Current Hit Music

Ah, one hit wonders – songs that allow bands and artists to be famous for about thirty seconds. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, or shut off the radio in a fit of rage each time one airs, if you like music there is really no escape: one hit wonders are part of the musical world. Some are worth forgetting altogether – ahem, Do the Bartman – but others are well worth a listen, or fifty. The following is our selection of the best one hit wonders to put on your Ipod. Trust me, your friends will be jealous.

I’m Too Sexy: There is nothing quite as humorous as a man vocalizing his sexiness, sans a man who is not at all sexy doing it. Right Said Fred brought ego to a new height with this 1992 hit. I’m Too Sexy not only taught us what the heck a cat walk is, but it also topped the American charts for three whole weeks. Yes, three…seriously.

Tainted Love: If you ever feel like you’ve got to run away, like you’ve got to get away, you are not alone. This song by Soft Cell was released in 1981. Rumored to have been recorded in just a day and a half, Tainted Love reached number 8 on the US charts, a chart where it remained for a then-record 43 weeks. Not bad for 36 hours of work.

Marcarena: If the Marcarena taught us one thing, it taught us that we can have a song stuck in our heads for months at a time, without actually knowing the words. Recorded by Los del Rio, a Spanish music group, Marcarena was the biggest hit for a duo that had been around for decades. This song went multi-platinum and sold over four million copies in the United States. Marcarena also did well in Australia and – adopting the tell tale sign of musical success – came with its own dance.

Come on Eileen: A song still popular among lovers of eighties music, Come on Eileen virtually turned into come on let’s sing. Released in 1982, this song was the best selling British single of the year. Performed by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Come on Eileen also saw success in the US: it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in April 1983. Today, it remains one of the most well known and beloved One Hit Wonders of all time.

Ice Ice Baby: Alright Stop. Collaborate and listen. Anyone who says they don’t know the words to Ice Ice Baby is either too old or lying. Vanilla Ice’s best known cube was released in 1991. A song that “borrowed” rifts from Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure, Ice Ice Baby heated up the airwaves and hit number one on the Billboard charts. Possessing fans from everywhere, this song was even nominated for a Grammy. It ultimately lost to MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This.

There is really no end to One Hit Wonders. As long as there is music, there will be groups that are only able to eke out a single success. Yet, despite what the title One Hit Wonder insinuates, these songs remain a part of musical history. We may as well cooperate and put them on our Ipod; they are stuck in our heads for life, whether we like it or not.

Jennifer Jordan is a senior editor for http://iturbocharge.com. Possessing an infatuation with pop culture – and a gift for stalking – she keeps up on the latest news of the musical world.

There are a lot of factors to writing a hit song. First, you should focus on writing a good song. Once you’ve done that, you are not far away from writing a hit.

Like most other things in life, it takes persistence, patience, drive, knowledge, belief and maybe some luck.

Stop and think about your favorite songs. Really analyze them and figure out what it is that you like about those songs.

Different factors may come to play here. Maybe it is the good beat, lyrics that hit home, a beautiful melody, something spiritual or patriotic, or maybe even that it is humorous.

If you include one of these elements in your songwriting you are well on your way. If you combine two or more of these elements, you may have yourself a hit.

A Good Beat

Rhythm is important in music. I have to laugh and think of Jerry Van Dyke on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” years ago trying to play the banjo and sing, “I’ve got rhy-rhy-thm, I’ve got mah-mah-music…”

But, unless you are very funny like Jerry Van Dyke, your audience is not very likely to stay with you.

Your music not only needs to have a good beat, but must fit the genre of music you are trying to write. A Metallica beat in a George Strait type song may not get you very far. A song with a good enough beat might be a hit even with no melody and no lyrics. Remember “Green Onions?”

Along with the beat is the tempo. Country music is easy to write (I did not say it is easy to write well) because it is about people’s lives and everyday experiences. However, too often people write slow songs for country music, when in fact the industry is starving for upbeat country material like “Country Roads” and “Rocky Top.” It is much harder to write a good up-tempo country song than it is a tear jerker.

Lyrics in popular music can range from broken relationships to political issues, and just about any point in between. Those that tend to be the most popular are about situations you and I may encounter in our everyday lives; “Workin’ 9 To 5,” “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “God Bless The USA” (which ingeniously incorporates spiritual, political and patriotic views).

A beautiful or interesting melody can get you into the ranks of hit songwriter with no lyrics required. Going back in time to prove a point about beautiful melodies, you might consider songs like “Last Date” and “Sleepwalk.”

Songs with great melody lines are very easy to be found in many hit TV show themes like “Peter Gunn,” “Hawaii 5-0,” along with many of the 60’s surfer songs like “Wipe Out.”

Well done humorous songs usually find an audience, such as Ray Stevens “The Streak,” and Jerry Reeds “She Got The Goldmine, I Got The Shaft.” If you have a knack for both humor and music, you might make a fortune.

Spiritual and patriotic songs, if they are well done and come out at the right time, are easy hits. Every time the U.S. gets involved in any type of world conflict, the songwriters get their pens out.

Keep your ears and eyes open, and keep a shoe box to put your ideas for songs in. Every time you think of an idea for a song or a song title, write it down and drop it in the box. It could be your first, or your next, big hit.

Michael Russell
MgrCentral.com
Established 2001
Home Business Training and Information Guides

Jennifer Lopez’s latest dance hit was at number one this week on Billboards.com dance charts. The song, Do it Well, is part of her latest album, “Brave”. “Brave” is Jennifer’s 6th studio album in her music career, and her second release this year.

The song was written and produced by Ryan Teddler. David LaChepelle, who is renowned for his “out of the box” concepts and ideas, produced the music video. The video starts with Jennifer getting a SOS message from a little boy. Jennifer then pounds her way into a club, beats up a couple of random people and saves the boy. She manages to do all of this in a short trench coat and still has time for a few dance routines in between, which she does in a red dress and heels.

Although the song has been a big hit and has stayed on the Billboard.com charts for 6 weeks, the music video hasn’t been as much of a success. In an interview, Jennifer tells of David’s “magical work” by combining colour, art and an underground vibe into the video. She reports that David said, “People want to see her dance,” so the video was created as a “high energy dance song.”

Her previous album, released earlier this year, “Como Ama Un Mujer” has broken the record for the highest selling Spanish album. Since it’s release in March, it has sold over 800,000 copies. The album has been nominated for the American Music Awards (AMA) in the category, Favourite Latin Artist.

This isn’t her first time at the AMA. In 2003 she won the music award for Favourite Pop/Rock Female Artist. But singing isn’t the only thing that this multi-talented artist does. She still manages to fit in her acting career, song writing, clothing line and her fragrance: J-LO. According to Forbes, Jennifer Lopez is the richest Latin American in Hollywood.

This Latino Queen has taken Hollywood by storm since the beginning of her career in the 90s. She’s managed to cover a variety of industries and combine them all into one. During her fame, she has been married several times, her latest husband being her long-time friend, Marc Anthony.

Currently they are on tour together, to promote her album. With two albums out in one year, awards piling up, a movie being planned and touring, it seems there is no stopping her. Who knows, she might be able to fit in a few more dance routines in a red dress and heels before the year is done.

Celeste is a reviewer for popular Dance Music News portal, where you can get the latest news on your favourite dance music artists.

In this article we’re going to review one of the great musicals of our time, which is actually a true story, The Sound Of Music.

The Sound Of Music is based on a very true a heroic story about the Von Trapp family. Briefly, since this article is really about music and not history, the Von Trapp family lived in Austria just prior to World War II. As Hitler took control of the country the family, totally against Hitler’s annexation, fled the country and eventually settled in the United States. They were able to do this from the money they made as the Trapp Family Singers, and thus the focus of the musical.

Before The Sound Of Music hit Broadway with Mary Martin in the lead role that was made popular by Julie Andrews, it was first made into a very lavish movie in 1965. Julie Andrews had earlier gained her fame as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and was a natural for the part of Maria in this musical.

The words and music were written by the one and only team of Rogers and Hammerstein. The music in this production is some of the most popular music ever written for a musical. During the period when the movie was released there probably wasn’t one school spring concert production that didn’t feature songs from the movie.

The great music may have, in a sense, done the story a disservice. The truth is, the story is indeed a great one in itself, one of a family’s fight for freedom. And in most cases a movie based on this theme would have been able to stand on its own merits. But the music was so fantastic that, in a sense, it overshadowed the story.

And if you want to take irony to an even higher level, the actual true musical highlight of The Sound Of Music was not even a song sung by Andrews or The Von Trapp Family themselves. It was a tune called “Climb Every Mountain” which was sung by the Mother Superior of the Convent that Maria came from. This song itself was probably one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, sung by a character who was hardly seen.

Yes, the story of how Maria wormed her way into the hearts of the family, especially the Baron, played brilliantly by Christopher Plummer, was beautiful and heartwarming. To see a man who was so against music in his home, because of the death of his first wife, transform into a man who made music and Maria his life was enough to bring out the tissues all by itself. Add to that the children who so grew to love Maria for giving them a reason to smile again and you have a story that you’d have to have the heart of a tree sloth not to love.

Oh and yes, there are the great tunes like the title track, “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi,” and of course the tear jerker “Edelweiss” which when the Baron tried to sing at the family’s farewell concert just before they defected, got all choked up and Maria had to help him get through it. Yeah, you had to be there.

If you haven’t seen this great movie, please rent the DVD for a weekend and watch it. Really watch it. It’s one of those rare treats that won’t disappoint.

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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Music

Every once in awhile an advertiser will hit on just the right combination of music and video to make a great commercial. (I would say “TV” commercial but that is simply not the case anymore!)

And some of the best of the most recent in this group are using the music from 20-40 years ago. The Jeep Liberty commercial featuring computer-generated wild-life singing Andy Kim’s (remember him?) 1974 #1 hit, “Rock Me Gently,” is one example.

There’s an NBA commercial that utilizes 1970’s “Let’s Work Together” by the iconic LA blues-rock band Canned Heat. It works. (Interestingly, “Let’s Work Together” was written by Wilbert Harrison who himself made a hit by covering someone else’s song. He went to #1 in 1959 with Leiber and Stoller’s blues classic “Kansas City.”)

One of the coolest of all is the Honda Accord commercial that prominently features the ELO 1981 hit, “Hold On Tight to Your Dream.”

In this particular case, I think the piece is made more effective by the timing. This is an election year. There’s a lot of “Dream Talk” out there. At any rate, the Jeff Lynne (Traveling Wilburys)- penned uplifting song is great, as was the band, Electric Light Orchestra. Very cool old sound.

Music from the 60s, 70s and 80s will get more and more use as an advertising vehicle, as companies see the positive impact these musical memories make on the public.

The music from the 60s, 70s and 80s was largely about GROWING, about making the world a better place. We wanted to teach the world to sing, “in perfect harmony.”

Dream talk is on the rise. Music that emboldens our dreams is what we want to hear. That’s what I’m playing. What are you playing?

DA Jack Hayford is the editor of the popular music reference website, Events-in-Music.com which features a special section on #1 Songs. Mr. Hayford is also the Program Director and co-founder of DurangoSong.com the online home of the ten-plus-year old Durango Songwriters Expo, a premier annual educational and inspirational event for aspiring songwriters.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=DA_Jack_Hay

The average age of debuting big-hit music artists probably falls in the teenager range, and the phenomenon known as Soulja Boy is no exception. At age sixteen, this ambitious young man rapped his way to the Billboard charts with songs he wrote and produced himself. Here are some highlights in Soulja Boy’s career, and see where he’s going next.

DeAndre Cortez Way, as Soulja Boy is originally called, was born on July 28, 1990 in Chicago, Illinois. At an early age, he found a liking for rap music, which his friends taught him how to do. When he stepped into 8th grade, he and his father moved to Batesville, Mississippi, where he attended South Panola High School. He claims he was grateful for moving to Mississippi, as he and his friend, Abrahim Mustafa, also known as Arab, came up with a way to make their original rap songs heard through the internet.

Having first uploaded their music at a site named SoundClick, Soulja gained popularity from the fans who listened to their work. Many visitors have downloaded their music and gave their comments on the style. Because this attempt was successful, he then put up his own website, souljaboytellem, which is subsequently the name of his debut album. In 2004, as he returned to Atlanta, he was handled by manager Derrick Crooms, and he established his record label, Stacks on Deck Entertainment. By 2007, Soulja Boy hit the airwaves with his single “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” which not only started a dance craze across America, but even hit the top spot at the Billboard Hot 100 in September to October 2007. s

Since his launch, Soulja Boy has made several appearances, including MTV’s Total Request Live, the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards where he performed his single, Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, BET’s 106 and Park, and has won the Best Hip Hop Dance at BET’s Hip Hop Awards 2007. Another hit single released from his album is Soulja Girl, which is currently gaining ground at the charts.

The music video for “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” features appearances from Bow Wow, Omarion, Baby D, and other rap artists. The single has also be remixed by artists like Jermaine Dupri, Twister, Tone-Tone, Travis Barker, and many others. Currently, him and his friend Arab are maintaining their websites, channels, and forums, where their fans can get info on their work. Both are still working together with their record label, Stacks on Deck Entertainment.

More on Soulja Boy Story, Music, Fans and his sought after Ringtones - Soulja Boy .

One of the main contributing factors to a movie’s success is its soundtrack. Music is an essential element in most plays and dramas. Shakespeare made efficient use of music in his famous plays. Movie makers realize that a lot of the movie’s business at the box office depends upon the music recording. There are many ways to incorporate songs in a movie. Musicals are one genre which is exclusively based on songs and lyrics. However, even if it is an action movie, filmmakers find ways to include some soundtracks into it.

In fact, Bollywood films are renowned for the excessive song and dance sequences they have. Hollywood movies too use orchestral or synthesizer score or even a new hit song to add to the interest element. Sometimes a movie’s popularity is increased by its musical score. Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” for Titanic stayed on in public memory long after the movie left the cinema halls. The soundtrack of Love Story is one of the most enduring ever, and who doesn’t download music from Sound of Music and Mary Poppins. Many a times, blockbusters become classics because of their excellent scores. Hence, composers and song writers are in great demand in Hollywood.

There are different types of motion picture music. One is the underscore category like the score for Steven Spielberg’s E.T. Another is the category of original recording like “Hungry Heart” for the movie Perfect Storm. Finally there is the song that is written especially for a movie like “Over the rainbow” for the hugely popular Wizard of Oz. Each of these types is used frequently in movies and requires different recordings, contracts and royalties.

Songs are used in movies to show all kinds of emotions. A romantic setting is enhanced by an appropriate love song. Similarly music has been used to make people laugh and cry. In fact the story itself can be narrated through cleverly inserted songs. Moreover, with a great background score, emotions and dialogs acquire more significance. If a producer wants to use an existing soundtrack for his movie, he can do so by negotiating with the music producer. Often, a pre-existing, hit song can help create the mood required in the movie. The soundtracks of many movies come out and go on to become huge hits in their own right. These days with digital music recording, adding new songs to movies is becoming easier.

My Fair Lady was a complete musical whose main claim to fame was the witty use of lyrics to show every mood. Similarly, Chicago and Moulin Rouge used songs and extravagant dances to create the required atmosphere. Even if the movie does not use songs every other minute, it will show action with a background score playing regularly. Who can forget the scenes of Psycho with the spine tingling music in the background? The audio mastering was such here that the score heightens the audience’s fear and any time one hears the music he quickly associates it with Psycho. Such is the power of appropriate music in cinema!

Low priced recording studio equipment can by sourced and your very own home recording studio can be set up with a little effort. You can then fulfill your love of making music with home recording.