sometimes. As the saying goes ‘If the world gives you lemons, make lemonade’.

Secondly. Analyse. What, if anything, do these radio songs have in common? Here are some nuggets I’ve gleaned from listening to Radio One and Capital. The songs on the Radio tick the following boxes: energetic, exciting, aggressive, repetitive, fresh, edgy, modern, full of attitude, inorganic. hook-heavy, novel, rhythmic, frenetic, and  immediate- oh, and did I mention edgy? Edgy is king. Even the urban and R and B songs that I heard today may be slow tempo but they kick arse! How many of these words describe the last three songs you’ve written (and indeed the last three I’ve written!)

In the world of Radio 2, Absolut and other Radio stations which have an older demographic, the buzz words I get are; acoustic, organic, familiar, melodic, mid-tempo, and comforting. This I imagine may be more like the songs you write (me too, I like a pipe and slippers tune).

I really beg all of you writers to listen to the radio for a couple of hours a day this week and occasionally put on one of your strongest demos between these songs. Does your song fit in? I hope it does, but I imagine for a lot of you, it won’t. My guess is that when placed between these thoroughbred radio songs, your song may sound a touch old-fashioned and lacking in attitude. It may just sound too sweet, sad, introspective or nice. This does not mean that your song is not a brilliant aching work of magnificence, it just means it's not the kind of song that someone driving to work on a Monday morning needs to pick them up. This may also be because you haven’t got the right production tools at your disposal or it may be because of two fundamental problems, namely, the meter of the melody and lyrical content that isn't edgy or fresh enough.

The melodies i heard on the Radio 1 and Capital today invariably had a an energetic meter. The use of syncopation, pre-empting the beat, repetitive single syllable words and often a nursery-rhyme sing-song element to the hook sections of the melody gave the song immediacy. These melodies rarely started on the first beat of the bar and rarely landed where I expected them to. The melody to 'Hey Jude' is 8 bars long (and beautiful) but the hook sections of modern radio songs are invariably 2 bars long or less and repeated a lot. The other thing you notice about the radio songs is that there is little respite from melodic information (when the vocal isn't there, often another melodic hook takes over). They demand your attention from start to finish.

To write a melody which isn’t staid and old-fashioned, I suggest singing along to hit songs on the radio (pity the neighbours). Look at how the lyrics scan online. How many syllables in each line? What is the meter of the melody? You may discover how to write a more immediate, fresh and ‘punchy’ melody, or possibly discover that you don't want to write this kind of song thank you very much.

In terms of lyric, be brave, edgy, original, ‘Poker Face’ ‘Umbrella’? ‘T Shirt’ ‘Birthday Sex’ Not ‘I Miss You Baby’. I've noticed a lot more humour in the lyrics out there; Dizzy Rascal and Lily Allen being good exponents of this.

I hope this blog has been helpful and informative. I think  that often, to the sensitive singer songwriters out there, these radio songs are like the brash next door neighbours; loud, annoying and crying out for attention. You may have no interest in writing this kind of song. Then again, if you try, you might have fun. On the occasions I have written a song that's been played on the radio there is no greater buzz than hearing it as you stumble across it while driving home after a day's writing.

By the way, I wrote this entire blog while installing Logic 9. Now where are those Calvin Harris rave synth sounds I need?

Actually i may just listen to The Archers....

Let me know what you think to this blog.

Cheers



Jez