Signing To a Major Label Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up To Be

 

For many years now, the deepest desire of many bands and artists has been to find themselves signing a contract with, say, Warner Music or one of the other “big five” record labels in the US, and walking home with a pocket full of dough and a bright future ahead.

On every music site on the web, independent bands and artists are asked if they want to be signed to a label and you can bet your bippy that most of them click off the “yes” box.  Signing a major label contract is the holy grail of many an artists’ life.  And most of them have no idea what it means.

I speak, of course, from the outside because I have never signed a contract myself.  However, I personally know people who have, and from the artists’ perspective, I can tell you that it ain’t always a sweet deal.

It is a well-known fact now that record labels made a whole lotta cash from old blues artists and their music years ago, hardly sharing a penny with those who actually wrote the songs or performed on the recordings. A lot of these blues men ended up poor and on the streets because they were only given a very small lump sum to sign away the rights to their music.  Many of them couldn’t even read or write, let alone understand that they were being taken advantage of.  In the meantime, these record labels made millions from them.  And as labels themselves over the years have swallowed up smaller labels and have turned into big, belching conglomerates making millions and millions from their artists and bands year after year, it appears that they’ve gotten greedier.

First, let me explain to a degree how an artist or band contract works.  This would not necessarily apply to older contracts with well-established artists, as contracts get re-negotiated over time.  But for newer bands and artists, it works something like this:  you sign over the rights or part of the rights to your songs and they give you a few million dollars.  Sounds good, eh?

Actually, they don’t give you a few million dollars in the end, because every time you record or do a tour or need promotion, etc., they take that out of your few million.  And then they expect you to pay it all back.  So you really don’t have much control over the money they “give” you, and in fact, it’s more like a loan.  In the end, what they are really doing is putting some money towards your career and then expect you to pay it all off.  In the meantime, you have to live off that money.  If there are, for instance, five of you in the band, that’s five people who need food, clothes, a place to live, and every other ordinary expense you can imagine, all coming out of that one lump sum of money.  That’s besides the cost of recording, touring, promotion, etc.  That few million runs down pretty quickly.  And you OWE it back to them.

So not such a hot deal, eh?

But wait a minute.  You’re making money off the tour and the record sales, right?  But the label decides how much of it goes towards your “loan” and how much they stuff their coffers with.  And now, as it turns out, there are even cases where if you make money from downloads, they take almost all of it.  An example is in a story on Wired Magazine‘s website where Tim Quirk, who knew a little bit more about digital music services than the average joe, found out that his band’s label, Warner Music, was doing just that.  While he figured out that his band made some $12,000 from albums distributed digitally, Warner Music only paid them $62.47.  That’s right, sixty-two dollars and forty-seven cents.

It’s no wonder that record labels have built themselves such a crappy reputation with the general public.  They are seen as bloated and greedy.  And they are.  Unfortunately, the bands and artists signed to them are stuck with a contract and a big loan to pay off.  So if you are not signed to a big label, count yourself as lucky.

Just my humble opinion, of course 

IJ

Songs That Break The Rules

 

As soon as we start using the word “rules”, a lot of songwriters coil in disgust at the thought of having to conform to anything. So actually, I wrote that title to grab your attention in a negative way, but at least I know I’ve probably got your attention :-).

The examples of songs I’m going to present in this article simply jump out of the mold, so to speak, and do things that aren’t conventional, but still work. In some cases, they are subtle, in others, not so.

My first example is of a song that breaks out of the song form mold. It’s a song by Sheryl Crow called Soak Up The Sun. Here is a rather standard song form, where “A” is the verse, “B” is the chorus and “C” is the bridge:

A A B A B C B

There are many variations of course, but while Sheryl’s song starts out pretty standard, with an intro, verse, chorus and then another verse, but she changes it around and instead of repeating the chorus, she throws in a bridge first. She goes back to the chorus and then another verse, but throws in the bridge again before the next chorus. So her song form looks something like this:

A A B A C B A C B

Below this article you can have a listen, it’s a great song worth listening to anyway.

The Beatles were notorious for breaking all kinds of “rules” and still having huge hits. They loved to throw in an odd chord change or time signature change, and their lyrics were often off the beaten track. I’m sure the haze of drugs had something to do with that :-). As an example, here is All You Need Is Love. Have a listen below and just try counting the time signature and you’ll see what I mean.

Also below is what some might consider a “novelty” song, but it was written by a prolific songwriter named Harry Nilsson. This song was #8 on the Billboard Charts in 1971 and what makes it unique is the fact that it has only one chord. The bass alternates, but essentially it sits on the same chord for the entire song, letting the story in the lyrics take the main stage. It’s called “Coconut“:

These are only three examples where breaking out of the mold works very successfully, and I’m sure you can think of some others on your own. If you do, post them here!

And, remember, you don’t have to write like anybody else 🙂

IJ

Q & A – Putting Music To Lyrics

© I.Woloshen

Here’s an email I received:

Dear Irene, I play guitar (lefty), just started, and i find it sometimes abit hard to get songs i like (like, by famous people, from the radio, whatever) abit hard to play, because i can’t get the exact tune. So i wanted to start writing my own songs. So i sat down to write some, and i couldn’t. i mean, i wrote a couple, but i can’t seem to accompany my voice (which isn’t very good) with my guitar. i like chords more than notes, so i just go through all the chords i know, just the main ones, and try to fit it together. Anyway, the whole point of me writing, is to say thankyou, you’ve helped me quite abit. But could you please put abit more about putting music with lyrics.

I began writing songs for the same reason you did…I couldn’t play my favourite radio hits! In fact, over the years I’ve met many songwriters who started for the same reason.

When I was in Grade 12, I was given the opportunity to write some music to several poems in the play “Through The Looking Glass”. The idea was that I would play and sing them during the performance with the cast…I was put up in a loft at the back of the stage with a sound system. But the first REAL challenge was writing the music. I had always come from a “music first” place in my songwriting, and never before had tried it the other way around, so when I first sat down with all of these strange poems, I had no idea where to start. After succeeding with one of them, the others came more easily. Here’s what I learned, and what I use to this day…maybe some of it will help you:

1. A song lyric should have a built in rhythm, or “meter”….which means when you read it out loud, you can sense a beat to the words. This will help you to establish the time signature…4/4 is most common, four beats to the bar. Simply speaking, the strum pattern on your guitar should reflect this time signature.

2. Before you even establish the chords, you need to find a melody that matches the lyrics. Don’t go near any instruments until you’ve tried just singing the lyrics accapella (without accompaniment) and found a melody. This takes practice! Look at the structure of the verses…how many lines are there? Are the lines the same length of syllables, or are they different? If you’ve got an even number of lines, say 4 or 6, try singing one melody for the first line, and then another for the second…repeat the first melody for the 3rd line and the second melody for the 4th…see how that feels. Keep it simple. When you get to the chorus, that should be a different melody. Try singing it higher up…the chorus is a kind of climax, if you will, so it needs to be more dramatic in some way. Raising the melody at the chorus is one way of achieving that. If there is a bridge…sing that differently too. Essentially, each part of the song has its own mini-melody, but they all fit together. Creating a great melody is not achieved instantly! Well, not in most cases anyway 

3. Let’s assume you’ve found a melody…now what are the chords? There are several ways you can go about this, most of them take time! First of all, you can randomly look for a chord that “fits” what you’re singing. Knowing a little bit about chords will take you a long way. Is it a sad song? Should the chords be minor chords, or is it upbeat? Do you hear chords around it already in your head when you sing the melody? If you play guitar and have a capo, use that as a means of getting into a key that suits your voice and the melody…you don’t have to play barre chords or fancy progressions, just use the capo up the neck until you find something that’s close. Get yourself a chord book and find out what chords are in a key…which chords go together, in other words. Try out some of the other chords in the key you decide on.

4. When should a chord change? This is where your “ear” really comes in handy. When you listen to a song on the radio, can you hear when the chord changes? If you can, you’re already half way there. Start out simply, by playing one chord all the way through the first verse, let’s call it “Chord 1″…when you hear that the melody doesn’t “fit” that chord, that’s where you should change chords!

Okay, so now you need to find “Chord 2″…look in your chord book at all of the chords associated with and in the same key as “Chord 1″…and try them each out. Most likely, one of them will fit. So now we have “Chord 1” and “Chord 2”. Maybe your verse looks like this:

Chord 1
La, la, da da da, la, la, la

Chord 2
La, da da, la, da da

Is the rest of the verse repeating these phrases? Or are they different somehow? If they are the same, use the same two chords again. If they’re not, try another “associated” chord, or a chord in the same key. Now maybe you’re getting a feel to your song. Use the same process for the chorus, if you have a chorus, and the bridge, if there is one.

That is a beginner’s approach to writing melodies/chords to lyrics…remember to keep it simple! And when it gets “boring”, make a change! No one can write those melodies for you, it is something you learn to develop in yourself over time and with much patience (and sometimes none  ) Good luck! 

IJ