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misuse of technology. Note I do not say technology itself. Human beings are easy to tempt, and technology is a
seductive thing. When cost-cutting, a ticking clock, and laziness link up, it is not surprising if technology is made to
serve these purposes in ways that are detrimental to music.
In the hands of the unmusical, digital technology all too often dehumanizes music. The charts are full of "virtual
music" created entirely on computer-music that has never moved a molecule of air. Anything programmed has no
expression at the point of execution, even if it has expression of design. Our minds are much more sophisticated in
hearing music than many believe; we register the difference. The triumph of the silicon chip over the human spirit is
nowhere better heard than in the chopped-up sampling of a singer's voice, done so a single vocal phrase can be
manipulated on a keyboard. Sampling replaces the old crime of plagiarism with a new, more thorough-going one:
the stealing not only of an idea but the performance and real-time expression of that idea. Musicians' actual
performances are thus coerced into new musical contexts without their express permission. Instead of taking the time
to find a great drum sound, why not sample a 1970s rock album? Suddenly, 50 other people go for the same sample.
The ability to play an instrument is itself devalued. Sampling is theft.
Craftsmanship is replaced by a cut-and-paste ethic: the montage is everything. Why bother to paint when you can
combine bits of other artists' pictures? Recordings no longer capture the sound of a group of musicians, perhaps
highly talented, playing together at a moment in time. The arrangement no longer benefits from the excitement that
such recording generates and is swathed in sterile perfection. Click tracks and drum machines impose a rhythmic
tyranny in which an unrelenting beat is perfectly in time. The groove is lost, and techniques such as the crudest
sudden division of the beat into smaller units to create pneumatic-drill snare-rolls and a twist of e.q. replace the
continual invention of a good drummer. Rhythm is exalted over melody, harmony, time, tempo and key changes.
More than anything else, today's popular music is sick with repetition. In the past, bad pop records overstayed their
welcome by repeating a hook or a chorus for what seemed countless times. Now it's worse, because each repetition
is not a re-performing (with tiny human variables) but the exact recycling of two bars of music. Why sing a chorus
more than once when you can copy your performance onto the second and the third? It's cheaper and quicker, but
another opportunity for expression is lost. Why record a I VI IV V or a I V II progression when you can sample a
couple of bars from 'Every Breath You Take' or 'Knockin' On Heaven's Door', copy them identically, sing something
different over the top, and pass it off as a "song"? Why create a mood when, with an act of musical vampirism, you
can suck one from a record that already exists in collective memory? Have all writers and performers grown so
cynical? Is this all they think a popular song can be? Do they really believe in this soul-less vision? Or do they go
home after every TV promotion and listen to Aretha or Al Green with a sense of relief?
I think the popular song is capable of much more than this impoverished parody of itself. That's one reason why I
wrote this book. From these pages I hope you will take new ideas and new inspiration. This is a handbook of
songwriting technique, so don't feel that you have to read it in sequence. Dip into different sections and play with
ideas. There's no requirement to tackle the whole lot at once.
There are great songs waiting to be written.