GETTING IT OUT THERE
So, you’ve written a song? It’s a lovely song with nice lyrics and a good tune. You’ve sung or performed it to your friends and family and they all like it. You’ve been to a recording studio and made a demo utilizing your friends to play on the track with everyone telling you that this song must be a hit.
Now what do you do with it?
If you are a singer/songwriter and aspire to being a hit artist then you already have a ‘vehicle’ for your song, namely yourself. Maybe you know of an artist that’s looking for material because they don’t write their own.
The problem for any songwriter is finding a way to get your song heard by the public in such large quantities that it will make you money or, at least, famous.
I just mentioned the word ‘vehicle’ and this is the term used by the music industry to describe the carrier of your song. It can be an artist, a TV show, a film or, indeed, anyone or anything that is going to utilize your creativity .
If you are happy with just your friends and family hearing it then fine. However if you have larger aspirations, then more thought and work needs to be put into ‘getting it out there’.
As an ambitious artist, you may think that if a song comes from a big publishing company, or a famous songwriter, it is bound to be a Hit, right? … WRONG!

No matter how successful a publisher or writer may be, not every song in their catalogues will be a Hit — and they know it. Believe me, they are saving the BIG Hits for major artists. On the flip side of that scenario, however, if you are able to identify ‘hit’ material yourself, you may find gems in unexpected places, perhaps right under your nose in your own music community. It’s up to you to know how to choose songs that fit you and have the potential to take you to the top.

Perhaps we songwriters/artists/musicians should take a step back and strike a more professional perspective about our ‘product’ or the songs we write and sing. If we were shoemakers, but we didn’t quite know what a handbag looked like or how to identify a ‘real handbag’, we probably wouldn’t be too successful in the handbag making business. The same is true for us in the ‘Business of Music’. We must know exactly what a ‘hit’ is before we can write one or find one that will launch and maintain our careers.

One of the best ways I know to identify the ingredients of a ‘hit’ is simply to dissect it. If you want to know what makes a clock tick, take it apart. If you want to know what makes a million selling ‘hit’, study the songs that are in heavy rotation on the radio. AND – don’t just study your favorite genre. Even if you don’t particularly like a certain style of music, there just might be something you could learn from a song that is selling millions of copies. Humble yourself and open your mind. Learn what it is that makes a song work!
Success takes a lot of hard work but from my experience, the harder I worked, the luckier I got. Get it out there – NOW!