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Interviews · music business · music industry interview · Music2Deal.com

Eurovision: why should songwriters care?

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LeaHy is a songwriter, lyricist, and long-standing Music2Deal member with an international perspective on the music business. Over the years, he has written for acts such as 2 Unlimited and CB Milton and collaborated with various artists across Europe. With his deep knowledge of both the creative and business sides of music, LeaHy brings valuable insights into how songwriters can view opportunities like the Eurovision. In this interview, he shares his personal experience, perspectives, and advice for anyone curious about writing for one of the world’s biggest music stages.

You opened a forum on Music2Deal about the Eurovision. What prompted you?

Like many people my age, I have memories of watching the Eurovision as a family – at the time there were not many channels and so not much choice on TV.

Much later, I wrote for 2 Unlimited, CB Milton and others. So you could also say that I’m not scared of pop. I also submitted songs twice. Both fell at the first hurdle – no regrets. But the only people actually debating Eurovision are the hyperfans; songwriters don’t actually talk about Eurovision much.

That’s why I created the forum on Music2Deal (see below).

Who runs the Eurovision?

The Eurovision is run by the European Broadcasters Union – a body that manages supernational sports and TV events for its members, national TV stations. Any station can join, which explains why Australia, Israel and Turkiye are members and can participate and send in their candidates.

Question from a colleague: Why has Eurovision deteriorated so badly?

It’s worth talking about this. On the one hand, it you turn down the volume of your TV set, Eurovision has never been this good. The staging – and very often the choreographies – are among the best you will see anywhere in the world. Plus, the audience continues to grow.

But then there is the music. And that is more… complex. I wish more broadcasters would remember that it’s the Eurovision SONG contest. There is a very strong temptation for them to aim at the spectacle: larger-than-life singers; fake “catchy” choruses; and lots of flesh. So you get a lot of gimmicky acts. They definitely appeal to the live crowd, but they don’t build careers.

But that leads to another point: more than anything else, the Eurovision is a massive TV event whose job is to get people to turn the TV sets on. Their brief is not to create stars, and don’t forget that many of the performers are technically amateurs.

If you have the patience, there are nonetheless still some great songs and performances each year.

What does it take to write a Eurovision song?

Every year, you can see there are a bunch of people (and broadcasters) that figure it’s easy. Churning out music has never been that hard. Creating a potential hit is hard. My personal favourite of the past few years, “Tattoo” by Loreen (Sweden), had six writers, 30 musicians and one of the best vocalists in Europe. And there is not one note or word too many on the track. That’s your competition if you’re aiming for the top level.

There is much talk of the Eurovision formula. If I knew of one that worked, I’d create an app and sell it! One thing I would say that not many people talk about is that songs that catch people’s attention are often very authentic, for want of a better word. The storytelling aspect is important. This could be a “little guy just there for the laughs” to the sympathy vote for Ukraine or the block voting for Israel last year. If you can convince enough people that it’s important to you, a large number will follow you.

How much money can writers earn with Eurovision?
Let’s imagine that you get as far the semi-finals. By now you have earned a couple of thousand euros for airplay and streams. There’s a strong possibility that you will have spent far more than that on studios, session musicians, a good mix and haircuts 😉. Let’s say that you get to the finals and you get some moderate international airplay and streams. Then you’re looking at between €15-50,000. For top five finalists, think about €50-170,000. For the number one winner that goes on to catch people’s attention (not all of them do), you can start at €175,000 and the sky is the limit. As someone noted in other circumstances, “The winner takes it all”. Bear in mind that you will be sharing this money with the broadcaster and then dividing the rest between your co-writers.

How do I write for Eurovision?

As Eurovision is run by national TV stations, you’ll have to go through their submission process. Many require that all the writers and performers be from their country. Others require at least one person be from that country, while some do not specify any constraints.

Now for the reality check: an amazing 10,000 songs are submitted overall per year. Around 300 will make it to the local finals and some 30 or so will compete in the final finals.

The biggest countries obviously receive the most songs. So if you want to increase your chances mathematically, target smaller countries. But I really do recommend having some sort of local connection, be it a writer or a singer. If you get selected, check the contracts closely. Some will require that the writers and performers cover transport and other costs!

Whatever happens, take it as a learning experience and have fun. If you have a great song that needs lyrics, get in touch.

https://www.music2deal.com/groups/Eurovision

https://a-lyric.com
https://3hatsmusic.com
LeaHy´s Profil on Music2Deal

music business · music industry · Music2Deal.com

Michel Zgarka (Ambassador of Music2Deal) is talking about Hitlab

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Michel Zgarka, President – HITLAB

Within the next few weeks HITLAB will launch an international Digital Emerging Artist Competition (DEAC) in partnership with some of the leading companies of the music industry including streamers, telcos, labels. Multi-platforms and our major multi-talented shareholder AKON.

In spite of large investments in the industry, artificial Intelligence in music is still underdeveloped, but it does absolutely have the potential to transform A&R.  At least, that’s what HITLAB – a company quietly making in-roads in this field – is suggesting.

The Montreal-headquartered digital media and artificial intelligence company claims to be ‘revolutionizing the way entertainment content is discovered, produced and consumed’.

The company’s Music Digital Nuance Analysis (DNA) tool is a patented technology that the company claims is able to predict the potential success of new and unknown songs and recommend playlists to music fans.

“WE are A MAJOR TOOL FOR AI-DRIVEN A&R AND EMERGING TALENT DISCOVERY.” 

MICHEL ZGARKA, HITLAB

“Our patented AI powered tech uses “musical pattern extraction and state of the art signal processing to isolate music attributes and transform them into quantifiable mathematical equations”.

What this means is that the software is enabled to create unique signatures for each song (which consists of 83 parameters, according to studies HITLAB had done by universities) and then, by mining the data, DNA can find songs that hold similar signatures.

Hitlab’s recommendation’s system’s conclusions are based on actual sound attributes – as opposed to other systems, which use metadata.

How this works in practice, explains HITAB President Michel Zgarka is that the company’s algorithms can identify what a Top 100 song is in any given country, or “whatever type [of song] we feed the machine”.

“It will compare any song that is presented by a songwriter or a producer, and they’ll be able to get a rating quickly of that song against whatever information we have, or data available, to compare it with,” he explains.

“It will rate that song and the producer will be able to fine tune their song to get better ratings, and they’ll know where they stand as an opportunity.

“So this could be done very quickly and it provides an opportunity for producers, or publishers or so on, to quickly identify a series of songs that could be successful in one list or another.”

HITLAB has also developed a mobile application called Can-U-Sing (CUS), a vocal scoring app that allows users to sing well-known songs and see how well their version stacks up against the original.

The app uses patent pending vocal analysis technology, and according to the promo video (see below), evaluates musical elements like the ability to hold rhythm, melodic precision and vocal technique.

The promo video also states that “recordings can be submitted to contests where singers can win cool prizes and,” – now this is where it gets really interesting – “get noticed by major record labels“.

“The innovative technology used in Can-U-Sing makes it a fantastic audition tool for singing competitions, eliminating the need for costly physical auditions,” writes HITLAB on its website.

In terms of real life implementation of its tech, one case study HITLAB lists on its website is a partnership with the Boston Red Sox, which resulted in the ‘CanUSing Your Way to Fenway Park’ contest, which offered the winner the chance to sing the national anthem at the stadium.

Finalists and the winner were chosen by collecting recordings and filtering performances using HITLAB’s app.

In April last year, HITLAB Media, a subsidiary of HITLAB Inc., signed a long-term co-development and co-production deal with Paris-based production company, WeMake, which is a division of France’s Federation Entertainment.

The partnership will see WeMake and Hitlab jointly produce an ‘original format’ project with the working title ‘Man vs The machine’ – The ‘machine’ being HITLAB’s patented and Patent Pending technology CanUSing and DNA tech.

“We are extremely excited to be able to provide proprietary technologies that can revolutionize the way labels and artists interact with their fan base, as well as the discovery process of new talent.

“Furthermore, our technologies have the possibility to be integrated in different segments of the entertainment industry and we are looking forward to explore the TV market as well, as HITLAB develops international properties for both the theatrical and broadcast media.”

Looking to the future, Zgarka  states that HITLAB wants “to be a major tool for AI driven A&R,” and suggests that its software can help A&R professionals, rather than render them obsolete.

“We are a service provider, We don’t want to replace the human,” insists Zgarka.

“With our AI, instead of having to listen to 1,000 songs or more a year, we can [analyse] 100,000 in 1 hour, which will be [cut] down to maybe 100 – making sure I get the cream of the crop.”

Links:

Michael Zgarka on Music2Deal

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A&R Consultancy Package

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Written by Richard Rogers (Music2Deal UK representative)

A&R is a beautiful profession to be involved with and I always maintain it is an art form and a science……. seriously. I even wrote that quote in the 2018 book, “Depeche Mode: Violator – The Ultimate A&R Guide” which former Warner/Chappell and Island MD Richard Manners concurred with me on. In 2020, an A&R person is now more valuable than ever. Why? Because now every artist needs an A&R person to ensure the artist is 2 steps ahead of the vast competition. The main problem is everybody can make a record now and record/produce it in their bedroom. This means the number of artists around the world has escalated above all proportions because with a fairly inexpensive piece of equipment and a pair of headphones everyone can attempt to be a star! The trouble is the number of would be stars has spread in number like the common cold and record companies receive more submissions than ever before.

As Invisible Hands Records (a UK record company) owner and MD Charles Kennedy said to me a couple of years ago ‘Because there are so many artists out there now doing DIY music, everything is so watered down and even worse most of it is unlistenable. I’ll rarely sign up new artists now, i’ll just rely on catalogue artists such as The Jam, Hugh Cornwell, Emerson, Lake & Palmer etc who are already signed to my company’.

Kennedy was right, everybody knows somebody who has a new single out now on Spotify!!! So how can you make yourself stand out from the rest of the crowd? Who is going to go through your songs and choose your best song for you so at least you have a chance in the industry? Who can recommend the right record labels, the perfect publisher, the correct manager, a killer remixer or the deft producer you require for your act? Yup it’s the much maligned A&R man. He’s still out there but in diminishing numbers sadly as algo rhythms and reduced A&R Departments take control but he’s the man that can still recommend changing the structure or the arrangement within a song or telling the bass player not to play quite so many notes on the track.

A&R

The problem is everybody would like an A&R man for free. Last month (February 2020) I had two cases in question. Firstly a guy that owned a small record label in the States asked me to find a number of record companies worldwide to license and distribute his artists for him and he offered to pay a small percentage for the best deal I could find financially. You’ll note the best deal financially (ie the most money) as opposed to the best deal for the artist in regards to percentages, even though this would mean more money for myself as the ‘deal finder’. I refused to take the offer on as this was not strictly A&R work in my view and I felt the principles to his search for money above all else to the detriment of the artist was thoroughly wrong.

Let’s use an example, if a ‘deal finder’ found for a US record label, 2 potential partners in Germany and the most cash upfront from one was €120k for a years deal but the royalty percentage was minimal and another offered only €50k but fantastic royalty percentage terms and add ons and a better deal overall then the US label might go for the higher cash upfront which would not be to the benefit of the artist. In addition the ‘deal finder’ we will assume is being paid a percentage of the total deal (say 10% for arguments sake). Which is the ‘deal finder’ likely to then offer to the US label, the €120k deal or the €50k deal? Of course the ‘deal finder’ would pretend the ‘artist beneficial’ €50k deal never existed in the first place and there was only the €120k deal available on the table. The record company man goes home with €108k and the ‘deal finder’ takes €12k, his 10% of the €120k and both are happy. What about the artist? I felt that this ‘deal find’ was not the job of an A&R man really as that’s the job of a lawyer in conjunction with the record company, the artist and the artist manager. It’s 2020 and guys this is still happening! Artists – be aware.

The second situation arose of a central European singer who I believed from an A&R capacity, desperately required her vocals to be re-recorded because her English phonetics were, to be kind ‘poor’ on a nevertheless brilliant song she had co-written. She decided the vocals were good enough, took offense at my suggestion she re-record them, refused to pay an A&R fee and never got to find out her song had been entered into a major song competition and subsequently had been accepted and shortlisted for a final with a minimum Yen 350,000 payout (approx €2900). True, not huge money but better than a kick in the leg.

I see these situations month in, month out, so I decided as I do a lot of work with Music2deal to set up an independent A&R Consultancy to help out artists, songwriters, singers, managers etc. Anyone signed up to Music2deal with a paying membership gets a reduction of 20% off a consultancy and those on a free membership with Music2deal get 10% off. Don’t worry, i’ll still do the free Music2deal A&R Essentials series, the A&R tips and help in the blogs, newsletters and on the A&R Forum but the consultancy will be much more intensive.

There are 5 levels of consultancy starting with just a simple single hourly rate which I can assure you that you will recoup the cost back immediately with two pieces of advice on production and mastering alone.

That’s it really, a bit of useful advice for artists to be ultimately aware of those people in the industry that may not have your interest at heart. And yes, it’s mixed in with a bit of self promotion for myself which in 16 years i’ve never done at music2deal. I thought this was worth it though to stop artists being screwed over.

Please let us know in this forum if this has ever happened to you or an artist you know and finally, here’s a request. I’m looking to bring in A&R people in different music styles and genres to expand the consultancy across the musical board so if you are an A&R man or know an A&R person then please get in touch so together we can help artists from being taken for a ride, sometimes without them even knowing.

Richard Rogers – March 2020

 

Links:

Richard Rogers on Music2Deal

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