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The chord are very enharmonic to the verse and chorus chords, Fm Eb Cm Db, but they provide enough of a departure that the whole color changes (the Cm in that sequence brings a little ‘Time after Time’ vibe which is fun). It wakes your brain up just when you were ready to start thinking of something else. It’s 4 bars long and it’s the first time the song strays from the main chord structure. It makes the listener wait 1 min and 6 seconds before the first chorus hits. Then we hit a long verse made out of two symmetric 8 bar sections. The intro is 2 bars long, stating the chord structure that makes most of the song. Structurally, ‘Hello’ is a classic ballad with some nice harmonic motion worked in. Third there are no proper drums or genuinely percussive instruments for most of the song. Oh, but we can't have anything over 3.30min, it’ll get cut. Did you not hear at your last A&R meeting? Well, yes I did, and? What? But I thought you had to have an upbeat song to have worldwide success. That said, I think it’s interesting to take a close look at the song to figure out what made it the right choice for this amazing publicity stunt.įirst, it’s a ballad. This overnight success is really the culmination of years and years of build up in Adele’s career. It takes more than just a song and a budget. Could you do that yourself, with your new single and the proper marketing budget? Probably not. People were going about their usual business of being alive and then, boom, everyone who writes about this stuff made everyone feel like it was important that they listen to ‘Hello’. How does one do that? I’m pretty sure I can say that the world was not lying there, waiting longingly for the new Adele song to be released. And subsequently got a million digital sales in a week. It was heralded as the next biggest thing in the music business within 24 hours of it being released.on Youtube. Anyone else noticed the dizzying velocity of the worldwide adoption of this ‘Hello’ song? It’s been exactly 30 days, as of this writing, that ‘Hello’ was released. It’s a testament to her team, label and promotion team in my opinion, that Adele’s new single was a success almost before it was released. Many have faltered and caved under that pressure. It take balls to stick to doing your own thing in the face of initial success when the financial lives of all of the aforementioned talent becomes indexed on your every decision. It takes a network, a team of people from writers to producers to graphic designers to concert promoters to video directors, all with their own networks, it takes chance encounters with random decision makers in and out of the music business, willingness to suffer through mind numbing repetition, willingness to monetize your art without feeling dirty, willingness to sleep a few hours a night for the next 10 or 15 years and, I’m going to be technical here for a second, balls. I think the problem is that it takes a lot more than a great singer and a great song to get through the ever elusive filter of the business part of the music business. Right? It is frustrating to see great talent not getting proper recognition and making a decent living writing and performing their songs because, you know, it’s so much better than that crap THEY play US on the radio. That said, you and I know at least one great singer with great songs who is not getting anywhere. There are however some details that remain steadfast: A great singer is a great singer.
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There is little that has not changed over the last twenty years: how songs are written, how records are made, how long it takes, how they are distributed, how they are purchased, how they are listened to, etc, etc… Few things are constant. It has been mainstream news recently that things are changing constantly in the music business.