Radio Requirements

Hearing a song that you have written on the radio is definitely one of life’s great highs! In fact, in the rich fantasy life of most aspiring songwriters, hearing your song on the radio ranks right up there with visions of winning the lottery!

In the world of 21st Century Radio, however, the chances of hearing one of your songs on a major station anytime soon are extremely slim. It will require far more than "fantasy" to make your dreams reality. Your songs must be so irresistable to the coveted radio audience that program directors simply can't refuse you! You must learn to write from the listener’s point of view with a keen understanding of the listener's mind (see previous blogs). Below are a couple of essential ingredients of radio-friendly songs. If you are an avid student of what is being played on the radio these days, I think you will find these ingredients almost every time. Here they are:

1) Radio Songs are Hook-Driven

The word – hook -- is an important one in the vocabulary of either a songwriter or a radio executive because it summarizes the goal of each. Radio and the songs it plays are all about hooking and keeping listeners’ attention. To a songwriter the hook is the most memorable musical and lyrical element of a song. It is the thesis statement – that one-phrase summary of the whole creation – that line you want the listener to be singing long after the song is over. It is like the punchline of a joke – the payoff – the “Eureka Moment” when everything else in the song suddenly has meaning in the light of that one diamond-on-velvet line.

The hook is usually also the title. A well-written hook/title will be so clear and obvious that listeners will know it from the first hearing and will be able to request the song BY TITLE when they call the radio station to request it.

If a radio listener cannot accurately identify the title of a song after one hearing, it is clear that the songwriter has not mastered the effective use of the hook. It’s time to go back to the drawing board and polish that all-essential skill before you can hope that your song will be attractive to radio – or to the listeners that are the heart and soul of both radio and hit songs.

2) Radio Songs are Simple

We flaky right-brained songwriters love to hang out with other flaky right-brained songwriters. We love to compare chord progressions, and innovative melody lines. We pride ourselves on our creativity and poetic abstractions. But remember – we flaky right-brained songwriters are definitely a minority group. The vast numbers of radio listeners are NOT songwriters. They are ordinary people caught in rush-hour traffic who are trying to find something on the radio dial that will touch them emotionally and allow them to sing along.

Don’t believe me? Just take a few moments to look at the drivers in the lanes on both sides of you on your next commute. If they have found a song they like on the radio, they almost seem to be oblivious to the “audience” of other drivers on the highway. Watch them as they sing along with the radio….playing air-guitars or beating out a rhythm on the steering wheel in their mobile studio as they sit in bumper-to-bumper gridlock. These are not music theory majors. They are ordinary people who purchase records, request songs and create hits.

Next time you are channel surfing, analyze the most popular of the songs you hear. I can almost “gar-awn-tee” that the melodies and the lyrics will be SIMPLE! Why? Because ordinary people can GET simple songs – they remember them because they can sing them! That's why "Falling Slowly" won the Academy Award (see February 24 Blog). It is a simple song at its finest -- one that haunts the listeners' minds so that they simply can't forget it -- and then, they request that song from their local stations.

Now, let me hasten to say that simple does not been simplistic or predictable and it certainly cannot mean boring! Songs must be fresh and interesting to listen to. But remember – songs have four main elements: melody, lyrics, harmony and rhythm. If the melody and lyrics are simple, singable and memorable – added interest and freshness can be added in the harmonies and rhythm used to arrange the song.

Hooky and simple...two adjectives that define hit songs of every genre. Next time, I'll add a couple more.

Let me know your thoughts....