ARE YOU THINKING LIKE AN ARTIST?

If you are trying to write songs to pitch to artists, then you must learn to think like an artist. You must understand their concerns and – in most cases – their weird mindset. Here are some example questions that artists ask when they choose songs. They are also the questions I ask myself as I’m writing to make sure I’m writing something an artist would want to say.
 
How does this song make me look? Image. You must know the image is the first marketing too for an artist. One wants to have a badass image in public while another wants to be known as the cool one. Before you write the song, you should study your targeted artist and find out what image they have, and write your song based on that. As an almost general rule, if a song makes an artist look bad, they will almost never record it. – except for Miley Cyrus! 

What will this song do to my live audience? If it brings the audience up, then you have a better chance of your song being recorded. If it brings the audience down, then you don’t have much of a chance. That’s very natural. When people attend a concert, they pay for having a few hours of good time, most probably dancing and drinking! Of course, every once in a while, there would be a slower song and they’ll bring out their lighters – nowadays their mobile phones – but in more than 80 percent of the performance they would want to hear upbeat songs. Therefore, the artists prefer to sing more of upbeat songs to have good material for their performances. Same rules go for the radio airplay too.
 
How would this song play on the radio? Radio is still the primary way a listener is exposed to new music. So, artists pay a lot of attention to what radio will or will not play. You want to be on the “will play” side. Trust me! To do so, you should constantly use any opportunity to listen to the radio and see what songs are being played and it can be a good challenge for you to analyze those songs. See what made them to be where they are now. You can practice writing something like that or use your favorite song on each week’s radio playlists as a reference and write new songs based on it.
 
Does this song fit my “brand”? Artists all have their own thing. If they are going to cut your song, then you have to write their “thing” better than they wrote it. That thing in professional world is called branding which for most artists who are signed to record labels are obligated to take it very seriously. The “image” I mentioned earlier is playing a bit part of this branding process.
 
Will this song sell records? Artists make most of their money from live shows and record sales. They want song that will get people up off their butts and buying the music. You want to write songs that will sell, otherwise you’re completely missing on business part of music business!
 
Are there other uses for this song? Could it be a new Fifa World Cup commercial? Could it be an ad for a product? Would it be a great slogan or picture on a T-shirt? If so, you increase your chances.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 17 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 3,000 and written more than 4,800 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.