Has the era of the hit song passed ?

I think it has. With very little releases being deemed a hit by anyone other than the record company or artist and arguably very few hits being discovered by tipsters on this board. Is it time to put this nebulous idea to bed and concentrate on what i believe is the future which is artist branding.

Don't get me wrong i would love a hit and a big smash
but the probability of actually achieving that is slim to none. That is for all artists. It is a bit like democracy which is great on paper but not something we have actually practised.

Your thoughts, comments and rebuttals please.

The problem is; there are very very few artistes.
There are only a few real hits but the vast majority of them are one offs or by artistes with no real populist potential; just that one hit. The hit carries the artiste.
We have to find a way of capitalising on hits.
CRAZY was a smash but nobody in their right minds thinks Gnarls Barklay is an artiste.

For now (and maybe until JK gets his POP-I to work) the era of hits - AS MEASURED BY THE CHARTS - seems to be over.

As far as the charts didn't really measured popularity / sales but were a reflection of the marketing power (hype etc.) of the majors this is probably / arguably a good thing.

DJKZ, I think I know what you mean by "artist branding". But this is itself a "nebulous" concept. At least as practiced by the majors since the mid-90s. And from my point of view one of the main reasons for the current "crisis".

The way forward for (small) labels / producers / artists is to make (a little) money with everything they do.

If you get a hit or become a brand, great. But don't spend so much money (like the majors) that you have to sell millions to break even.


Are there any statistics about the relation between 1,2,3-hit-artists and artists with more hits?

Very good points from both JK and DJones. You are right DJones and i am not suggesting that one spends anywhere near the amount the majors spent on branding an artist. In fact this no longer works.

I think that there are 2 approaches.

1. The JK approach where you record in multiple names and one off projects usually with equally daft names (no offence oh wise one) which just sell loads of records. You can knit each project together with either a label thread or artistic one so that those in the know recognise your talents.

2. The normal band/artiste approach. I think one can take a leaf out of Lily Allen's book (please dont shoot me down in flames hear me out) and use myspace and Youtube and of course their successors to gradually build your artistic profile.

There may be many others which i would like to hear. Come on guys this is your bread and butter !
Please contribute to this thread.

JK yes spot on about Gnarls Barclay and i would even throw Nizlopi in that category to a certain extent.

We dance guys have been used to the idea of recording under various aliases likewise yourself.
Incidently JK when is the book out ? Or is it all on video ?

Speaking of video i just read an amazing statistic.

User Generated Video At 31 Billion Views In '06

Has Youtube killed the video star ? Someone will get it right, i can feel it in my bones very soon.
Just like Michael Jackson.

For inspiration guys look what Man Utd are doing with MUTV online.

You know I don't think it neccesarily has passed. I know what you're all getting at in the business today, but really when was the last time anyone heard a knock you off your seat hit song??? How about Robbie's "Angels", or for that matter the Bay City Rollers "Saturday Night", or many of the ABBA songs that I'm still humming 30 years on... songs like those. The over compressed sound alike pop drivel thats pushed through and spoon feed to kids through reality shows. How about we all start taking some risks.
I really think people are clamoring for those old type of massive hits. We've just got to give them to them.
Theres no reason we can't brand our charges in the mnodern way....... and have the hits.

Hi KZ;
The problem in my neck of the woods is general apathy, the more publicity I create, the less I can get an audience involved, I rely on a live audience and get a bigger one without a press, well, "scam" in many cases.
What worries me and my colleagues, is we can get more plays and listens than ever before but little or no renumeration.Whilst the internet has opened exposure up beyond belief, as we all know it has opened up the biggest amount of bootlegging ever. Once AGAIN yesterday, I heard one of my tracks on a ring tone, which I know had not been bought for that purpose, as it was not the version that is sold deliberately for mobile phones.
But does this constitute a hit these days? We have the audience but no chart placing.
Perhaps a hit in the future will just mean exposure.

Marketing to a narrow audience is the big barrier to getting hits today. There are less and less true mass market channels (TV is down, Radio 2 is up but not a "new music" station) and no mass market programming. Record labels prefer to be efficient and market to the converted but a real hit IS a "popular song"... not a cult hit. That's what we don't have... popular songs and popular artists. How can we have hits.

This isn't new... it goes back at least a decade, and started when the majors got shareholders and management consultants. You can't get lucky if you don't take risks... and you can't sell if you have no market (or too narrow a market).

Popular songs have nothing to do with records. There were popular songs for hundreds of years before recording. The hit song is not dead. The hit record is in hibernation.