JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Platinum Hit

Did anyone watch Platinum Hit on Bravo @ 10:00pm last night? I was curious as it is a songwriter contest. The winning songwriter however gets a recording contract. So they should really present themselves as a songwriter/artist competition. The results however are supposed to be based on the songs rather than the performance. At first glance it seems like a cross between America's Got Talent and The Apprentice. It's hosted by former AI judge Kara D. and Jewel. The contest started with 12 contestants(most are 30 or less in age). It appears that the judges in addition to Kara and Jewel will change each week. One of the comments that several judges made was that if you can't get my attention in one second, I'm on my Blackberry or onto something else. Honestly, there are very few hit songs that really do that. I would think that if one wants to give good advice on a first show that they avoid hyperbole(if that's what is was)until their critique style is more understood by the contestants. It would be more correct to say under 6 seconds rather than one second because I doubt that most people are that severely ADD. Will this show be relavant in the music industry as is AI? Time will tell. The exposure benefit will be limited as the show is not on one of the top cable channels. It would seem that if commercial radio's perception is that if the show is a success, they'll play the winner's song. Frankly, due to the time constraints put on the contestants to write a hit, I doubt if much quality would come out of this contest. There appear to be some talented writers so I guess it's possible.

I agree. I suspect this is just a bit of showbiz exaggeration (I’ve told them millions of times about that ). I doubt if any song could past the 1 second test – A Hard Days Night maybe. As you say 6 seconds is a more realistic target.

Oh and ‘no’ I didn’t see it - sounds interesting though

I saw the show and thought the same thing. That is balogna.

1 second, it takes more than one second to notice a beautiful girl let alone a great song to the ear.

I was thinking they obviously dont know how fast 1 to 3 seconds is.

Im not even sure a listener can notice a song is even being played in 1 second. And what about the hit songs being played on the radio as we speak, that we turn off in a few seconds.

Ok they didnt grab our attention, but yet they are on the radio?

We get it. grab the listener right away, but lets not be rediculous saying u got 1 second to hook a listener.

They used to say keep your intros less than 10 seconds. Thats 9 more seconds than 1.

I thought it started May 30th?????

Week 2 of this competition was about writing a hit dance tune. Writers were generally out of their genres on this exercise and the writer voted off was one who basically stepped away from the challenge because it wasn't his thing. I was in agreement with the judges this week on everything. One of the songs was good. One was only okay because the female cowriters pushed to change the song to female vocals whereas the male vocals on the original chorus were what made the song pop. The losing song just plain flopped. It's an interesting show for songwriters. I can't speak for the masses though.

To tell you the truth I think it's actually a pretty cool show. Some of the songwriters on there are genuinely talented and it's kind of fun to see what they come up with on the fly. The 1 second comment that Jermaine Dupri made was a bit of an exagerration, but honestly with the ADD factor at an all time high you don't have much more than 8 seconds these days. The more patient ones might wait for the first chorus.

All in all though I think Bravo has done a pretty good job with the show. Only a couple of the contestants are ego-maniacs and most seem to really understand good songwriting. I just hope the ratings will be decent enough to keep it going since I can't see it appealing to people who don't write songs. It doesn't have that American Idol factor.

I can do that.....

My wife watches it, along with all the other shows on Bravo. I thought it was a pretty cool show, for the parts I've seen. The only thing that I found strange about it, is they make it seem as if it's all about the song, and performance and singing doesn't come into play...but it does. If it didn't why does the winner get a Record Deal? They get a publishing deal too, but I found the record deal to be a little odd. Otherwise, it's a cool little creative show. Bet that guy with the mowhawk wins

Last night's exercise was to write a "Road Song". The top three hook writers got to pick their cowriters. Johnny had a winner - and he chose some of the best cowriters available. The girl from Nashville, Karen went home as her lyrics weren't anything special. Kara was surprised that someone from Nashville(Karen) wasn't writing lyrics at a higher level. Again, I was totally with the judges in their assessments and conclusions. Nick, the guy with the mohawk does draw alot of attention to himself. He delivers on the music on his cowrites. However he was on the losing song for the first time last night. I have found that in these reality type contests, the ones who appear to be the front runner early wind up coming short at the end. I think Nick's personality will get in the way eventually as the judges have already made negative comments about his attitude toward the others. If he's messes up with his contribution on a losing song, he'll be sent home.

I watched the first 2 episodes last night... I dunno, it's kinda like Top Chef, but musical ... they throw you into something that's NOT your element and see what you do ... it's more of a human interest show than anything else, watching the agony of the contestants

This week's challenge was to write a rap hook and combine it with another genre of music to make a hit song. For the second week in a row, Johnny had the best hook and the eventual winning song. It was a quality write. But the thing that this contest misses is that in real life, most hits are not written in one day - as these weekly exercises require. Perhaps some rap songs are because they heavily depend on the beats and marketing. Anyway, some were unable to show any muscle in this genre and were in danger of being eliminated. Melissa is about the weakest writer since the beginning - but yet she's managed to stay in the competition because she gets put on teams that don't have the losing song. She's always the last one picked on any song team so far. The show though is going the direction of the human interest because the producers are focusing as much on the drama between contestants than the songwriting. Having said that though, without the drama, they would only have a 30 minute show. However, if more of the songwriting process was shown, the average non-musician viewer would get bored and switch channels. Hey, there's nothing better on at 10:00pm on Monday anyway if you can even get Bravo.

This week's challenge was to write a love song. The winning hook writer got to choose their collaborators and also the teams for the 2nd & 3rd place hook writer's team. It was little surprise when the 3rd place hook writer's team had the losing song. Melissa was on that team - and as predicted, she was dismissed.
The male contestants seem to be stronger competition than the females - although Sonyae is holding her own. In fact, she has immunity from being eliminated in the next challenge. The other two female contestants have had numerous appearances on the chopping block and are barely hanging on. None of the songs written for this challenge sounded like hits to me - although I agreed with the judges ranking of them.

I watched it & enjoyed it and will probably watch it again.
It's like project runway for songwriters. Seems like a great opp for them. I like the idea of challenges. Pro Songwriters work on projects, aspiring songwriters need to assign themselves projects & keep improving. The show is edited down as is every reality show, much more goes on that never gets televised.

Aren't they cramming several days to a week into 48 minutes?

I missed the episode on 07/08 because Bravo switched this show to Friday nights at 8:00pm. The weakest remaining contestant was eliminated. This week's challenge was to create as many hooks as a two songwriter team could in 2 hrs and use one in a song for a specified artist. The artists ended up being Justin Bieber, Gavin DeGrawl, and Beyonce. Brian and Sonyae teamed up to write a song which the judges loved and said they wouldn't be shy about pitching it to Beyonce. Scotty and Jes's song for Justin Bieber was good - but lacked what the judges thought they'd want to pitch it. Nick and Johnny's(actually it was only Johnny's song) was considered awful by the judges. This show was as much about the drama and postering as it was about the songwriting process. But it did provide some profound lessons. Nick from day one has been antagonistic toward the competition. However, in his defense, he has provided good contributions in his collaborations - particularly with the music. Johnny was probably the front runner in this competition because he had the most success up to this point. Both have huge egos. Johnny's hook was chosen for the Gavin Degrawl song. Johnny wouldn't use any of Nick's suggestions and ended up writing 99% of the song. When Nick noticed that Johnny wasn't taking any of his suggestions, he decided to make what appeared to be a game play by refusing to help Johnny. After all, if Johnny's song won, he was safe. If Johnny's song lost, he could argue that he tried to contribute but Johnny wouldn't accept any of his suggestions. Johnny got haughty with Nick by blowing his own trumpet about his abilities and ended up losing because he missed with his effort this week. They both were terrible cowriters and Jewel wanted to send both home. However Nick's value to the show is the drama he creates. And he is one of the top writers remaining. Jes is currently the weakest remaining contestant. The rest are competitive - but Nick is definitely the one with whom no one wants to cowrite. I would be surprised if he made it to the final two because his personality doesn't make him an appealing partner in songwriting or in working with as an artist. The others, aside from Jes would be desirable cowriters for anyone who wants to compete in the real music world.

Okay, what nite is it on now and what time???? Inquiring minds want to know?

07/22 & 07/29 at 8:00pm. I guess they think they can compete in the summer at this time slot. They really didn't give good notice as to their change in schedule. I had to find it by doing a search on the Internet.

Thanks!

I've missed many empisodes but noticed last night I noticed my Cable company has epsiodes 101 - 107 On Demand

maybe I'll do a marathon

http://www.bravotv.com/platinum-hit

This week's prize was as interesting as the contest. It started with the preliminary hook contest won by Brian - with Scotty as runner-up. So Brian picked Jes as collaborator and passed on Nick because he thought Nick and Jes would be at odds. So Scotty had Nick and Sonyae on his team and won. The prize was exposure in Spin Magazine for the member of the winning team whose contribution was the most significant. Scotty, Nick, and Sonyae were even as far as I was concerned for content. However, the judges thought that Nick's contribution is what put the song over the top. Although Jes admitted to the judges that she has yet to show how good she really is, it was Brian who got the boot. Now it's down to two men and two women. Jes is still as cut below the rest. At this point I believe the next challenge will not be a collaboration. That would make Nick the strongest contestant. Spin had a circulation of 540,000 in 2009 - and they do have a digital magazine in 2011. So that's a nice piece of publicity as the overall winner does get a recording contract as well as a cash prize.

This week each of the 4 remaining songwriters was given a background(rhythm & bass)music track and they had to write a song. So they had to create a melody and lyrics. Sonyae, who has shown throughout this contest that she's strong in this area came up with the winning song. The winner was determined by a gymnasium full of high school students - a true test of commercial appeal. Scotty was the first other contestant to be assured he made it to the finals. The drama was then set as to who, between Jes and Nick would also make it to the finals. Here's where this show veers away from the songwriting to the drama. Jes has a love interest with Johnny, who Nick was able to manuever into a position to be eliminated from the competition. However, she's been the weakest writer for the last 3 weeks - and hasn't shown herself to be worthy of winning this contest at anytime. Jes is also the only white contestant remaining. Nick has been the "bad boy" through this show's first run and has provided drama and competitive songwriting. The judges told Jes and Nick that their songs were the best that each has written during the competition - although Nick has received praise for his musical contributions for various songs that have won several of the previous challenges. Jes had pretty much been carried by her cowriters and was on the block several times. The judges noted that Jes's efforts this week have shown her growth in the competition(IMO this was a set up to justify their decision). They then told Nick that his song wasn't right for the intended market - teenagers, whereas Jes's song was right for that market. So in this way they disposed of the "bad boy" in the competition. So he served his purpose to provide additional drama and was rewarded with the SPIN exposure. Now it's down to one more episode(if I'm reading what was said correctly)and it's Sonyae(who is easily the strongest artist remaining), Scotty(who has worked with Jordin Sparks already), and Jes(who really doesn't belong in the final three). Sonyae is the obvious choice to win because the prize includes a record contract with RCA/Jive and she's the only viable artist remaining in the competition. The only other contestant IMO who was a viable artist was Johnny. If I was RCA's A&R guy for the winner, I would only accept one result - Sonyae. And since this is a judge determined winner, I believer the winner has already been chosen. However, Scotty may have worked himself into a position to write with Sonyae as those two had several successes in previous song challenges and they enjoy working together. I believe the producers may have had Scotty on their radar when they chose him to compete. They already knew that he could be a credible winner as a songwriter - but now they are able to hook him up with a more commercial artist - Sonyae. And Jes, well she's the token "come from nowhere" songwriter who is there to give aspiring songwriters who may want to compete in future runs of this song hope that by entering the competition, they could win. All in all, it's was a contrived competition at best, that may yield at least one hit by Sonyae. She's very attractive and can sing and write. And her genre depends alot on marketing, so she should have no problem with a video to launch her success.

And the winner is .... Sonyae. For details, just read the previous post from last week.