Music Publishing & Songwriting

I had a flurry of responses to a variety of recent blogs all arrive in my inbox this week. I’m not sure if everyone just suddenly decided to throw in their two cents, or whether it all happened to show up at once. It’s always great to hear from those of you who follow “Music Publishing and Songwriting”. Whether you agree, disagree, like the blog or hate it, it’s engaging to hear your thoughts and reactions.

One of the most interesting responses I received was from Mark Simos, a songwriting teacher at Berkleemusic– he wrote to share a different point of view in regards to the blog called “Hits Only, Please”. I’m excerpting here– but I’d encourage you to go back and read his comments in full, as they’re very perceptive and full of useful insight. Mark writes:

Mark makes a great point here– and certainly, I didn’t mean to imply that the only communicators are those who write for Top Forty success. In every genre or sector of music, from musical theater to jazz to children’s music, there are those writers who bring the discipline of craftsmanship to bear on their personal expression. The point here is really how you judge your success as a songwriter, regardless of which area of music you choose to work in. The “hit” writers judge success, at least in part, by whether or not their song reaches and communicates with their target audience. The other writers are interested only in whether they have “expressed themselves” and feel good about their own song.

But where Mark is really on to something is when he points out that “writing radio-friendly, hit format songs is one kind of stylistic and audience focus and choice. Writers of equal discipline, craft and integrity may also choose to write for other, admittedly smaller audiences…and yet still must think about the experience of the listener, still be thinking about communication and not just self-expression.” The key here is that little phrase “audience focus”. If you want to identify what separates the successful songwriter from the struggling one, here’s a place to start:

Not personally, of course. But successful songwriters in any genre have learned the same lesson that everyone else in the media and entertainment industry has learned: There is no general audience. In our increasingly fragmented world, there is very, very little that everyone likes. Even a basic newscast is right-leaning or left-leaning, hip and irreverent, or slow and wonkish, and clearly aimed at a particular age, gender, political persuasion or marketing angle.

When a songwriter tells me that his or her work “appeals to everyone”, or “crosses a lot of different genres”, or “doesn’t really fit into any category”, the songwriter is not convincing me as to the potentially universal appeal his or her music could have. The songwriter is in fact telling me that he or she has no idea who the audience for his or her songs is– and doesn’t much care. If you write musical theater songs, you are not aiming for the kids that buy rap records. If you’re writing children’s songs, 20-year-old alternative fans are not your crowd. In today’s entertainment industry, anyone that sets out to appeal to everyone will very likely reach no one at all.

If you don’t believe that, take a look at every media and entertainment company, from magazines to television networks to radio stations. Notice how precisely they target their product to a very specific audience. They don’t do it by accident. Radio stations, advertisers, movie studios and everyone else study the public constantly– watching demographic shifts, seeing how different markets are changing, monitoring how well they are reaching their target audience. If a radio station is targeted to a young, urban audience, that station will study everything about that particular lifestyle. They want to know what movies that audience watches, which stars are rising and which are fading, what clothes are in and out of style, and what cars are being bought and sold.

If it works for every other entity in the entertainment business, why would it not work for songwriters as well?

One of the first steps to success as a songwriter is to define and understand your market. For many, it’s a relatively simple process. If you’re in a band in Williamsburg that’s aimed at appealing to the Williamsburg hipster crowd, you should be able to follow your instincts about what would appeal to you and your friends. As long as you’re reasonably representative of the audience that you write for, you shouldn’t have to engage in much of a research project. Your job is simply to make sure that you stay up on what’s happening in your particular scene– so that you see trends coming and sense fashions changing before anyone else.

On the other hand, if you’re a 40-year-old guy in Nashville trying to write songs for Avril Lavigne, you’ve got a bit more of a challenge. You’re going to have to invest some time and effort in understanding the teen market, and the female demographic in particular, if you’re going to come up with something that will entertain that audience. It’s not impossible– trust me, Dr. Luke or the Matrix are well outside of Avril’s core fanbase. But when they write for her, they are focused on targeting ideas that appeal to that particular demographic and communicate on that audience’s terms. Alternatively, one of my favorite country writers, George Teren, who’s written songs like “Ladies Love Country Boys” and “Homewrecker”, is a long way from a typical country music listener. But he understands that audience, and when he writes for them, he speaks in their language.

Defining your target audience doesn’t mean that those are the only people that will like your music. There are thousands of exceptions to every demographic description– 70-year-old grandmothers that have a peculiar fondness for hip-hop, or 17-year-old Hispanic kids that love musical theater. But you don’t write for those exceptions. You begin by drawing a reasonable, defined picture of those at the heart of your market, and write for them. Perhaps you’ll draw in a few people you never expected. Perhaps your song will become such a success in your core market, which it will begin to crossover to a larger audience. But you start by aiming at a specific, core audience that will become your fanbase. You can’t start from everywhere. You have to start from somewhere specific.

There’s a wonderful new musical that just opened on Broadway, called “title of show”. If you’re in NYC this summer, be sure to check it out. In “title of show”, there’s a great song called “Nine People’s Favorite Thing”, in which the characters writing a musical agree that they’d rather be “Nine people’s favorite thing than 100 people’s ninth favorite thing”. The truth is, that’s the goal of most successful entertainment today. Whether you’re shooting at mass success, or working in a more specialized field, you still have to hit a very specific target. The first step in doing that is to take aim.