(450) HIT RECORDS : THE MYSTERY OF WHAT MAKES A HIT?

It's a bit of a mystery really, what makes a song, a recording of a song, a particular version  or cover tune of a song, a hit, a chart topper. 

So many factors to consider.  The song itself - the lyrics, the melody, the music production - which can reimagine a song, the singer - their popularity or break through, also the promotion - very important.   Some great songs you never heard of died before they were launched because there was little to no money for promo.

Sometimes everything comes together in a magical moment in time and somehow out of thousands of songs recorded at that time, one recording appeals to so many people that they go out and buy it, request it be played on a radio station, and go see the singer or band in concert. 

But for every example of how one song became a hit, there is some other song that became a hit a whole other way.  Musical stars get tired of concerts and retreat to a studio.   Very rarely someone breaks out using YouTube.

Today with so much independent music making, we have stars shining that relied on television talent contests, social networking on smart cell phones and computers, or making the rounds of local clubs performing live with CDs made in local studios in hand. 

It may be even more difficult to explain the mystery than it always was now, but you could say that a songwriter, a singer, someone has to BELIEVE IN THE SONG.

One of the ways a hit record is considered a hit is that it made it onto a chart.

Let's put it this way.  There are songs that didn't make the TOP 100 / 1000 that were still very successful for the songwriters because they were used for a movie or television series, or a number of artists recorded the song or performed it live.  Still, it's a temptation to look at charts.

Consider this.  Charts vary.  There are hit charts that proclaim the greatest hits of All Time (often opinion), Charts by record sales, charts by requests of radio play and actual radio play (which may have been dictated by a station manager or a DJ), charts that count by CITY, BY REGION, BY COUNTRY!  There are charts by category, by genre - easy listening, rockabilly, classical. 


Charts look back but don't predict the future!

(409) BMI TYPE DATABASES CAN BE WRONG

The ASCAP and BMI type songwriter databases, which help you find out who owns the intellectual properties to a song, can be wrong.

The reasons why are easy to explain.

When a songwriter sells his or her portion of the earnings on a song or leaves their portion in an inheritance to another person, someone who never wrote a song in their life can appear on the songwriter portion. A original partnership of two can appear to be a team of twelve. IT'S NOT REALLY A SONGWRITER'S DATABASE. It's a song OWNERSHIP database, about accounting.

Sometimes publishers sell part of their rights to a song to another publisher so more than one publisher may be involved.

A songwriter, artist, or publisher, who is registered with ASCAP or BMI is always locatable, should you want to use their song and pay them what you owe.

You simply contact the organization, tell them what song, and they contact the songwriter. Or if the songwriter has sold all their work or moved their work to another database/organization, they may have the address or be willing to forward for you.

(405) THEN THERE'S THE BUSINESS OF SONG WRITING

ASCAP (THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS, AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS)
BROADCAST MUSIC (BMI)
NASHVILLE SONGWRITERS FOUNDATION
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MUSIC EDUCATION : MUSIC COPYRIGHT
PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY for MUSIC (UK)
RECORDING INDUSTRY OF AMERICA
SOCAN CANADA SONGWRITERS REGISTRY

These are links to the left side of the blog on the links panel.

Let's say you've written a song tonight! Is it time to register it with ASCAP, BMI, or another organization, say in the United Kingdom or Canada?

That depends. Copyright law is that an Intellectual Property is copyrighted the moment it is written. Maybe you wrote the song alone, maybe there was a group of musicians and singers working together, maybe you have a verbal agreement with your friends, maybe you don't, about who gets credited.

Let's stick with the easy situation, you and only you have written the lyrics and the melody. No one else can take credit for the song. No one else has even heard the song!

Do you plan to sing it and perform it yourself, for a YouTube video to promote it , expose the song potentially to the Entire World, or at least show your friends at the next party you go to? Do you plan to sing it and perform it yourself at the next Open Mic, or at a club in Hollywood where you like to go?

Let's stick with the easy situation.
If you're on YouTube or at a party or a club I'd announce to the world that I am the singer-songwriter of the song.

You still really don't have to belong to any society to tabulate any money you might make on the song, as the performer, as the singer-songwriter, or as a publisher of the song, though there is always the chance you might be blown away to hear your song or a part of it on the radio, some other singer or band cashing in. Blown away that someone you trusted is profiting off you. IT HAPPENS!

You can, though the Copyright Office of the United States will tell you this is no official way to prove copyright, send your Intellectual Properties to yourself in the mail. They call that the POOR MAN'S COPYRIGHT because it costs a lot less than the Copyright Office.

If you do the POOR MAN's COPYRIGHT, you can send one or a hundred, printed, on a CD or stick full of songs to yourself, just make sure that there is a OFFICIAL POST MARK from the post office on the envelope and then YOU DO NOT OPEN IT! (When it gets to court to hand the envelope to the judge and let him be the one who opens it.)

The point I want to make here, is that if you're serious about making money as a song-writer, there is a lot of business after writing that song!

If you're just starting out (and that doesn't mean that the first song you wrote isn't a hit) you may wait a while to sign up with an ASCAP or a BMI, but if your friend's band starts playing your song at the Whisky, I'd get that going ASAP! If your friend's band gets signed and the song appears on their first album, there is no way you're not going to!

(355) THE CREATIVE PROCESS : THERE'S ALWAYS A SONG IN MY MIND

Though at times in my career I was called "The Singing - Acting Sensation," or "The Next James Dean," or simply "entertainer" or "singer-songwriter," I think "singer-songwriter" is the title that I've earned since my song "Freeze" was recorded by me at United Artists back in '58 and then covered by other artists.

Freeze is a rare record these days, with just a few disc jockey copies (promo) showing up in auctions. That's because the record was played on record players till it broke. (And yes, as a reader pointed out, the song is available on a compilation CD.)

I played it on American Bandstand. The song inspired a dance craze, a dance called The Freeze.

"Singer-Songwriter" is also a title that was also applied to many of my friends who I started out with in the late 1950's in New York, many who also headed west to California in the early 1960's, such as Ersel Hickey, Bobby Darin, Buddy Knox, and Johnny Rivers...
If you've been a reader of this blog, you know I've mentioned certain creative collaborations I've enjoyed as well, with artists such as Jimmy Bowen, Red West, Fred Horton, Glen Campbell and Mae Axton.

I've talked about the Cover Tune Era, when every singer was trying to find a hit song that someone else wrote (or already recorded) to cover, small labels and regional markets, and the days when I traveled around the country performing on dance parties and radio programs live; I traveled while with United Artists for a couple years, on the Buddy Knox tour with Buddy for a couple years.

Some of my collaborations happened spontaneously, just sitting around my house, or Elvis', other collaborations were part of my job when I was a staff songwriter at American Music in Los Angeles, where a lot of artists came through, for a day, or a few months, or were on contract as well.

I also sold songs independently and worked as a freelancer for Pat Boone's CoogaMooga.

I lost track of just how many songs I'd written or co-written over the years. Then the Intellectual Properties that had been owned or co-owned by others started returning to me several years ago. Lots of paperwork.

One day my lawyer said "It's up over 800, Wes!"

There's always a song in my mind, always something I'm working on.

Some of my songs were recorded as demos only by some now famous people and the studio musicians on them went on those demos to have entertainment careers of their own. Some of these were pressed, some may be in tape vaults, some are lost forever as recordings, but because I REGISTERED the song, they were understood to be my Intellectual Property.

I can't help but hope that someday songs that were recorded as demos or in studios that did not make it onto records at the time will be discovered.

(172) RECORDING INDUSTRY OF AMERICA (RIAA)

Click on the title above to get to the official web site of RECORDING INDUSTRY OF AMERICA, a trade group that, like ASCAP andBMI, is involved in supporting and protecting the intellectual properties of music makers in the United States. One of the ways they do that is by certifying a record as certifies Gold®, Platinum®, or Multi-Platinum™. That means they watch sales. This site has lists of music that has recently gone Gold or Platinum as well as information for parents, educators, and young people, about Music and the Internet.

These days there is lots of controversy about the Fair Use of sound clips (usually a few bars attached to an educational site is fine, like RCS Discography does) and downloads of music and videos. YouTube, the site we've been leaning heavily on for the videos we attached to our commentary is one of the most successful and we are truly grateful to the contributors who have allowed us to do this so we can allow our readers to actually see and hear performances in historical context. Because of these videos we have also been able to show you the differences between black and white versus color telecasts.

Some artists object to downloads of music for free, some do not, seeing the interest in their music to be a positive thing, part of their celebrity, and sound sampling this way to only lead to more sales. At the same time many artists (including me) have had intellectual properties deliberately stolen and used without benefit of approval or seeing a dime on sales, and seen their work pirated through various methods. Let me tell you it doesn't just hurt in the wallet.

On this blog we attempt to follow the guidelines for Fair Use in the United States of America as understood legally at this time. (And as we post on our own Rights information, anyone who objects to us linking to their site, please get in touch with us, and we will respectfully take it down.)

At the same time, several of my friends mentioned on this blog have thanked me and feel excited to be remembered and linked to. This blog has been an opportunity for a number of my old friends and me to be reunited after taking separate paths years ago. I feel so lucky when that happens.

(75) BMI AND OTHER REGISTRIES TO PROTECT THE SONGWRITER

In the early 1960's I decided it was time to officially join either BMI or ASCAP. BMI - Broadcast Music, Inc. and ASCAP- The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, were there to make sure that a songwriter got his or her residuals - payment for work that was recorded by others or used by others in a performance. At the time it seemed that most of the younger guys - my peers - were choosing BMI.

Link to the official BMI web site above!

And here's the official ASCAP web site:

http://www.ascap.com/index.html

A songwriter can be a member of one or both of these organizations. It's a choice. You can also choose not to join at all. BMI and ASCAP don't have worldwide authority. There are other organizations that do what these two do for their member artists. For instance, a Canadian songwriter usually signs up with their Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada - SOCAN.

http://www.socan.ca/

In England - the United Kingdom - it's the Performing Rights Society NEW LINK!

http://www.prsformusic.com/Pages/default.aspx

These organizations monitor the use or play of a song and provide collection and pay services for "performance royalties" to the publishers and the songwriters. Each and every time a song is played on the radio or the television there are royalties to be paid to the publisher, to the performer, and to the songwriter(s.)

So if you're a serious songwriter and want to make money from your creative output, the thing to do is to register with a publisher. Now at American Music, I agreed that songs I wrote within the capacity of my job were owned by American Music for a period of time, and then all rights returned to me. And they are - just in the last few years!