Yes, the new guy has to entertain everyone else. LOL!
Actually John, the people I talk about are the ones that write whole song lyrics and want to hand them to you and have you write music to them. You know, the ones that go to the crappy demo services, get crappy demos, think they are getting them pitched, pay a bunch of money for nothing, get nothing but dissapointment, THEN get on the songwriter forums and always start their posts with:
"HAS ANYONE EVER HEARD OF....."
Then several pages of people piling on that company or individuals....
LEARN TO FREAKING GET AROUND OTHER PEOPLE AND CO-WRITE ACTUAL SONGS, INSTEAD OF THINKING YOU KNOW HOW TO WRITE!!!!
Sorry. I have a short fuse on stupidity.
One of the other residual effects of the Internet age we are living in. EVERYONE THINKS THEY CAN DO THIS.
THEY CAN'T.
Writing songs, takes conversation. Takes skill. Takes being able to say something in an interesting way. The people I know that are actual lyricists, still usually can play an instrument, at least rudimentary. They can hum a tune. They can find a groove or feel in a similar song and use that as an example. They can story board something out and have "dummy lines" that hold a place until the music comes together. They can usually write off the cuff, and are able to be flexible and come up with something else if the things they are doing don't work. And they know when the things they are doing don't work.
The "Lyric only" writers, write down these things with no meter. No sense of groove. You can look at a great writer's lyrics and it just kind of jumps off the page at you. It LOOKS like it sounds good. The lyric only people have no sense of that. There's limited structure. One verse will not match the next verse. There is often no real "chorus" because they don't really know what a chorus is. They don't reinforce hooks because they have never sung and tried to get an audience to sing along with them. And again, most important, they have never been ignored or walked out on by audiences, so there is no relation to anything but their lyrics, which for the most part sound like they have been written in a vacum. They get into the "poor poor me" aspects of their lives, then complain when they hear someone else do the same thing, because it sounds whiney as hell and they laugh at the other people who do it, not realizing that THEY THEMSELVES DO THE SAME THING.
And personally, they do just what Matt is talking about. Re-read his post and think of that. A guy hears Matt's song. Cares enough to come up and talk to him. THEN says Matt's music would work well with HIS SONG. "Yes, Mr. McCartny, that "Yesterday" thing is okay, but you should hear MY song, "LICK MY LOVE PUMP" that would sound great with your music."
You see, I,like the music industry, judge people away from the "playing field" LONG before we sit down to write anything with them. Once you start really writing in this town, it takes months and sometimes YEARS of knowing someone before they are impressed enough with you to actually write something. Even people that are pretty talented, you wait around because you want to see if they are going to quit and go home, or even worse, self destruct. Which is what most people do. Younger people, all have the "ENTITLEMENT" attitude. They feel annointed, and they bring their $100,000 Berklee Conservatory of Music, attitudes into that. They act as if they don't do anything wrong and anyone who doesn't see how great they are are JUST BLINDLY INSANE.
We've seen a lot of these people too. They are the people that get a lot of money invested in them, get record deals, and then you read about them in the papers, as they get into fights, get busted in a DUI, are caught in a drug sting, or some public restroom where they are caught soliciting a member of their own sex who is an undercover police officer. They get drunk in public and shout racial eptithets at people that get caught on a camera phone. they say something extrodinarily stupid on a talk show and the fallout brings down everyone at their label, their publicists, their managers, their bands, their merchandise people.....
"How's that "N-Word" working for you there Mr. Richards? You should've stuck to being Kramer on the Seinfield show than try stand up comedy!"
So we see a lot of all kinds of this. And the yonger they are, the dumber they are. Of course, we HAVE to work with younger people because that is the future. The very people who will bring down your career with their idiocies!
So that is enough for tonight. Tomorrow I will get into "Breaking an artist" Part II, and explain some things about Dani Jamerson's trip here this week. A lot of pretty interesting things happening.
Take care,
MAB