The reason why popular artists are/were so succesful

[radi6404]

Has anyone here asked himself, why is it that Hallucinogen, Man with no Name, Astral Projection and other well known artists where so scucesful in the past and why some good artists of the present are so succesful? Many people say that succesful artists are unique in their sound and invent something new and innovative. But is that really true? In my opinion it is not true and it is not the innovations who help those artists being succesful at all. It is the sound of those artists. Most of the succesful artists have coherent and consistent sound in their tracks from start to finish. Be it Man with no Name, Simon Posford, Astral Projection, Hux Flux or Logic Bomb. All of those artists have consitent sound from start to finish; the tracks start interesting, are intersting in the middle and finish interesting. When you look at other artists that are not as succesful, you will notice that many tracks have a great beginning, a great peak or a great ending, but as a whole they have weak moments aswell and therefore are more inconsistent. Consistency is one key element that makes the difference between a good track and a bad track.

 

The next key element that people often fail to see is that good artists use simple and complex melodies in combination and make the track interesting with different percussion bassline, strings and vocals. Those basslines and strings have intersting key changes that support the main melodies while some quieter variations of the main melodies are playing in the background. A less talented artist that wants to create a track quickly just to get attention will spend all his effort on the main melody and make it overly complex and stressful to listen, while not giving attention what´s going on in the background. This is the case with many newschool goa trance songs: The main melody is overly complex and stressful and the background melodies are simple with one bassline that plays from the first minute to the last minute. A good song does not have to have complex melodies at all. Instead it must be harmonious and coherent, with all melodies supporting one another. A great example of this is Hallucinogen - The Herb Garden. Simon Posford only used simple melodies for this song and yet he created an unreached masterpeace. The reason The Herb Garden sounds so good is that all musical elmenets of this song, be it melodies or percussion, fit together very well and support one another. The Herb GArden is not only an impressive melody, it is a combination of interesting percussion, well sounding main leads and well sounding background melodies. The last pianolike melody for example is very simple, but really impressive aswell. The sound he choose for that melody is impressive. But not only that, he also changed the bassline so it swings to the melody and supports it.

 

In my opinion these two elements are the main reasons why succesful artists are succesful and are remembered while other artists come and go just like several newschool artists. In music every part of the track si very important and not only the main melody. If a newschool goa trance song has repetative melodies from start to finish and one bassline from start to finish, it will never be as interesting as an impressive harmonius Man with no Name or even Simon Posford masterpeace.

[Penzoline]

I've heard quite a few of the big producers of 90s had previous background in musical fields before even starting goa (and/or were wealthy people), so that definitely gave them an edge when it came to engineering, producing tracks and creating melodies.

 

I hope someone with more information could clarify this.

[radi6404]

I've heard quite a few of the big producers of 90s had previous background in musical fields before even starting goa (and/or were wealthy people), so that definitely gave them an edge when it came to engineering, producing tracks and creating melodies.

 

I hope someone with more information could clarify this.

There´s nothing that needs to be clarified. What I said here is the obvious and you believe that aswell. You can look up the biography of many artists and find out for yourself that many artists had msuical eperience before their time as goa trance artists.

[Penzoline]

Well yeah, thats the basic gist of it. If you start today with FL studio or whatever you completely skip the musical theory and study. It might have something to do with why people don't consider modern goa as good many times, but not everyone good in old school was musically trained either.

[radi6404]

But it is not only about musical talent, it is about the plan of the musicia, what he wants to achieve. Many people for example will say that they want complex melodies, so nowadays everyone tries hard to create complex melodies instead of creating a harmony with comple and simple melodies. Ohter artists only pay attention on the main melody and use fill work for the rest of the song. The first songs of a well known Artist with E were like that and I did not like them a lot. Great main melodies, but the rest of the track was very repeative. People maythink that goa trance songs can be created using a formula, but they can´t. A goa trance song shoould intersting from starto to finish and not only in the middle of the song.

[GagaISM]

You have the music - the songwriting and production, the packaging, the timing and promotion... Great artists usually excel in all of these areas...

[technosomy]

all of the above is needed

but comes down to raw talent, some have it some don't..... as well as patience!

to sit in a studio day after day.. putting all of this together, without that you have nothing!

[Taika-Kim]

I've been thinking about this a lot.

 

I would say also:

Good melodies that sound original but are still easy to approach.

I also agree on the consistent sound that is recognisable.

 

Maybe it's that I like to concentrate on the melodies myself, but this actually I think is really important. To create something that sticks in the mind a little bit.

 

It's easy to write "beautiful" melodies and soundscapes (check club trance), but harder to create something that ONLY that one artist could have created...

 

Also, I think it largely comes down to experience, practise and a wide musical taste. Where do the original ideas come from, when a 19 year old who never listened to anything else than trance, starts to write her own tracks?

[Taika-Kim]

Oh, I would also say: a classic track has an intro that is instantly recognisable in less than 5 seconds.

 

Just an empirical observation

[radi6404]

"Good melodies that sound original but are still easy to approach."

 

Yes, that is exactly what I wanted to say aswell, but I did not think of that phrase.However I don´t think that an artist must be too original, he only has to do what we discussed above. If you are too original to other artists than people who are looking for similar tracks from one arist, will not like tracks of the other artist. So it is not a mistake to produce similar tracks to other artists. In my opinion being original will come automatically because no artist will modulate the synths in exactly the same way another artist does, at least not unintentionallly. If an artist starts to produce music, he doesn´t have to think, I must produce something different to other artists. He can just start producing the music and it will be different to other artists because of the way he works.

[Richpa]

[...]This is the case with many newschool goa trance songs: The main melody is overly complex and stressful and the background melodies are simple with one bassline that plays from the first minute to the last minute. A good song does not have to have complex melodies at all. Instead it must be harmonious and coherent, with all melodies supporting one another.

...

 

In my opinion these two elements are the main reasons why succesful artists are succesful and are remembered while other artists come and go just like several newschool artists. In music every part of the track si very important and not only the main melody. If a newschool goa trance song has repetative melodies from start to finish and one bassline from start to finish, it will never be as interesting as an impressive harmonius Man with no Name or even Simon Posford masterpeace.

 

Hey there mr. 5%