A Quote by Benny Blanco
When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now,' that never works. Every time that happens, I never write a hit song.
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I don't ever have the pressure of making a hit, because I've never had a hit song, per se. The closest thing to a hit song was 'Shiraz,' and it's not your prototypical hit song, with a catchy hook and all this other stuff.
You don't really write a hit song - you write a great song, and then, if the public decides it's a hit, they take over from there. The song becomes its own monster.
Every time I try to write a song, when I sit down and think I'm going to write, I really want to write a song, and it never works out. It's always when it hits me unexpectedly on a plane or right before I go to bed, something like that.
I never want to record something that I'm not proud of just because I think it might be a big hit. There's no positive about that because if you record a song you hate and it's a big hit, then you're singing a song every night that you hate. And if you record a song that you hate and it isn't a hit, then you sold out for no reason.
It's already years ago now, but there's that South Korean music artist Psy, who had that hit song and it was a hit song here. I'm like, "Wait a minute. There's a chance. There's a way we can have language not be such an important part of comedy."
My philosophy on writing a song for myself is that I always, always, always want to write a song. I always want to write a song. I realize that as a record producer or a singer or whatever I might not, if I recorded on myself or someone else, the first time out I might not give it the right treatment, so that the world or many people will accept it and it'll be a public hit, or anything like that.
Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter.
I'm not the kind of writer that goes, 'I'm gonna write a song about sunshine,' or, 'I've just heard a phrase, so I'm gonna write that,' and then I write a song. I'll wait for inspiration to hit, and you can't depend on it.
I can sit in my room and write a song that I think might be a hit. I can sort of make myself do that, and then I'll play it to a friend, and they'll say, 'Oh, that's nice.' But when something happens to me, and I sit down and write a song to get rid of my emotions, they'll turn around and say, 'Wow, that's great.'
No matter what, if you write a song that's great that everyone expects to be a hit, then everyone's going to be expecting another one from you. If you write a song that no one notices, you're going to want to write one that someone will.
I would love to do a Bond song, and I could have done a Bond song: I was offered a Bond theme, but I turned it down because I didn't like the song. But as it turned out, I was right anyway because the song was the only Bond theme that never became a hit, so I'm glad I wasn't associated with that!
I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song.
I tended not to be concerned about whether a song was going to be a hit when I wrote it. Because it became evident that none of us knew what was a hit and what wasn't. So I thought if I just write what I like, why shouldn't people like what I like?
If you write a hit song for Britney Spears, it's worth several million dollars. Just one song! And it might have taken you two hours to do it. It's like mining for gold. It takes a lot of skill and a lot of technique.
I never think any song really feels like a 'hit' - a song either feels good or bad, in my opinion.
Artists don't always know. Almost every song I ever recorded that was a hit at the majors that the promotional people picked I didn't think it would be a hit. I was wrong every time!
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