Originally Posted by Marc Barnette
One of the problems you have in todays world (and actually this has been around a lot longer than today) is that you pretty much have to make the song SOUND like the people you are pitching to. If you don't, songs are weeded out long before it gets anywhere down the road. Nobody has "ears"any more and so you have to be in the ballpark of those artists. But here's a story about that very issue.

A friend of mine, Frank Meyers wrote a song with one of his co-writers, GAry Baker. Over the years they wrote quite a few and demoed a bunch. One of the songs they felt was a big pop R&B song and demoed it that way. They pitched it a lot but never got any attention at all. So they put it aside and sort of forgot about it. After around 8 years they were revisiting songs and pulled that one out. They felt that they should re-demo it and did another one that was very country. THe song immediately started getting attention and was recorded by major artist John Michael Montgomery. It went to number one. Not long after it was a huge hit in the country market, someone found the original pop demo and pitched it to an Urban top 40 group, called "ALL 4 ONE." That song went to number one in the pop market. And won a Grammy for best vocal performance.
But neither one of those artists would have heard through it with the original demo. It had to be targeted exactly how each of those artists sounded. And this was 1993 for the country verson and 1994 for the pop version. And it's only gotten more demanding since.

Oh yeah, the song was called "I SWEAR."
MAB


Hey Mab,

Yes, I remember reading about this particular story, it's great reminder of where a great song can go. Imagine, having a great song like that
take 8 years to get anywhere? Wow! you're right, nobody has "ears" anymore, especially today! The frustration, they must have felt sitting on a song like that... Pretty amazing the song held up that long to be recorded. I imagine nowadays, that if you write a song, it probably has a far less chance of holding up for eight years, because music seems to change so quickly. I'm always reading about Music
Publishers or Song Pitchers, advising Songwriters to try to write your song ahead of the current trends, because by the time it even has a chance to be recorded, and released, at least 2yrs could go by! All very true, my thing is how the heck does one do that?
Great discussion, appreciate the insights as always!-Dana