"SOUND OF MADNESS" - SHINEDOWN

There are many hard-rockin' bands out there working the club circuit. They'd like to get a record deal but can't seem to interest a label. Their fans love them, so why won't the the music industry sign them up?

These bands may have everything going for them except one thing -- they need at least a couple of songs that sound like they could get airplay either on the big commercial radio stations or on large college radio stations. Record labels know that getting radio airplay is the key to rapid career growth; it will be a key part of their marketing campaign for any group or artist.

So, what's the difference between a good song that energizes fans at a live performance and a song that can get radio airplay? Let's take a look at Shinedown's hit, "Sound of Madness," a powerhouse of a rock song with a strong lyric theme and an unusual but very memorable melody.

LYRIC
This lyric opens with an attention-grabbing line -- "Yeah, I get it, you're an outcast." The phrase "Yeah, I get it," expresses contempt and yet an "outcast" is the kind of person that Rock songs usually praise. We're immediately interested; we want to know who the singer is talking to and why he said what he did. Try starting your lyric with a line like this to draw listeners into your song right from the top.

The next lyric lines will need to follow up with answers to the questions raised in the opening line; if they don't, listeners will be frustrated and they'll tune out. Sure enough, in the next lines we learn that this character is a whiner and the singer wants to give him "a kick in the ass." The language is conversational, direct, honest, and conveys plenty of information. We're deep into the situation by the end of the first verse (Shortcut #52).

The chorus lyric sums up the heart and soul of this song, just as a chorus should (Shortcut #51). The singer tells us he's been there and survived, he's paid his dues so he has the right to make these statements ("Wrote the book on pain / somehow I'm still here"). These insights into who the singer is and why he's saying these things allow us to feel as if we know him, creating an important link between the song and the listener.

The chorus ends with a powerful payoff line "When you gonna wake up and fight for yourself?" This is the line the songwriter wants us to remember when the song is over. It's the theme of the song: Don't sit around and whine. Fight to make things better. Make sure the payoff line of your chorus is one that leaves a strong impression on your listeners. This will make them want to come back and listen again (Shortcut #48 and #49).

For bands who say that Rock lyrics don't have to make sense, songs like this one make it clear that radio-ready Mainstream Rock hits DO need to give listeners an honest, authentic lyric. Sure, album cuts can be more obscure, appealing to serious fans, but radio singles need to reach out to a broader audience. Give listeners a lyric they can follow and relate to.

My one criticism of this lyric is that it feels unfinished. There's an instrumental bridge where the writer could have given us even more insight or a peak emotional moment.

MELODY
This is a very current melody with lots of rhythmic twists!

The opening line of verse 1 comes right in on a strong downbeat - Beat 1. ("Yeah, I got it...") but the next three short phrases all begin on the "and" after Beat 1 ("always under attack / always coming in last / bringing up the past"). The "and" between beats is a weak beat (referred to as an "upbeat"). By emphasizing upbeats, the songwriter creates syncopation, throwing listeners off balance, giving the melody an interesting lift (Shortcut #89).

The melody in the first half of Verse 2 emphasizes strong downbeats (1, 2, 3, 4), while the second half emphasizes weak upbeats. In this arrangement it's easy to tell where the downbeats and upbeats are. The big kick drum sound is hitting the downbeats, the guitar is hitting the upbeats. Try singing along with this melody and see if you can feel where the downbeats and upbeats are emphasized. (There's a lot of influence on this song from the Rap/Hip-Hop genre. You can hear it in the variety of lines lengths and unusual beat emphasis. It's especially noticeable in Verse 2.)

Chorus Melody: The melody uses contrast to make it plain that we're in the chorus -- lengthening the notes to create a smoother feel than the choppy verse melody, using a fresh chord at the beginning that we haven't heard before (Shortcut #82). The melodic phrases include a variety of lengths. The third line has been stretched out so that the rhyming word ("explain") occurs later than we expect. Nice trick! It has the effect of pulling the listener forward, right into the next line.

So... were the writers thinking about all these things while they were writing the melody? Probably not. More likely these ideas occurred to them as spontaneous choices during the writing process. So how do you get current, cutting-edge melodic choices to happen for you?

First, embed these ideas by learning a song like this, playing it over and over until you feel comfortable singing it. Then, try writing a lyric of your own to this melody to hear and FEEL how different it is. Once you get used to it, you can try altering the melody, changing first the pitches of the notes, then some of the rhythmic phrasing to get used to working with this type of melody. Once you've done this exercise, you should begin to see some of these techniques occurring to you as choices in the next song you write.

Copyright 2009 Robin Frederick.