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Tips & Resources by Brent Baxter, Pro Songwriter on September 19, 2018
DO YOUR SONGS LET THE ARTIST PREACH?
No, I don’t mean you have to write spiritual songs. And I don’t mean that the artist is looking to tell his audience how to live. The artist wants to do what is known as “preaching to the choir.” And this isn’t preaching to the church choir. This means speaking to the group that is already on board with the message.
Artists want to serve their existing fans- to give them more of what they already love about that artist.
But artist’s don’t want to get too repetitive in their “sermons.” For example, Kenny Chesney has recorded a lot of beach songs. This doesn’t mean that you should never pitch Kenny a beach song. The beach is an important part of his brand, and he’s sure to revisit it again and again on future albums.
Your opportunity is in songs that fill the spaces the artist’s existing songs don’t already occupy.
Write and pitch songs that do something new melodically and/or lyrically. You can’t bring Chesney another “When The Sun Goes Down” that feels like “When The Sun Goes Down” AND covers the same ground lyrically.
Give the artist a different verse from the same chapter, or a different chapter from the same book.
A successful artist has a point of view. They revisit certain themes in their songs again and again. One artist may sing about how great small towns are and how the people are salt of the earth. The listeners who connect to that theme become “the choir” that those songs preach to. In that situation, the artist will probably want a few songs that preach to that choir. Maybe it won’t be exactly the same type of song, but it will connect with the same audience.
Let the artist offer up a song that allows them to say, “Hey, if you liked what that other song of mine had to say, you’ll also like this.”
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God bless,
Brent
