A Quote by Duncan Sheik
And frankly, when I made that record, hit songs were not what I was trying to achieve.
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Frankly, all the songs from 'Fiza' that made news were mine.
You are trying to do a more difficult thing than record folk songs; you are trying to record life.
My dream many years ago would've been to continue to write and record songs in record/album form for years to come, but now records aren't what they were then - and so it doesn't actually feel very good to make a record of songs.
Hit songs did not come out of musicals. Pop-rock was creating the hits. There were very few songs that made the charts out of any Broadway musical.
With MTV in the '80s, you made your album but then you needed to use any money you made to create a video - instead of being able to use that money to pay for you and your band to live on while you wrote new songs. So MTV upped the ante of looking for one hit. Conceptual bands who didn't have a hit were going to lose.
We've always used that as a goal - the record that literally every single track on it could be a hit. A record that breaks doors down, that opens up new opportunities to us, that helps you achieve true immortality as an artist.
When I made 'Feed tha Streets,' those were the only 17 songs I had made, period. There was no cutting songs out or adding other songs in.
We made it. Despite the fear and predictions of doom. We made it. Even though there were days when we were tired and there were days when we forgot who we were. We made it. And we must thank the stars for this. And the birds for their beautiful songs. And the strangers who were careful to smile. We made it.
You're not going to hit it every single time, and that's why, when I record an album, I do probably close to 50 songs. Each song I record has to get better. If it's not better than the last song that I made, it'll usually linger for a couple of months, and then it'll be put on the backburner, and then there'll be another song that I do, and then it often doesn't make it on the album.
I've never been burdened with a hit record, so I don't have to play the same songs. I play songs people think they like.
I didn't sign a record deal; I didn't do any of that. I made my record independently, and I went out and hit the road in a van.
Whenever I approach a record, I don't really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn's basement.
Everybody used to be busy writing songs - great songs - that became hits. Now everybody's writing hits. Everybody's desperately writing a hit because they know they can't survive if they don't have a hit. Where in the past, we were writing a song like 'More Than Words' on a porch, not really believing it was gonna be a hit.
Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs.
I built a reputation as a songwriter in the industry before my own hits. People were used to coming to me for songs. There were songs like 'Clown' and 'Mountains' that were my songs that I wanted to keep. But the record labels saw me as a songwriter. It was hard to get people to believe in me as an artist.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
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