Definining a hit song – In my opinion, a hit song is any song that at its debut captivates listeners.

There’s a clear cut distinction between a local hit song and an international hit song. While a local hit song appeals to people of a particular locality say Nigeria, an international hit song on the other hand cuts across continental boundaries and appeals to people of the global stock.

There’s also the case of objective and subjective hit songs. In the case of a subjective hit song, you alone as an individual or probably you and a handful of friends in contrast to the entire populace of your locality or the globe, might fall in love with a particular song, tagging it as a hit song while the greater mass of your locality or the world considers that same song of a mediocre stock.

Regardless of the fact that many atimes our perception of music differs as a result of differing psychological makeups, there are times when the mental perception of individuals from various localities, continents and musical orientations are in sync in their perception of a particular music piece.

Finally, hit songs shouldn’t be confused with evergreen songs. Not every hit song eventually ends up achieving the evergreen status. An evergreen song as the name implies is ever new, fresh and pleasurable, even after countless number of years it still possesses the same influence it had when it was newly released or first heard, the potency to bring its listener to the realm of ecstasy.

Despite the fact we live in the 21st century, a period where artists are solely concerned with the commercial success of their songs, true music artists still strive to craft one or a handful of evergreen songs during the short span of their musical careers.

From the look of things our modern day Nigerian artists are either unable to craft evergreen songs or just concerned about the momentarily relevance of their arts. While they yet live their art loses its relevance, What then happens when they’re dead and gone? Their music certainly dies with them.

Somedays ago I stumbled on an article that pissed me off and also did me good by crushing my writer’s block. The article written by a so-called music industry expert was sought of a guideline into how up-and-coming Nigerian music artists could create hit songs for themselves, thereby breaking into the music industry. I would have been cool with the article if it also guided artists into writing international hit songs but its such a shame it targeted only the Nigerian locality. It’s a pity our industry promotes local hit songs and not international hit songs with evergreen potentials.

Below are few contents of the article:

“You are desperate, hungry and in need of second life. Don’t overthink it. Just be ready. Become dumb.

“To make a hit song, you have to think like a dumb man. You have to sound stupid. Stupidly creative. That’s why Tekno brought down trees with the killer line, your beauty makes me to realize, Say Nepa don bring light.

“Remember when I instructed you to become dumb? You will need that lack of intelligence now. Choose the dumbest catch phrase you can find, and freestyle your song around it. Here are some example ‘Sweet panya’, ‘Baby caricature’, ‘Wahala tumbo’, ‘Waist five people’. If you can’t create a dumb catchphrase, let not your heart be troubled. Use popular vernacular phrases and words. ‘Aka gum’ ‘Jagaban’, Ónijogbon’, ‘Ukwu salambala’, and any other. Freestyle anything and everything around them, lace them on to the beat and like magic, your hit song will rise out of that miasma of loud beats, stupidity and disrespect for the art.

“Get a producer with high-tempo beats

“Anything below 160 BPM is bad for a hit song. Although the tempo of our hit songs have fallen between the ranges of 115 BPM and 120 BPM, the fast ways are still the best. Get yourself a producer who understands the art of fast-paced beats. Get familiar, pay for the production and get to work. Get to work. Make sure it bangs, and hits all the right spots on the bass speakers. Amp it, and get it threatening to contribute to global noise pollution. It’s a hit song, goddamnit! Let it hit everyone hard.

“Promote that rubbish

“You have created a beautiful nonsense, and melodious crap. Now it’s time to get the world to listen and like it. Spend money on promotion, distribute the song via the internet, find every channels and mode of dissemination that functions, and plug in your song. You have sacrificed a lot for this song. Let it fly.”

Imagine an entire generation of upcoming music artists subscribing to such crap directive. We all know the result of that. Trust me this is not what music should be all about.

Years ago a south African music group by name Mafikizolo released a spectacular song titled Khona. Countless Nigerian artists raced up to their various studios to do covers of that same song. The likes of Terry G, Kelly handsome to name a few. They obviously didn’t mind covering a song by a fellow African artist.

This year alone we’ve witnessed countless Nigerian artists covering songs from Justin Bieber, Adele, Rihanna, Desiigner, and Drake. Am not saying it’s bad covering the songs of other artists, but when are we gonna witness the reverse?

It’s no news that even in our local music reality shows as Project Fame, The Voice and the rest, majority of the songs covered by contestants have alien roots. What happened to our local music? Why are they not covered during such shows?

The answer is not far-fetched, our music is crap, lacks value and won’t appeal to an international audience.

Yes! these days we hear of our artists travelling round the world performing, having sold out concerts in the US, UK and other European countries. The sad reality is, those that makeup a larger part of the audience during such concerts are either of a Nigerian or an African descent.

Nigeria does have music geniuses, a few already are famous within the industry, the majority though still dwell in dark regions of our cognisance. As is rightly said The artists on top are not always the best out there.

The case of D’banj is very unique he was popular and successful as an artist in Nigeria and Africa, he got signed to Kanye’s label but when he wasn’t performing as expected Kanye had him kicked out of his label.

As our artists work towards recieving international recognition they also need to prepare for the responsibilities an international record deal brings. It’s not about signing an international record deal, it’s rather about making the best of that record deal. The best can only be made when our artists start now by equipping themselves with necessary skills needed to conquer the international music market. Skills as: Learning the art of proper songwriting; crafting songs Nigerians and music lovers of the international community can relate to; and also aquainting themselves with the fundamentals of music theory.

Our artists have to discard all false orientation they’ve been groomed in, and start now to improve their artistry before that major international record signing they all crave for comes.


Source:
https://blarckbillboard./2016/08/17/crafting-hit-songs-in-nigeria-correcting-an-impression/