Good, but not a good goal.
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Notes
Seth (S) in conversation with a friend (F) who owns a record label:
S: What’s the hardest part of creating a hit record?
F: Finding good songs.
S: What makes a good song?
F: It becomes a hit.
Also: a music journalist wrote about a song. The responses (from industry pros) were positive in the parts of the world where the song had become a hit, and negative in the parts of the world where it hadn’t.
There’s a “significant gap” between what the market buys and what people want to engage with.
“It’s easy to get confused by hits, but a hit might not be your goal.”
Thoughts
I’ve listened to a lot of interviews with producers and engineers who worked on some of the biggest albums out there. Almost without exception, when asked if they knew a song they were working on was going to be a hit (and it’s a common question!), they said they didn’t. In some cases, they knew they had “something special.” But they understood that what becomes a “hit” is unpredictable because it’s mostly arbitrary.
(I was going to say that quality is necessary but not sufficient to create a hit, but then I remembered all the songs like “Playground in My Mind,” which (according to Wikipedia) peaked at #2 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1973. Read the comments below any of the YouTube videos of the song, and there’s an inexplicable (to me) amount of love for the damn song…. )
(Oh, and to those who insist that “today’s music” is crap compared to “our music” … puh-leeeze…)
I understand Seth to say not only that a hit “might not be your goal,” but that it’s a mistake to have the hit be the goal. Focus on the practice; create work that matters. It might become a hit, which would be great. But if it doesn’t (which is most likely by far), you still have (as he said in the previous chapter) work that you can be proud of.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.