The editorial director of SHOOT has graciously offered me a monthly column. I am honored. As a virtual walking Wikipedia of personal opinions on popular music, cultural trends, next-wave technology, advances in neuroscience and afterlife theories, I look forward to sharing many “insights” with my colleagues in the industry.
There are rules I must follow, of course. Each column can be no more than 700 words in length. For those of you who Tweet, let me explain: Words are made up of “characters” (ha ha, don’t go there!). Characters consist of letters and, in the case of sentences, punctuation marks and spaces. Thus, each column should be no more than, say, 5,148 characters, give or take.
My goal is to make the column interactive for the reader—like a fantastic video game! For example, once you finish one sentence, and feel you have absorbed its substance and inferences, you can go on to the next sentence. And when you have finished that sentence…etc., etc. Fun!
In addition, each column will have a soundtrack which you, the reader, will have “playing” in your mind while reading. A first or what?! This column’s soundtrack is the instrumental track from Pharrell’s song “Happy.” It’s a deceptively simple instrumental track. Drums, bass, bongos, keyboards (Rhodes?), a little rhythm guitar & handclaps. Possibly fingersnaps too. Wikipedia informs us that “Happy” “plays for 3 minutes and 52 seconds in common time at a tempo of 160 beats per minute. It is a neo soul and funk song in the key of F minor…” blah blah.
You know the song. So you may want to go back to the top of the column and start playing it in your head as you read. Go ahead, I’ll wait here.
Good, you caught up, you neo soulster! “Happy” is hooky. Hooky as in catchy, sticky, memorable, I-can’t-get-this-thing-outta-my-head hooky. In fact, you can substitute the word Hooky for Happy and sing the song that way. ‘Because I’m hooky…’ Nevermind—it’s just the instrumental track playing in your head. Sorry.
Millions of people have purchased “Happy.” Hundreds of millions of people have heard it. Thousands have made their own videos with it. The song has helped drive sales of the “Despicable Me 2” soundtrack and DVD / Blue-ray.
With a 20-plus year career as beat maker, producer, songwriter, plus other recent co-triumphs in the pop music stratosphere (“Blurred Lines”, “Get Lucky”), Pharrell, you might say, is the culture’s reigning Captain Hook. Lord of the Earworms.
In our business—I’ll call it the larger creative endeavor of branding—the soundtrack can play a vital role in attaching the brand to the consciousness of the consumer. Hopefully, in a positive, irresistible way. But it takes some serious brass in pocket to make the commitment to shoot for the tympanic membrane with something really hooky. Here’s an earworm for you: the rapid-fire little 5-note hyper-hook at the end of every T-Mobile commercial. Dee-dee-d-dee-dee. Insidiously brilliant!
How important is it to seduce that membrane in a memorable way? Last year the Association of Music Producers created the first AMP Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural AMP Awards for Music and Sound.
Our very first HoF inductees were two iconic brands that have made music a compelling, indelible part of their brand stories for decades: McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Some of us might recall famous, hooky jingles from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s for each of these brands. (Disclosure: I’m trying to forget them!) And no one isn’t familiar with the 5-note closure of every McDonald’s commercial of the past 10 years. Or Coca-Cola’s enchanting soundtracks for their “Open Happiness” campaign.
This year AMP’s Hall of Fame inductees will be two more powerful brands who’ve consistently put their stories to music: Nike and Budweiser. This trophy’s for you!
Why is this sonic branding thing important? Because—and I must ask you incredibly smart directors out there to remain seated—the picture, the visual, is only there in one dimension, meaning, right in front of your eyes. Turn your head, and it’s gone. But the sound(track) is everywhere in the room, and down the hall, vibrating through your auditory nerve and from there into your brain and memory. And if it has a thing, and if the thing sticks, and it makes you happy, it might stay with you for the rest of your life. And you couldn’t break up with it if you tried. Crazy love—here’s to your happiness.
Lyle Greenfield is the founder of Bang Music and past president of the Association of Music Producers (AMP)
