SONGWRITERS AND EXCUSES

​If there is one thing that I have learned in my journey through the music business, it’s that I’ve never made one dollar from excuses. Yet I lose count of people around me, usually newbies or unsuccessful seniors in the business who keep making excuses to justify everything rather than just taking responsibility and accepting that they could change the situation simply by working harder – or in some cases simply just by “working” instead of waiting for someone else to do their job for them. “It’s harder than ever to get a cut” “You have to write with the artist to get a cut” “I write songs that are too deep for the market” “People don’t understand my music”. These are the excuses I’m hearing on a daily basis and yes, they may all be true. But the fact remains there is that, if I write an amazing song, someone will notice. Will they notice my average songs? Not unless I have some special connection. Will I be able to sneak a “decent” song through and get it recorded? Not likely, unless I wrote it with the artist and, even then, that is a longshot.

Every single artist is looking for that next career song that sells a million downloads and catapults them into stardom. Every. Single. One. Not one artist is going to turn down my undeniable smash to cut their own lame piece of crap. None. They have too much on the line. Are they going to win every tie? Yes. If my song is only equal to the ones they have written, they will cut their own song every time of course, to generate more money and create a better name for themselves. But, If I write something that is so much better than what they have written, they would be stupid not to record it. So, the next time you are tempted to make excuses or complain, stop yourself. Just write a better song. It’s that simple. Write a better song. That’s your ticket to success. And mine. Our job is to “outwrite” the artist and in fact every other writer in the industry, that means we even have to outwrite ourselves which literally can happen every day by writing something better than what we wrote yesterday. When you get to the point where you can do that consistently, you will start getting cuts. I guarantee it. Don’t make excuses. Write. Better. Songs.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 18 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.