How to be a successful band
Dec 01 '01
The Bottom Line 1 - pick a Genre, 2 - learn your song components, 3 - Singing and Lyrics. But what would i know? Oh well, whatever, nevermind.
Before reading further i am assuming this post to be read by real lovers of real music. Im assuming youll know how to play your instruments and that youll have a decent singer.
A band is made up of 3 things
1. They must atleast start off confined within a genre.
2. They must know the components of songs (see below ;-)
3. The singer should try and invent or atleast enhance a type of singing original to other singing styles that has come before.
1. If you are NOT confined within a genre, you will a). not get gigs at any music clubs and b). not get signed by any record-labels.
Many musicians feel that being confined within a genre will stifle their musical freedom, which it does. But when you buy (for example) a Radiohead Album, or when you buy a Nirvana album, or a Beatles album. You know what you are getting. Before buying that album, or going to that concert, you know roughly what they will sound like and the feelings/emotion you will get from it. You must also centre your image around this.
Doing this will constrain alot of personal freedom with your music, but just as the Beatles and Radiohead have done, they started off pleasing the record company - THEN did what they wanted. Which ended up being better, as it almost always will.
One genre that my band is in is currently undeveloped, there is no 'Indie' band that has progressed beyond its initial sound and yet there is a LOT of potential to do so.
Choosing your image of course sounds disgustingly like your hand-in-hand with the devil Miss Spears herself, but this thinking is exactly what anti-pop bands like Radiohead have been thinking from the START. And considering it got them where they are now, i dont think its a bad thing.
2. The Components of songs...hard to explain really. But if you consider that the primary TOPIC of the song 'Everybody Hurts' by REM is personal depression and lonliness, the primary AIM of the song is to cheer you up and it CONVEYS these things in a general manner, but with a couple of subtle-helps to guide you.
By 'subtle-helps' you can quote when their guitarist (dunno his name) is singing "hold on" behind the lead vocals of Michael Stipe until at the end of the verse the two lead and backing vocals link when Stipe sings "If you feel like letting go" and the guitarist sings "Hold On". Its a nice-little link that makes the singing of the song all the more legitimate that its empathising with you. Very clever, hehe.
The most complex components get is things like Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles - omg genius - and Come As You Are by Nirvana. The amount of stuff going on in those songs is incredible. In short, if you can pack a song full of as many components as Kurt and Paul/John did in those two songs, you can control a persons mind in effect. Make them see things they cant of otherwise imagined, make them change their lifestyle, and especially (musicians are good at this one) make you like them.
3. Singing style:
If you listen at the singing styles of ANY popular band, youll find that in atleast someway they will be atleast slightly different to each other. Of course this is for the obvious reason that no two people are alike and everyone has a different voice. But there are ways of singing differently to enhance your music and make it original.
The only way to explain this is to give examples of bands, and i hope you know them all (or some) so you get the idea. More importantly, to give examples of bands that are similar, but not the same:
Coldplay are similar but different to...
Travis are similar but different to...
Oasis are similar but different to...
Radiohead are similar but different to...
Blur.
Also think of the different singing styles of these bands:
Nirvana
Pearl Jam
Smashing Pumpkins
The Jam
Beatles (special case since Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr could ALL sing quite well, STILL stay in genre AND sound independent of each other).
Rolling Stones
Led Zepplin
Pink Floyd
Sex Pistols
Cat Stevens
The Doors
The Velvet Underground
The Kinks
Each and every band here have different singing styles, one of the reasons the Beatles were the best was because they had so much variety, they could put Helter Skelter on the same album as Blackbird on the same album as Revolution no.9 and get away with it nothing was the least bit detracted from the White Album. Doing this also helped them keep their teeny-bopper following with Yellow Submarines and Obla Di Olba Da's whilst converting many and pulling in millions of hippies with Come Together's and Strawberry Fields's. And most songs did both at the same time.
Conclusion: By studying those 3 factors in more detail, you have the exact makings of a band to entertain the world and bring together a generation - as the current one so badly needs.
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