For the most part, artists strive to write great music and reach as many people possible so everyone has a chance to listen and enjoy their creation.  Sometimes these artists write a song that is not necessarily the most compelling piece of music they have ever created, but it’s released at the absolute perfect time in history. For some reason the song spreads like wild fire and the next thing you know, everyone including your mum has a copy of it.

The unfortunate thing is when a band works for years to put out countless records full of great songs but fail to break through that barrier into stardom then that one ‘big hit’ ultimately takes over the face of their career.  Of course you’re thinking “that’s amazing, who doesn’t want a ‘big hit’? who doesn’t want a massive fan base who now know who you are?“  The problem is, from this point on, that artist is known primarily as the artist who wrote that ‘big hit’.  No matter what they do, they will always be associated to that one track.

Let’s go down the list of a few notable artists in the last few decades that were unfortunately drawn into the plague of the ‘big hit’;

Nirvana.  Undoubtedly Nirvana have a catalog of amazing songs, but to the average person (not the average music lover), they will forever be associated with ‘Smells like Teen Spirit‘.  This song is a perfect example of being released at a time when the tone of music needed a change to something new, something fresh, and something that didn’t sound like 80′s hair music.

Oasis.  Another band that had countless hits and possess a large catalog of records that have done exceptionally well.  Again, they broke through at a time when the masses needed a change to something new and fresh and a break from the grunge takeover.  However, if you were to ask the average person (not the average music lover) to say something about Oasis, they are going to say “Wonderwall“…especially if they’re from North America.

silverchair.  3 guys who, at the beginning of their career, were riding the wave of grunge and released their record ‘Frogstomp’.  This record was hugely successful due to the track ‘Tomorrow‘.  The band has released several records since, each one (in my opinion) better than the last, and each one a departure in sound from the last. To the average person, once again,(not the average music lover) they will only ever be associated with ‘tomorrow’.

(For the sake of trying to incorporate a Canadian act in this post because I am in fact, Canadian.)  Matthew Good rose to fame during the alternative rock ‘explosion’ in the late 90′s with the record “Underdogs”.  Today, I have been to several of his solo shows and the track that concertgoers want to see/hear the most is ‘apparitions‘ from that record.  It’s the one ‘big hit’ that will forever be associated with the name ‘Matthew Good’.

The song and artist that inspired this post is “Somebody That I Used to Know” by “Gotye”.  It seems like the guy can’t escape that tune.  The song is EVERYWHERE.  Gotye has been around since the early 2000′s, but only recently hit with ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’.  Like most artists that hit extremely big with a song, (Nirvana and silverchair included), Gotye has grown tired of the success of the song, as he told NME “Sometimes I feel like I’m a bit sick of it“.  Obviously, given that the song has over 200 million hits on YouTube alone…i’m sick of it.  It’s unfortunate for Gotye as like the other artists mentioned above, and the hundreds of others for the sake of time I didn’t mention, he will never escape the plague of the ‘big hit’.  No matter how many great songs he has produced in the past and will produce in the future, the song will never become ‘That song That I Used to Know’.

Another time.

When I listen to a song, I play it over and over again and break it down part-by-part to try and get the absolute most out of what i’m listening to.  It’s important to me that when i purchase a record, i know that the artist has really put their heart and soul into it and have tried to produce something of substance.

When an artist enters the studio with ideas for how they want their record to sound, it’s their opportunity to be creative and inject as much of that creativity into the music.  Some artists take months, or even years in the studio and do way too much to their music  and the end result turns out to be unlistenable pretentious garbage, (cue this man)

while others go into the studio and do the same but produce outstanding works of art with the end result of absolute genius.  Queen was famous for using the studio as a platform to inject as much creativity as possible into their music. Take the song Bohemian Rhapsody from the record A Night at the Opera and try to dissect the infamous “opera” section of the song.  Hundreds of vocal overdubs to create probably the most over the top track ever produced, but in conclusion resulted in a masterpiece.

Then there are artists who go in the studio and record an album in a week or two.  Many artists that take this approach are artists who have done the long recording process in the past and are looking to strip their songs down to the bare bones and record something quick and dirty, maybe rediscover their roots.

Nirvana’s In Utero record is a great example of this.  It was the approach of doing the exact opposite of what they did for their Nevermind record and recording and mixing it in 2 weeks.  Some i’m sure will argue this, but the end result was genius.  I can listen to this record, dissect it and turn it off knowing that Nirvana accomplished what they set out to do in such a short time and it translated perfectly.  Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief record was mostly recorded over a span of two weeks.  Though the album did produce some decent tunes like 2+2=5 and There There, it became regrettably obvious that Radiohead was a band that needed to spend a lot more time in the studio to produce great material.

Then there is Green Day.  I don’t understand what they actually do in the studio. From what i read for their American Idiot record, they were in the studio for months recording and writing it.  If you can bare it, (which many of you can because it apparently sold a ridiculous amount of records) listen to that record and tell me how long you actually think it took to produce that piece of shit.  Like ANY Green Day record before and after American Idiot, the songs generally consist of 4 chords, godawful lyrics that read like they were written by high school students, and a singer that sounds like that clown from the movie Billy Madison.

For some reason this record is praised by critics and fans as a groundbreaking record.  So groundbreaking in fact that someone has developed it into a play that just recently had its debut.

What is the recipe for greatness?  Do you put in months and months of recording with the incredible end result of something like Queen’s A Night at the Opera? or do you strip down the music and take a few weeks to produce the same incredible result like Nirvana’s In Utero?

Either way you could end up with a record sounding Green Day…so who knows?

Another time.