David Bruce Murray
Mar 07, 2010
Observations
Too Same Same
Doug Harrison made some valid observations Friday on what makes or breaks a great song. Essentially, Doug says groups need to develop an instinct to recognize great songs and then, only record the great songs that suit their most unique abilities. I agree.
When you strip away the trappings of performance and production, it can be difficult to evaluate the potential of a new lyric. A successful song may look silly or simplistic on paper, but a unique interpretation by an artist can catapault that good lyric into the imaginations of a large group of music lovers.
As many have said in the past, it all starts with a great song. We have a host of potentially great songs in Southern Gospel. The focus, then, should be on creating a unique experience out of EACH song recorded rather than merely repeating the methods that were successful in the past.
As an industry observer, I’ve often praised artists who cover a previously recorded song and give it their own treatment. Allison Lynn, for example, sang “Movin’ Up To Gloryland” nothing at all like the Cathedrals or Gold City. More recently, the Ball Brothers recorded several cover songs on their CD titled Breakthrough. They took a few steps away from the older versions of those songs and gave each performance a unique twist.
Those are very specific examples, but this idea can be applied more generally as well. Very few artists take a brand new approach when recording a brand new song. It’s easier to follow an unwritten formula for a certain song type and arrange the vocals accordingly.
The most notorious formula of all is the one for a Big Ballad: start with piano and strings at the beginning, toss in more instruments every thirty to forty seconds, kick in hard for the bridge leading to a key change so conditioned fans will leap to their feet and bring it home on the final chorus. That gets a response and may lead to a number one hit, but it’s not the sort of song that causes fans to remember one artist’s ballad after they’ve had the exact same experience five more times with other groups. Sure, a ballad needs to build to a big moment, but just once I’d like to hear one start with a percussion texture under the first verse or a B3 organ or even an accordion…ANYTHING other than the stereotypical piano and strings. (The accordion, I’d probably just want to hear once, but at least it would be different.)
When I used to work in Christian retail, I would build displays from time to time. A common criticism the store owner made was that some of our displays were “too same same.” She’d heard the phrase from someone else. Anyway, the point is that she’d make us change the display so it wasn’t perfectly symmetrical or whatever else she saw that was making it look too blah and ordinary.
Southern Gospel songs that have the potential for greatness usually fail because the production approach is “too same same.”
