I’m no Lennon, McCartney, no Neil Young or Bob Dylan. I’m no Prince or Page and Plant. I’m no Hall & Oates. I never claimed to have written the great American pop song. However I know what I like. I have good taste. I know what sounds good.
Sure music is subjective. The best way I heard it put was by my drummer friend Vic. “You can’t say song is bad. It’s like telling a painter he used the wrong color of orange.”
For me, orange is hooks. I love hooks. Hooks can be in any kind of music: country, classical, pop, hip-hop, rock, jazz and blues. It doesn’t matter the genre. For me what matters is a hook.
What’s a hook? It could be lyric, a guitar riff, a drum fill a melody. It’s a part that stays with you, that you remember after one listen.
The Beatles were masters of hooks. Many of their verses and choruses were all hooks. Look at “Can’t Buy Me Love,” for example. The very first notes of the song are the hook. Bam! “Can’t Buy Me Love!” and you’re sold.
Another band that knew about hooks was INXS. Check out, “Need You Tonight.” There is a lyrical hook, a keyboard hook and drum hook all on the chorus. I love it. Pure pop greatness. Why else has that song stood the test of time?
I won’t leave out the MCs. Biggie Smalls, hook master. If I said, “I like it when you call me Big Papa,” I think you’d be able to say the next line, right? Yes, I know you would. They sampled from The Isley Brothers on the music but that speaks to Puff Daddy’s knowledge of hooks.
You know who else gets hooks are modern Christan artists. That music is so well-written and loaded with hooks. Every song is so easy to sing with memorable lyrics and melodies. Almost all of them are anthems with expectant verses that give birth to arena-sized choruses.
One last example is Shania Twain, especially on her last record, “Up.” She and Mutt Lange wrote some lasting pop songs. One of my favorites is “I’m Gonna Getcha Good.” Almost every song on the record could’ve been a single on the radio.
I’m so over bands that are great musicians yet have no hooks. I see it over and over and over. I’m not going to call anyone out. But I’m making a call out. Don’t bore with me good playing and showmanship. I want songs. Songs I can remember. Give me something I can use. I feel like the craft of writing good hooks is lost right now.
I write songs too. I’m guilty of writing songs without hooks. Trust me writing good hooks is extremely challenging. Why do you think The Beatles were so good? They put in the 10,000 hours. They played covers for 8 hours a day for 5 years in Hamburg. After a tenure like that you’d know what works and what doesn’t.
All I’m saying is if you want to impress me write good songs with good hooks.
One Response to “Music I Like”
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I think that there is something very special about the way a hook is performed that makes it a classic. Sure, we all know “friends in low places” by Garth Brooks, and love to sing along, but could another artist have made that a classic? The Biggie example is spot on….some of the shit he says is ridiculous, but it’s a hook because of how he says it (and also because of who he is).
I do agree that some Christian artists are masters of hooks, but I rarely experience that special performance when listening to them. Some songs like “you raise me up” and “from the inside out” that have undeniable hooks, regardless of who is performing them. But I feel that a lot of Christian artists don’t have that “thing” that makes a song a classic. I hate to say it, but I know that it’s a pretty good career move to become a Christian artist when you can’t cut it in the secular music world. In Christian music, Style, performance, and originality all take a back seat to singing the “right words” to simple cliched hooks.