Define a "hit".

[rasputin1963]

No, not the bong or Mafia varieties.

 

 

I mean a hit recording. An "

[Raymar]

Go rent a DVD called "The Mechanic" with Charles Bronson and John Michael Vincent. Everything you want to know about a hit is in that movie.

 

Steve

[rjt]

I think a hit is defined as when the ref counts to 10 and you can't get up!!

 

But seriously!! Very tough to define....I hear your question as "What is good music?" but maybe you mean something different.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Well "charting" can play into it - if it charts on Billboard, you can probably safely say it was at least a modest radio "hit".

 

Of course, radio is dead now, isn't it? Sorry - I forgot for a second... I know, silly of me.

 

Another milestone or standard is set and certified by the RIAA for number of physical units sold; you could probably safely say you have a hit album or a hit single if you sold, say, 500,000 ("Gold") or 1,000,000 ("Platinum") units.

 

Oops, I forgot - the record industry as we knew it twenty years ago is dead now too... This is getting embarrassing.

 

Of course, there's regional hits - material that is popular in one region or area of the country, but not really nationally. That could mean radio play (if there was radio), or good local sales or whatever.

 

I don't know if there is an online download "award" similar to gold records (if not, maybe there should be), or a MySpace "listens" award or other more modern versions of the benchmarks of popularity that we've traditionally used as indicators of "hit status", but "popularity" (which can be measured by various criteria, on various scales) is pretty much the standard I'd use when defining a "hit".

 

If something is a "hit", it doesn't automatically mean it's "good", but it usually means a lot of people like it.

[Magpel]

Hits are, like, what's cool. Hits are now. Hits are how you tell the difference between this week and last. Hits are your best accessory. Hits keep score. Once you've had a hit, you'll always have a hit, but there is danger in having only one.

The people who say that music is math are missing the point, but hits? Hits are math. It's not a hit unless it is measurably a hit. Otherwise, we'd all have hits.

 

We do not all have hits.

[russrags]

Hits are determined by the PUBLIC. Record company's, Producers, Artists, Program Directors and on and on can try there hardest to MAKE a hit, but it all comes down the the PUBLIC and just what they embrace.

 

While typing this Elton John came to mind with "Goodbye Norma Jean". When Princes Diana died he changed the words and performed the song at her services and it became an overnight HIT, including the highest selling single of all time .... however looking back on it now, I don't know if that version is still a HIT, as I drift back to the original lyric in my mind???

 

The PUBLIC makes the determination, whether a song is a hit or not.

 

 

Russ

Nashville

[Raymar]

 

Hits are determined by the PUBLIC . Record company's, Producers, Artists, Program Directors and on and on can try there hardest to MAKE a hit, but it all comes down the the PUBLIC and just what they embrace. While typing this Elton John came to mind with "Goodbye Norma Jean". When Princes Diana died he changed the words and performed the song at her services and it became an overnight HIT, including the highest selling single of all time .... however looking back on it now, I don't know if that version is still a HIT, as I drift back to the original lyric in my mind??? The PUBLIC makes the determination, whether a song is a hit or not. Russ Nashville

 

 

 

I remember back in the day I was in Tower Records and the CD single was on sale being touted as a collectable. Anybody have one? Did it ever reach collectable status?

 

Steve

[seahorse]

A song in the Billboard top 20 in whatever category you fit in..pop, rock, rap, country , etc.

[elsongs]

Used to be that heavy radio play and/or chart rankings defined a song as a hit. Not so anymore. Things are different these days. So here's the 21st-century way of defining your song as a "hit"

 

- Your song appears multiple times in P2P searches.

- Your song is featured in a commercial for an Apple product.

- There are several "cover" versions of your song, lip-synched by overseas high school or college students, uploaded to YouTube.

- When you mention the name of your tune to someone under 24, they'll say, "Oh yeah! I've downloaded it!"

[Ernest Buckley]

My definition: A hit song is a song that makes an emotional connection with the listener the first time it is heard and thereafter. It has nothing to do with units sold but that is a nice bonus.

 

I can think of many popular songs that were HUGE when they first came out, only to disappear with time and never be heard from again.

 

Anyone remember the thong song?

[oldman2]

all the above

[kurdy]

My definition: A hit song is a song that makes an emotional connection with the listener the first time it is heard and thereafter. It has nothing to do with units sold but that is a nice bonus. I can think of many popular songs that were HUGE when they first came out, only to disappear with time and never be heard from again. Anyone remember the thong song?

 

Actually, yeah I do. Thanks for reminding me.

 

You know, ironically, people still seem to be quite fond of "Baby's Got Back" (the "I like big butts" song) almost 18 years later (not me, though ). Goes to show you just never know what's going to have lasting impact in the public's mind, and what isn't.

[rasputin1963]

Hits can metamorphose in meaning, I suppose, as well: there is an "Adult Contemporary" FM station in San Antonio which prides itself on playing "your favorite hits from the 80's, 90's and Today".

 

But one record they have added to their regular playlist (honestly, they play it about three or more times a day) is the 1981 recording "Blue Monday" by New Order. Not only that, they play an extended dance mix of it that runs in the 6:00 department.

 

This is interesting to me on a number of levels:

 

Though "Blue Monday" was an enormous dance club hit in America (and a big Top 40 hit in the UK), I do not recall that it hit on the straight-ahead Top 40 charts in the States. Why? It was a pretty dark, "underground" sounding record to my ears... and it was long-ish in length... more than 3:30.

 

Even today, "Blue Monday" still sounds pretty dark and "underground" to my ears. I saw New Order in concert, circa 1982, and the scene there was definitely dark, druggy, punky and Goth-y.

 

Yet now they blithely play the full dance version on this family-oriented Adult Contempo station, right next to hits by Whitney Houston and Bette Midler, interspersed with commercials for foodstores and The Home Depot.

[the stranger]

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[Phil O'Keefe]

 

Groovy baby! Yeah! :phil:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love Bossa Nova.

[spokenward]

"your favorite hits from the 80's, 90's and Today" - Yes, you have stumbled into a timewarp. I don't think "Blue Monday" ever broke out of the clubs.

 

It might illustrate a "hit" sub-category that hasn't been mentioned. In the late 70's radio programmers took to research. Phone research ("callouts") was the fashion for softening playlists. The idea was that you could identify records that would not cause your audience to change stations. Yup, programming for inertia.

 

The side effect was that previously effective arguments for getting records played (store reports, national chart listings, play in secondary markets, or clubs) were ignored. Programmers stirred and read their own tea leaves. It was the beginning of the end of radio as the critical connection between record companies and audiences.

 

Hey, Stranger, did you remember that New Order was inexplicably released in the US on Quincy's label?

[the stranger]

Groovy baby! Yeah! :phil: I love Bossa Nova.

 

:phil:~~~~

[Vbrook]

A hit is a song that when you go out---to the mall, to a restaurant, to a bar, on the street---you can't escape it.

 

If you go with that definition, it hasn't changed in 20 years plus.

 

Has anyone managed to escape "Tryin-na Catch Me Ridin' Dirt-ay"? I think not.

 

Now, not that there's anything wrong with the song, of course, but I just want to smash things when I hear it now.

 

The definition of a hit hasn't changed, it's just the metrics that have gone.

[rasputin1963]

I love Bossa Nova.

 

 

 

I do too!! As a cocktail pianist, it was practically a "second language" for so many years.

 

Here's a kewl SHAG painting for you... "Yanomami Hunter" (2000). Can you spot some Brazilian bossa celebs?

[elsongs]

Yet now they blithely play the full dance version on this family-oriented Adult Contempo station, right next to hits by Whitney Houston and Bette Midler, interspersed with commercials for foodstores and The Home Depot.

 

It has to do with the age demographic. People in their 30s and 40s who work in banks or have three kids still definitely remember that song.

[elsongs]

My definition: A hit song is a song that makes an emotional connection with the listener the first time it is heard and thereafter. It has nothing to do with units sold but that is a nice bonus. I can think of many popular songs that were HUGE when they first came out, only to disappear with time and never be heard from again. Anyone remember the thong song?

 

You mean "That Thong-th-thong-thong-thong?" Nah, don't recall it

 

Seriously now, and this is a good indicator...go into a Karaoke bar or studio (a karaoke place with private rooms for smaller groups of people to sing, dunno if your city has one of those, they're very popular in Korean or Japanese neighborhoods) and look in the catalog. Certainly every song that someone bothered to make an instrumental karaoke arrangement and accompanying lyrics (errors and all) for was indisputably a hit song.

 

On that matter, I went to a Karaoke studio with some friends this past weekend to celebrate one of their birthdays. We had fun and selected stuff like "Rico Suave"

[Ernest Buckley]

The fact that the "thong song", "babys got back" and "rico suave" are considered hits, is both mind numbing and proves, there really is no god.

 

Seriously, yikes!

[MarkGifford-1]

A client once explained it as:

 

When you're driving down the road w/your girlfriend, a song comes on the radio, and your girl says, "Let's go to the mall, I've GOT to get that song."

 

Never heard a better definition.

 

MG

[deanmass]

A unique perspective on a hit.

[rasputin1963]

 

A unique perspective on a hit .

 

 

This chap is young, but he has a real point. My own favorite pop records have been the ones which use short length as an artistic constraint.