Tip Fifteen: Y'all Want a Single?

What makes a truly good single? Conventional music practice has it right mostly. You want a song that is easily used nearly anywhere, whether it's being played in a store, a club, or on the radio. It needs to be just short enough it can be played in its entirety, or mostly if it has to be edited for length in any way, on the radio. You want your fans to be satisfied but still continue wanting more. Basically, it needs to stay within most people's attention range, which is why most singles are between 2 and 3 minutes. This can be a problem though if you're a fan of bands such as TOOL and Metallica, where the songs can go on for up to 10 minutes (not nearly long enough in my opinion). It's hard to edit a song like that down into a genuinely accurate version for the radio, meaning that either people lose out on the potential of a song unless they do further research into it, or they miss out completely because it won't even make it onto the radio. Length aside though, there is an even more important element that has been lost by the modern recording industry. Does it sound good live? Too many songs now are mad only for album play because of special effects like Autotune. Not to say that the songs aren't good in their own right, but a large part of the industry sales are based on concerts now, not the albums themselves (thanks to you Mr. Piracy). So it should be common sense that artists come out with tracks appropriate to that need. Recently the Black Eyed Peas performed at the Superbowl in Dallas, Tx. Many of their newer songs have digital effects that sound fantastic on the album, but come across terribly in such a large venue. Add to this the fact that their equipment was unfortunately on the fritz, and you have full on disaster. The show was visually impressive, but few of us buy music because we like the look of a show, it's because of the sound. I wholeheartedly encourage you to go out and buy their new album, "The Beginning". The important message here though is that you should be careful not to over-enhance a song with effects that you can't properly replicate in a performance. For example, if the only way your voice sounds good is by completely re-editing your music until it no longer sounds like you, you probably can't put on a proper show, it isn't really you.