Great Songs Will Prevail!

Great songs will prevail and open doors.

However, I think there's an ongoing, basic misunderstanding on who the audience is for a demo. I believe this, because I misunderstood it for years. (Not to mention tens-of-thousands-of-dollars in demos)

There’s a lot of talk about those who can’t hear a song in the raw form. Fact is, there’s a lot of people who can’t, but that’s not the point. The real question is this; Where, in the music business food chain, are you presenting your work? This will determine the level of quality you at which you need your demos recorded.

For instance, if you want to pitch to major artists and labels, you had better walk in with the full guns blazing (master quality demos). It takes time or providence even to get the chance to compete in this arena. Once you've gotten that chance, you have to present relevant and excellent work everytime, or your chance to even have an audience to listen in the future will wane quickly.

When pitching to major labels, you're in the lineup with the best of the best and rest assured, they are putting their best foot forward. The assumption will be that you, too, are submitting the best you can produce. That's a tough, (and expensive) field in which to play. The silk-purse-from-a-sow's-ear illustration applies, big time. If your song isn't ready, no amount of production is going to make it a hit... and the very act of presenting it may ruin your chances (credibility) to be in the first string of presenters in the future.

If we represent our wares in that field, you are in a real sense making yourself the publisher, and the investment of time and resources need to be commensurate with those you’re competing with. The list of great competitors cannot be adequately listed here... its huge.

If you’re presenting your songs to publishers, however, the game should be very different. I say “should”, because it doesn’t take much to “call” yourself a publisher. To make that point short, lets just say that if you sense a publisher can’t “hear” a song in raw form, move on. Find one who can.

As a writer, establish relationships with those who are connected in the industry, and can HEAR a song, through the rough as well as the polished demos. As with everything, there are those can be trusted, and those who can't. Those who are looking to make money from the bottom up (from writers), and those who want to make money the real, legit way (from hit songs) When you find the latter, however, and develop a relationship and trust with them, the game changes in your favor.

You still need to be great at what you do. You still need to be an excellent craftsman. You still need great ideas and the skills to change those ideas into great melodies, hooks that tie those ideas together, etc. But now you have the freedom to do that without spending good money on mediocre/half-developed ideas. That trusting relationship has the potential to give you a perspective you rarely get on your own. A second eye that can see the forest for the trees when you’ve been banging out the same notes and words to the point of insanity. The trusting voice who says “Hey, you said the same thing in Verse 2, that you already said in verse 1”, or, “that’s been said before, but much better than what you’ve written here”. A tough voice of truth that you can trust.

Developing relationships is one of the keys in this business, and I'm not talking about the old its-all-in-who-you-know-good-old-boys-network cliche'. I'm talking about publishers or pluggers who believe in your ability to write and/or those who want to develop you into a great writer. There are few of them still out there. You may have to present some material in "finished" form to open those doors, but once open, those relationships will allow you to grow without spending your life-savings in the process.

The long story short, when you get the idea of all ideas, for the song of all songs, it may be too late to develop the relationships that will get that song heard by the right people, in a timely basis (while the song is still relevant). Develop the relationships now, without ulterior motives. Develop them without the intention of making the best song in your catalog a hit. Go in with the frame-of-mind that thinks that the best song you can write hasn’t been written yet, so when you do write it, you’ve already established the relationships with the right people who are ready to listen.

Yes. Great songs will prevail and open doors. But they have a much better chance if the doors have already been opened and you can just walk through.

TC