The Manual: How to Have a Number One Hit the Easy Way

This book, “The Manual: How to Have a Number One Hit the Easy Way” (The cover actually drops the word “Hit”, making an lovely double entendre), changed my life. It was written by Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty (aka The Timelords, aka The KLF) back in 1988, hot on the heels of their doing precisely what the title says: producing a number one hit in the UK, a cheeky little song called Doctorin’ the Tardis.

Before I go any further, if you are the person I lent this book to years ago, please return it to me!

There, that’s out of the way. Now, as for the book, it’s a sweeping and cynical look at the recording industry, and on the surface it’s quite literally exactly what the title says: a step-by-step guide to writing, producing, recording, and releasing a hit song that will reach Number One on the UK’s Top of the Pops. But beneath all of that, the book is a no-nonsense analysis of the nature of creativity itself in a world where almost everything creative is also in some way commercial. “The Manual” came to me today after reading Liz Danzico’s own hand-wringing over being inspired by the work of others.

My favorite parts deal directly with this question, with the origins of originality and the ethics of allowing yourself to be steeped in influence and inspiration.

Every Number One song ever written is only made up from bits from other songs. There is no lost chord. No changes untried. No extra notes to the scale or hidden beats to the bar. There is no point in searching for originality. In the past, most writers of songs spent months in their lonely rooms strumming their guitars or bands in rehearsals have ground their way through endless riffs before arriving at the song that takes them to the very top. Of course, most of them would be mortally upset to be told that all they were doing was leaving it to chance before they stumbled across the tried and tested. They have to believe it is through this sojourn they arrive at the grail; the great and original song that the world will be unable to resist.

So why don’t all songs sound the same? Why are some artists great, write dozens of classics that move you to tears, say it like it’s never been said before, make you laugh, dance, blow your mind, fall in love, take to the streets and riot? Well, it’s because although the chords, notes, harmonies, beats and words have all been used before their own soul shines through; their personality demands attention. This doesn’t just come via the great vocalist or virtuoso instrumentalist. The Techno sound of Detroit, the most totally linear programmed music ever, lacking any human musicianship in its execution reeks of sweat, sex and desire. The creators of that music just press a few buttons and out comes - a million years of pain and lust.

I couldn’t agree more. Sure it sounds incredibly cynical, but please also note the deep sense of hope and optimism in the artist’s ability to produce original work despite the fact that we are all drowning in influences. We do not need to suffer (and suffer is the right word) from Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence if we simply have faith in our own voices.
In fact, this anxiety about producing work free from the influence of other artists and styles actually suffocates creativity. “The Manual” goes on to say:

Creators of music who desperately search originality usually end up with music that has none because no room for their spirit has been left to get through. The complete history of the blues is based on one chord structure, hundreds of thousands of songs using the same three basic chords in the same pattern. Through this seemingly rigid formula has come some of the twentieth century’s greatest music.

I love this book (and I wish I had my copy back!). You should love it too. And since it’s no longer available in print, and since “KLF” stands for “Kopyright Liberation Front”, I have posted the full plaintext of the book below the jump for your reading enjoyment. Enjoy!

(The text below was copied from here, and was originally transcribed anonymously)

THE TIMELORDS

THE
MANUAL

(HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE THE EASY WAY)

THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU
REVEAL THEIR ZENARCHISTIC METHOD USED
IN MAKING THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPEN.

KLF 009B

1988 (YOU KNOW WHAT’S GONE)

THE MANUAL

(HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE - THE EASY WAY)

TEXT BY:

LORD ROCK AND TIME BOY
A.K.A. THE TIMELORDS
A.K.A. ROCKMAN ROCK AND KINGBOY D.
A.K.A. THE JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MU MU
A.K.A. THE JAMS
A.K.A. THE KLF
A.K.A. THE FALL
A.K.A. THE FOREVER ANCIENTS LIBERATION LOOPHOLE

KLF PUBLICATIONS 1988

KLF PUBLICATIONS, BOX 283, HP22 5BW
KLF PUBLICATIONS IS A KLF COMMUNlCATIONS COMPANY
KLF COMMUNICATIONS 1988
FIRST PUBUSHED 1988

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT THE PRIOR CONSENT OF KLF PUBLICATIONS.

THIS BOOK IS SOLD SUBJECT TO THE CONDITION THAT IT SHALL NOT BY WAY OF TRADE OR OTHERWISE BE LENT, RESOLD, HIRED OUT OR OTHERWISE CIRCULATED WITHOUT THE PUBLISHER’S PRIOR CONSENT IN ANY FORM OF BINDING OR COVER OTHER THAN THAT IN WHICH IT lS PUBLISHED AND WITHOUT A SIMILAR CONDITION INCLUDING THIS CONDITION BEING IMPOSED IN THE SUBSEOUENT PUBLISHER.

GUARANTEE - HOW TO OBTAIN IT

WE GUARANTEE THAT WE WILL REFUND THE COMPLETE PRICE OF THIS MANUAL IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ACHIEVE A NUMBER ONE SINGLE IN THE OFFICIAL (GALLUP) U.K. CHARTS WITHIN THREE MONTHS OF THE PURCHASE OF THIS MANUAL AND ON CONDITION THAT YOU HAVE FULFILLED OUR INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LETTER. TO RECEIVE THIS GUARANTEE PLEASE WRITE TO KLF PUBLICATIONS, BOX 283, HP21 7HG, U.K. WITH YOUR NAME, ADDRESS AND A PHOTOCOPY OF YOUR PURCHASE RECEIPT AND AN S.A.E. YOU WlLL RECEIVE YOUR GUARANTEE WITHIN TWENTY EIGHT DAYS.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF DON LUCKNOW.

WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK MARIE O’FLAHERTY FOR HER DEDICATION AND HARD WORK ABOVE AND BEYOND THE CALL OF DUTY AND WITHOUT WHOM WE WOULD NOT HAVE COMPLETED THIS MANUAL.

————————————————————————–

THE BEGINNING

“HOW TO HAVE A NUMBER ONE - THE EASY WAY”

Be ready to ride the big dipper of the mixed metaphor. Be ready to dip
your hands in the lucky bag of life, gather the storm clouds of
fantasy and anoint your own genius. Because it is only by following
the clear and concise instructions contained in this book that you can
realise your childish fantasies of having a Number One hit single in
the official U.K. Top 40 thus guaranteeing you a place forever in the
sacred annals of Pop History.

Other than achieving a Number One hit single we offer you nothing
else. There will be no endless wealth. Fame will flicker and fade and
sex will still be a problem. What was once yours for a few days will
now enter the public domain.

In parts of this manual we will patronise you. In others we will cheat
you. We will lie to you but we will lie to ourselves as well. You
will, however, see through our lies and grasp the shining truth
within. We will trap ourselves in our own pretensions. Our insights
will be shot through with distort rays and we will revel in our own
inconsistencies. If parts get too boring just fast forward - all the
way to the end if need be.

Now, we all know that pop music is not going to save the world but it
does, undeniably, create a filing system for the memory banks. In
years to come people will stagger home down lonely streets singing
your song to the strains of regurgitated vindaloo, all memory of who
was behind the song lost. It is you, though, who will be responsible
for bringing back those lost tastes, smells, tears, pangs, forgotten
years and missed chances. So enjoy what you can while at Number One.

People equate a Number One with fame, endless wealth and easy sex - a
myth that they want to believe and one that the popular press want to
see continued. Along with the soap stars, sporting heroes and selected
(however distant) members of the Royal Family, pop stars belong to a
glittering world of showbiz parties, at one end of the scale, to
illicit liaisons, at the other, where their lives are dragged up,
dressed up, made up and ultimately destroyed. The celebrated, of
course, are apt to fall into a world of drugs, drink, broken marriages
and bankruptcy but even this is given the glamour treatment instead of
the squalid misery that it is in reality.

Basically, a Number One is seen as the ultimate accolade in pop music.
Winning the Gold Medal. The crowning glory.

The majority of Number One’s are achieved early on in the artist’s
public career and before they have been able to establish reputations
and build a solid fan base. Most artists are never able to recover
from having one and it becomes the millstone around their necks to
which all subsequent releases are compared. The fact that a record is
Number One automatically means the track is in a very short period of
time going to become over exposed and as worthless as last month’s
catchphrase.

Once or twice a decade an act will burst through with a Number One
that hits a national nerve and the public’s appetite for the sound and
packaging will not be satisfied with the one record. The formula will
be untampered with and the success will be repeated a second, a third
and sometimes even a fourth time. The prison is then complete; either
the artist will be destroyed in their attempt to prove to the world
that there are other facets to their creativity or they succumb
willingly and spend the rest of their lives as a travelling freak
show, peddling a nostalgia for those now far off, carefree days. These
are the lucky few. Most never have the chance of a repeat performance
and slide ungracefully into years of unpaid tax, desperately delaying
all attempts to come to terms with the only rational thing to do - get
a nine to five job.

Even if the unsuspecting artiste doesn’t know the above, rest assured
most of the record business does but for some lemming-like reason
refuses to acknowledge it. They continue to view the act’s cheaply
recorded, debut blockbuster as striking gold and will spend the next
few years pumping fortunes into studio time, video budgets and tour
support whilst praying for a repeat of the miracle and the volume
album sales that bring in the real money.

Of course there are those artists that have worked long and hard
building personal artistic confidence, critical acclaim, a loyal
following (all strong foundations) and then have a Number One, that is
that crowning glory. But even then the disgruntled purists amongst the
loyal following desert in disgust at having to share their private
club with the unwashed masses.

So what’s left? What’s the point? What can be achieved when no great
financial rewards or long term career prospects allowing for creative
freedom can be hoped for, let alone guaranteed? We don’t know.

If this book succeeds in becoming Bert Weedon’s “Play In A Day” for
some lost month in the late eighties we will be happy. If anybody
actually gets a Number One by following our instructions we promise
them a night out with The JAMS in Madagascar. We will arrange
everything. For those that might be offended please read all “he’s”,
“hims” and “his”‘ as “she’s”, “hers” and “hers”‘. Being blokes it was
easier writing it the way we did.

So how do you go about achieving a U.K. Number One? Follow this simple
step by step guide:

Firstly, you must be skint and on the dole. Anybody with a proper job
or tied up with full time education will not have the time to devote
to see it through. Also, being on the dole gives you a clearer
perspective on how much of society is run. If you are already a
musician stop playing your instrument. Even better, sell the junk. It
will become clearer later on but just take our word for it for the
time being. Sitting around tinkering with the Portastudio or musical
gear (either ancient or modern) just complicates and distracts you
from the main objective. Even worse than being a musician is being a
musician in a band. Real bands never get to Number One - unless they
are puppets.

If you are in a band you will undoubtedly be aware of the petty
squabbles and bitching that develops within them. This only festers
and grows proportionately as the band gets bigger and no band ever
grows out of it. All bands end in tantrums, tears and bitter acrimony.
The myth of a band being gang of lads out “against” the world (read as
“to change”, “to shag” or “to save the world”) is pure wishful
thinking to keep us all buying the records and reading the journals.
Mind you, it’s a myth that many band members want to believe
themselves.

So if in a band, quit. Get out. Now.

That said, it can be very helpful to have a partner, someone who you
can bounce ideas off and vice versa. Any more than two of you and
factions develop and you may as well be in politics. There is no place
for the nostalgia of the four lads who shook the world or the last
gang in town.

Watch Top of the Pops religiously every week and learn from it. When
the time comes it is through T.O.T.P. that you will convince the
largest cross section of the British public to go out and buy your
record. Remember, Top of the Pops is all powerful and has outlasted
all the greats (Cliff being the exception to the rule). Taking the
angst-ridden, “I’m above all this!” outsider stance only gets you so
far and even then takes sodden years and ends up with you alienating
vast chunks of the Great British public who don’t want to be
confronted with Jim Reid’s skin problem on a Thursday evening. I
repeat, take Top of the Pops to your bosom and learn to love the
platform that matters the most.

YOU CAN BEGIN ANY SUNDAY EVENING

You can begin any Sunday evening by listening to Bruno Brookes
introducing the Top 40 Show between 4pm and 7pm. You don’t have to sit
down and dissect and study it, just have it on and make the tea. After
that do whatever you do on a Sunday evening but before you go to sleep
that night you are going to have to come up with a name for your
record company. Nothing too clever or inspired. Something that sounds
solid. You just want something that’s not going to be offensive and
people are going to be happy doing business with.

Monday morning. Check that the company name that you have chosen is
still sound. Be up, dressed and out by 9am. You are going to have to
get used to getting up earlier; no lying in until noon now. From now
on every time you telephone someone on business remember to give them
your name and the company you are from (even though it’s only you).
Don’t bother getting headed note paper. People waste a lot of time,
effort and money having stationery produced when getting a new
business off the ground. People in the late eighties can see through
the smart graphics.

Spend the remainder of the morning amassing the rest of the tools you
will need for the job in hand. These are:

1. A record player (the crappier the better as long as it actually
works). Mass appeal records can always transcend any apparatus they
are played on; the exp ensive set up is only for judging coffee table
records.

2. Copies of the latest in the series of “Now That’s What I Call
Music” and “Hits” LPs.

3. A couple of the most recent dance compilation LPs (”The Techno
Sounds of Dagenham Volume Vl”, etc.).

4. All the 7″ singles in your house that ever made the Top 5. (If
there are any other records you want to add to the pile make sure
there is a very good reason why they should be there and make sure
they were never released as indie records or had any punky
associations.)

5. A copy of the latest edition of the Guinness Book of British Hit
Singles.

6. A copy of the Music Week Directory. This you will have to send off
for. Address your envelope to: Sylvia Calver, Morgan Grampian Plc,
Royal Sovereign House, 40 Beresford Street, London SE18 6BQ (telephone
01-854-2200) with a cheque or postal order for £15.00. It will take
about ten days to get to you.

7. A hard back note book and a fine point, black ball Pentel.

If you do not already have any of the above, or are unable to borrow
them, then we are afraid you are going to have to spend some real
cash. Hopefully, this will be the last time in the whole project that
you will have to use up some of your Giro, other than the odd bus fare
and phone call.

If you have a telephone where you live and it hasn’t been disconnected
yet, great. If not, buy a phone card, the more expensive the better.
Using coin operated telephones is crap for the obvious reasons: there
are usually queues, are often vandalised and the money runs out thus
making you look like an inefficient dick head and not a future Number
One. Another useful phone hint: never leave somebody else’s flat,
house or office without first having made and received at least one
call thus spreading your overheads on to some of the people who will
enjoy basking in the reflected glory once you are at Number One.

If you have all that done and it’s not yet one o’clock, start
listening to the “Hits” and “Now” compilation LPs from end to end. Of
course, your conditioned brain will tell you it’s all a pile of shite
and pale into insignificance compared to the Golden Era in Pop, when
you were on the cusp of your adolescent years. Dig deeper into your
heart and you will know that you are just lying to yourself. All eras
in pop music are golden ages, or will be looked upon as such by the
only generation that matters at any given time. Not only are all ages
in chart pop equal, chart pop never changes, it only appears to change
on its surface level.

Unwrap pop’s layers and what we are left with is the same old plate of
meat and two veg that have kept generations of pop pickers well
satisfied. The emotional appetite that chart pop satisfies is
constant. The hunger is forever. What does change is the technology
this is always on the march. At some point in the future science will
develop a commodity that will satisfy this emotional need in a more
efficient way. There was a period in our own prehistory when Top Tens
and Number Ones didn’t exist, when tea time on Sunday wasn’t
synonymous with the brand new chart run down. For the time being we
have our Top Tens and Number Ones and while science marches to the
beat that will finally destroy it all, it also comes up with the goods
that will satisfy our other endless appetite, that of apparent change.
All records in the Top Ten (especially those that get to Number One)
have far more in common with each other than with whatever genre they
have developed from or sprung out of.

The “cool cats” and hipsters of the early sixties might have thought
modern jazz was going to finally break through when “Take Five” made
the Hit Parade. The blue rinse brigade feared the downfall of decent
society when The Pistols made Number One with “God Save The Queen” or
the musos predicted real music was about to die because of the 1988
rash of DJ records. Had you played some free jazz to ninety five per
cent of the people who had made “Take Five” a smash, they would have
run for cover behind the latest release by Pat Boone. The Pistols
might have been swearing on T.V. inciting a generation of kids to “Get
pissed! Destroy!” but if “God Save The Queen” had not stuck rigidly to
The Golden Rules* (*THESE WILL BE EXPLAINED LATER), The Pistols would
never have seen the inside of the Top Ten.

In certain clubs across our nation in 1988, DJs were playing the
latest 12″ acid tracks to packed houses of the drugged and delirious.
If any of these DJs had any ambitions of following in the paths of Tim
Simenon and Mark Moore to the top of the charts they have to
acknowledge the fact that what they have learned out there behind
their Technics can only provide them with the fashionable icing when
it comes to the real action inside the Top Ten and the battle for the
Number One slot is on. They must also follow The Golden Rules.

In our lifetime Great Britain has been pretty good at coming up with
or reinterpreting a constant flow of entertaining subcults that young
people can either lose or find themselves in. With most of these
subcults comes some kind of music. Our cult-hungry media grabs
whatever it is and splatters it all over the place. Whatever music
makers follow in its wake are bid for by the more desperate sections
of the music industry. Once signed, a process will begin in an attempt
to transform whatever noise that was made by the ensembles into
something that will fit The Golden Rules of chart pop. The process
involves plenty of trial and error and huge sums of never seen cash.

So, if one of these ensembles find themselves in the higher regions of
the charts and their sights are set on the Top Spot, their fellow
subcult members interpret this as the Walls of Jericho finally
crumbling, or at the very least, their boys working as moles from the
inside. All that in actual fact has happened is, unwittingly or not,
the Golden Rules have been adhered to and the nouvelle subcult has
attained maximum media exposure. Although the latest subculture might
be useful to give each potential chart record its attitude gloss, it
must be remembered that this particular attitude might put as many
people off the otherwise perfectly acceptable pop record, as be
attracted to it. Another useful hint when it comes to subcult attitude
gloss: it often helps not to be purists. Water it down. Sugar it up.
Some of the above Tony James understood. Some he most definitely did
not.

Of course, there is another argument; “demands are created and
appetites stimulated. Pop music is the worst example of this. There
are wicked music moguls cynically manipulating the hearts and minds of
young teenagers so as to get them to part with their pocket money.”
This is a worthless argument pursued by those unlucky ones who have
never really been moved by the glories of pop music. They may as well
have never been teenagers.

THE RECORDING STUDIO

DON’T BE TEMPTED TO SKIP THIS SECTION ON STUDIOS.
IT MUST BE READ OVER LUNCH - BEFORE BOOKING YOUR STUDIO.

The recording studio is the place where you will record your Number
One hit single. There are hundreds of recording studios scattered
across the country, from the north of Scotland to deepest Cornwall.

THE STUDIO OWNER

The majority of studios are privately owned by someone who is actively
involved in the running of the place on a daily basis. Very few are
owned by the major record companies. These owners are usually very
enthusiastic and encouraging types who have a long, broad and deep
love of all things musical; often they have been musicians themselves
but have decided to knock their days on the road on the head and get
into what they hoped would be the more lucrative and stable business
of owning a studio. Unfortunately for them, this is usually not the
case and they will have to spend the rest of their lives seriously in
debt.

The studio owner will often have a very realistic and pragmatic view
of the musical business. He will have been through the mill, r idden
the rough ride, seen spotty oiks come into his studio hardly able to
roll their own and, within what seems a matter of months, become
internationally reknowned and respected musicians whose opinions are
eagerly sought on anything from the destruction of the Amazon Rain
Forests to the continued subsidy of the local bus service, whilst
developing an unhealthy appetite for cocaine.

A fact that is continually on the studio owner’s mind is that there
are far more studios flogging studio time than there are clients
willing to pay for it. This creates a desperate competition between
studios to encourage YOU the client to use them. One outcome of this
competition is for the studios to continually get themselves as far
into hock as their banks will let them go, enabling them to invest in
the latest recording studio hardware. This hardware they hope will act
as the bait to get YOU the client to book the studio. It also fulfils
a secondary role, that of keeping the studio’s eager, young, upwardly
mobile engineer loyal to the studio and prevent him defecting to a
better equipped rival. We will go further into the intriguing subject
of the recording studio engineer later on in this book.

THE STUDIO MANAGER

The studio manager (as opposed to the studio owner) is the person who
looks after all aspects of the smooth and efficient running of the
studio. In smaller studios this is often the owner or he has a
personal assistant (P.A.) who handles most of the job for him. In
large studios these are usually a breed of highly efficient women
whose matriarchal presence can be felt in all areas and at all times.

ENGINEERS

There will also be a small posse of recording studio engineers on
call, from the tea boy who started last Monday and hasn’t been sacked
yet, to the senior engineer. All engineers start life as tea boys and
are officially called “tape ops” (the person who switches the tape
recorders on and off). To put it simply, the recording studio
engineer’s job is to put the noise that musicians create on tape.
Large studios will have a maintenance engineer. If any malfunction
occurs with the studio hardware it is his job to get it working again
- fast. Smaller studios usually have one on call.

THE STUDIO

Studios are in the most unlikeliest of buildings and the most
unlikeliest of settings. Although all studios want to attract as much
business as possible, they do not want to advertise their presence to
local thugs who might fancy breaking in and getting their hands on a
few thousand pounds worth of gear.

The simplest classification given to studios is the amount of tracks
their tape machines have. This can be either four, eight, sixteen,
twenty four, thirty two or forty eight track studios. Four, eight and
sixteen track are only used for making demos these days and demos are
a thing of the past. You will find engineers everywhere trying to
impress you with the fact that “Sergeant Pepper” was recorded on a
four track. This is of course is as relevant as the fact that no JCB’s
were used in the construction of the Great Pyramid.

A twenty four track is what you will need for the initial recording,
thirty two tracks are still pretty rare. Forty eight tracks are where
two twenty four track machines are synchronised together. You might
need one of these when it comes to the final mixing stages of your
future Number One.

A twenty four track means that your engineer will be working with a
multi-track tape recorder that has twenty four separate tracks on
which he can have twenty four individual sounds recorded at any one
time. At the mixing stage these twenty four separate sounds will be
simultaneously channelled through the mixing desk where all these
separate sounds are tampered with and (hopefully) enhanced before
being channelled out again and recorded for posterity by a two track
(stereo) tape machine. This is THE MASTER TAPE.

The other common way that recording studios are classified is whether
the desk is computer assisted or not. For the initial recording you
will only need a manually operated desk. A computer assisted desk is
used when the recording reaches the mixing stage and the engineer is
having to juggle with a minimum of twenty four tracks simultaneously.
The computer will assist by giving the engineer at least an extra
twenty two hands and twenty four perfect memories - an obvious added
bonus in these techno days.

SSL (Solid State Logic) is still the most common computer assisted
make of desk and still the only one to insist upon. But all that could
change in the fast moving world of studio hardware. From now on, we
will refer to all computer desks as SSL (it’s a bit of a Hoover/
Sellotape situation).

A traditional recording studio comprises of: THE CONTROL ROOM which
houses the mixing desk, tape machines, outboard gear, engineers and
producers and THE RECORDING ROOM, full of all sorts of strange things
to either deaden the live sound or liven the dead sound. This is where
the traditional musician performs. There will also be a recreation
room with a television, pool table and computer games to keep
musicians amused whilst the traditional producer casts his spells
without being hindered by the traditional musicians’ paranoid
presence.

In your case all the action will be taking place in the control room.
The above scenario is almost quaint, but more of all that later in the
“Five Days In A Twenty Four Track Studio” chapter.

Many of the more successful studios have expanded their complexes so
as to contain more than one studio. They might have a number of
studios offering a range of services, from four track to forty eight
track, SSL and manual and, more than likely nowadays, a programming
suite replacing the need for a four/eight/sixteen track demo studio.

The way that recording studios base their rates (what they want you to
pay them) can vary from studio to studio. The standard quoted by each
studio is their hourly rate; for twenty four track this can range from
£20 per hour to £150 per hour.

If it were only that simple. The studio manager’s only way of proving
his worth to the world is by transforming all the great tracts of
space on his wall chart calendar pinned to the board above his desk
into something that is crammed with blue, yellow, red and green little
bits of sticky back paper, each signifying another session booked.
(Studio managers will hike round a last year’s crowded wall chart
calendar as a C.V. when looking for a new job.) This is all good news
for you. That studio manager will be willing to offer you all sorts of
favourable deals just to prevent a day slipping by without the
corresponding box on the calendar not having a coloured sticker on it.

Deals can be based on:-

1. INTRODUCTORY OFFER. This will be an obvious one for
you.

2. DOWN TIME. This is usually the time between when the
official client finishes (usually 2am) and starts again (usually 10am).

3. BLOCK BOOKING. This would only happen if a client wanted
a month or more to record an LP.

4. CANCELLATION TIME. This is when a client has cancelled
studio time at the very last minute and the studio is desperate to sell it
off.

5. REGULAR CUSTOMER RATE. Not applicable to you but just
for reference. By the time you use the same studio for the third time you
should be trying to pull this one.

6. LOCK OUT. This is when, although you may be working in a
studio for ten hours a day, the studio cannot sell off the remaining
fourteen hours as down time to another client. Most lock out deals are
based on them being the equivalent of twelve hours. So, if you were to
work for a sixteen hour stretch you would be getting yourself four free
hours.

The more expensive the hourly rate a studio charges the better
equipped and flash it will be. You won’t need an expensive studio.
Expensive studios are for major record companies to put their major
(or would-be major) artists in, where they can spend as long as it
takes to make their internationally-sounding master work, while the
decor and amenities of the place neither challenges their ego or
standing in the market place. These establishments and the engineers
who work in them are only ever interested in the LP that costs at
least £150,000 to make, not a cheeky little record like yours
that’s going to surprise everybody by getting to Number One. What you
want is the moderately priced studio whose gear is intact and where
all concerned are as hungry and enthusiastic as you are to prove that
they can do it.

Although a Number One single cannot sound like an indie trash record,
they do not have to sound like they have cost a million to make,
unlike a Number One LP.

MONDAY AFTERNOON
(BOOK THE STUDIO NOW)

You are going to need to book five consecutive days lock out in a
manual operated (non SSL) desk, twenty four track studio hopefully
starting from the following Monday. Your local studios can be tracked
down in the Yellow Pages under the “Recording Services/Sound” heading.
It should be apparent from the way they list themselves whether they
are twenty four track or not. If by chance there are none in your
area, get straight down to the local reference library where they will
have Yellow Pages covering the whole country. Check the neighbouring
regions for studios and get some names down in your note book. If the
studio you end up using is further than you can travel to on a daily
basis, this will be no problem; all studios are only too willing to
organise accommodation as part of the over all deal.

Before you start dialling make a few notes:-

1. Pay no more than £40 per hour (exclusive of VAT) for the basic
rates.

2. Ensure it includes fees for the best available engineer.

3. Be aware that you will also be charged for the tape you use
and extra gear that is hired in specially for your session. Remember to
get the rates for these.

If you smoke it’s time to light up, then pick up the telephone and
dial. Ask for the studio manager. Just remember, the studio manager is
going to be out to impress YOU the potential client. They won’t be
thinking: “Who’s this dick head calling up who doesn’t know what
they’re talking about?” They will be too worried that you are thinking
they are the total dick head and on that basis will book a rival
studio. Give him your name and the company you are from and with the
information we have already given you start doing your first deal.

First checking to see they have the facilities you require, the studio
will then try to flog you down time or odd days here and there. Hold
firm. You have got to have five clear consecutive days and you want to
start the following Monday with their best in-house engineer. If they
have not got, or are unable to shift any of their other clients to fit
you in, tell them you will have to look elsewhere. They will be
getting nervous now, as they might be just about to lose anything from
£1,000 to £100,000 worth or business. So, when he says they do
have the five consecutive days but not starting until the tenth (or
whatever date they quote) tell him to pencil it in (”pencil” means
provisionally booked) and you will get back to him in a couple of days
to let him know either way. It might be worth having a bit of a chat
with him about what other clients they have had in lately. Ask if they
have had any hits come out of the studio, that sort of thing. This
helps you build up a bit of a vibe where the studio’s at. Then call
the next studio on your list and repeat the process.

Once you have got through your list of studios in your local(ish) area
go and put the kettle on, take a leak and make yourself a cup of tea
(coffee if you have to) as the next move you have to make has no
simple ABC answer.

Between you sipping this cup of tea and getting to Number One you are
going to be involved with a lot of people along the way and from all
these people you can learn a lot. Whether they are just a tea boy or
an international super star you bump into down at TV. Centre while
doing Top of the Pops, everybody involved in this music game has some
sort of insight or angle on it all. Listen to what they all have to
say but take nothing as gospel; you are going to have to start
building up your own picture of how it all moves.

When you do meet people that have had some sort of success it will be
natural for you to feel impressed and give a lot more credence to what
they have to say, rather than to what the tea boy says. Just remember
that they in reality will have very little genuine idea of how they
arrived at their success or what they should be doing next in their
career to prevent it from crashing to the ground. Under what might
seem their confident exterior will be lurking a severe paranoia that
they will be found out for what they are, a charlatan with a series of
lucky breaks. With all these people you meet you must make them feel
involved and that you respect their opinion and help. Everybody likes
to feel part of a success and you must let them feel that. In doing
this we are not trying to encourage you into becoming an obsequious
slimey toad, but to make you aware that the enthusiasm and goodwill of
all these people is vital to the success of your project. They deserve
your respect.

At times you will be told things, given advice that goes against the
grain of the way you have already been thinking. Your gut reaction
might be “Sod that! I know what I’m doing!” So before blurting out
your condemnation of their ideas, let it filter through you; don’t try
and over rationalise or look for the logical answer. Let it simmer for
a bit and then go with your now more balanced gut reaction.

Don’t hide behind any naive “no compromise” shields, the only thing
you must not compromise on is your final goal: that Olympian slot on
Top of the Pops.

Only YOU can make each decision along the way. Don’t look for others
to make them for you. If something goes wrong remember you are the
only one who is ultimately responsible.

When you have drunk your tea and had a look out the window (just to
check the world is still there) you are going to have to decide which
of the possible studios you are going to commit to. That decision
should not just be based on the studio that can offer you the five
consecutive days the earliest and at the best rate. All that should be
balanced with something in the tone of the studio manager’s voice.
The one that sounds understanding. The one that you feel could be on
YOUR side. Then make your telephone call and confirm your booking. If
it is now after 3pm and you have your studio booked, switch on Radio
One and listen to “Steve Wright In The Afternoon”. Viewed from a
certain angle the man is a genius. Find that angle and view. He is the
most popular DJ in the country. He has been the heartbeat of the
British psyche since 1985. You don’t even have to like him to be awed
by him.

This above paragraph is not an attempt at obvious irony, it is for
real. If you can’t find that angle then I am afraid you have wasted
your money in buying this manual.

Spend the rest of the afternoon doing whatever you do that gets your
mind rolling: a bus ride into town, a stride across the moors, a burn
up on the freeway, two hours on the circle line, (whatever it is) and
let your mind ponder on two topics: MONEY and A GROUP NAME.

There will be a group name that will be the obvious one for you.
Nothing too long winded or desperately clever, but at the same time
one that is just right for the times we live in. Don’t try too hard,
just let it float up. The other topic, MONEY, we have dedicated the
next chapter to.

MONEY

Money is a very strange concept. There will be points in the
forthcoming months when you might not have the change in your pockets
to get the bus into town at the same time as you are talking to people
on the telephone in terms of tens of thousands of pounds. Some of the
following might seem contradictory but in matters of money they often
are. We spoke earlier of how being on the dole gives you a clearer
vision of how society works. What it doesn’t do is give you a clear
idea of how money works.

After you spend any time on the dole you either resign yourself to the
economic level your life is at and cope - or things start to slide.
The rent gets into the arrears. The electricity goes unpaid. The gas
board threatens to cut you off. When this starts happening a paranoia
begins creeping in telling you modern society is geared to working
against the individual and YOU in particular. The late eighties
reaction to this is invariably to realise that the only way out is for
you to become suddenly very rich and none of this will matter any
more. You will start to fantasise about becoming very wealthy and how
very shortly it will happen to you. You only have to make the smart
move, find the right key, make the right contact, be discovered for
what you are. Your fantasy will be fuelled by everything.

Nobody wins the pools. There is no such thing as a fast buck. Nobody
gets rich quick. El Dorado will never be found. Wealth is a slow
build, an attitude to life. I’m afraid the old adage that if you look
after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves is always
true. That said, you must be willing to risk everything - that’s
everything you haven’t got as well as you have got - or nothing will
happen.

The reason we say all that stuff above about “there is no such thing
as a fast buck” is because we are bombarded with information about
eternally adolescent pop stars who have just done deals worth “this
much” or have just grossed “that much” on their last U.S. tour.
Firstly, the figures quoted (if true) are always the gross sums, not
what’s left after all the necessary expenses have been taken into
account. Secondly they will be encouraged - even pressurised - into
adopting life-styles that will eat through whatever is left of the
vast sums that have been quoted at us in no time at all. Unless they
are able to sustain or repeat at regular intervals their quoted
financial luck they will soon be back to a no money situation. We are
afraid those on the dole who have let their rent go into arrears,
their electricity go unpaid and with the creeping paranoia about this
evil society, will be the same ones who if they were to achieve sudden
wealth would in no time at all be owing insurmountable back debts to
the tax man, have managers demand their percentage long after the
money was spent and swapping their paranoia about society for paranoia
peppered with bitterness that they had been “ripped off” all the way
along the line. Money, as often quoted, is not the root of all evil.
We do know WHAT the root of all evil is. That is to be explained in
one of our future manuals and if we were to tell you the answer now
you would not bother trying to have a Number One.

We do not expect this chapter on money to have fulfilled in any
direct, practical way in making the Number One slot but it might have
helped dispel any illusions you might have had.

BANKS AND THEIR DIRECT AND
PRACTICAL FUNCTIONS

Our age will be remembered in the future as a period in history when
banks went to ridiculous and unparalleled lengths to compete with each
other to win the allegiances of the young and account free. If future
historians were to base their research on what young Britain was like
in the late eighties solely on the substance of bank adverts, you
would definitely be rated as the most despicable types since we were
kicked out of the Garden.

So please, if you do take any notice of the bank and money ads -
forget it. That said, we are afraid you are going to need a bank
account and the better the relationship you can develop with your bank
the easier things will be. Our relationships with banks have always
been fraught with difficulties.

Banks are in the business of making money by lending it. The more they
lend the more they make. They want us, the punter, to become addicted
for life to the false sense of security it gives us. Banks will go to
extremes thinking up new and ingenious ways of getting us to borrow
money from them. First and foremost they want us to get into property:
“Buy a house,” because with your property as security they can always
lend you more and more money. If things were to go badly wrong and you
weren’t able to keep up the interest payments they can always force
you out of house and home and get their money back that way.

Of course, it would be bad for the banks if they were seen to be
throwing too many families onto the street or forcing business’ to the
wall in order to redeem their loans. They would always prefer to lend
more money so as to help pay off the interest on the earlier loans.
Banks have spent millions over the past few years trying to destroy
the public’s old impression of the bank manager in bowler, brolly and
pinstripe, to the approachable and amiable sort of chap who will
attempt at all times to say “Yes!”. They have only done this, not
because they like being nicer, but to seduce you into coming in and
borrowing more money. Remember, when you are going in to see a bank
manager you’re going to see a pusher; a pusher dealing in one of the
purest, most addictive drugs - money.

If for some reason you already have some property (or have a family
who are foolish enough to indulge your wilder whims and provide you
with collateral) you will be at a disadvantage. As you sit there in
the sucker’s seat in the manager’s office he will smell the scent of
securities. He will be checking your wrist veins to sink his syringe
in and all the time he will be telling you about the Genesis CD he has
just bought or how you would never guess it, but he used to be a punk
and stills treasures his copy of “Neat Neat Neat” by the Damned.

So it is best to go in there skint and with no securities. Of course
there is no point in asking to borrow any money. Just put yourself in
the bank manager’s position; some unlikely youth comes in, looking
like nothing in their ad campaigns and makes some outrageous request
for a £20,000 unguaranteed loan to finance the making of a Number
One hit single. Would you let them have the money? If this lad were to
start brandishing a copy of this publication by The Timelords, you
would advise him that he had been had and should get a refund on the
book instantly before going out to look for an available vacancy on a
youth training scheme.

As we said in the introductory chapter having no money sharpens the
wits. Forces you never to make the wrong decision. There is no safety
net to catch you when you fall.

If you already have an account with a bank make the appointment with
the manger or his assistant. If not, get into any branch (the nearest
to where you live will do as long as it’s one of the big five). Open a
current account and make that appointment. Do this on Monday afternoon
while you’re out and about. The appointment should be for some time
that week. Just tell them you are setting up a small, independent
record label - no big plans yet, just aiming to put out the one single
and see how it goes. Tell him there will be a couple of times when you
will have to issue cheques before others have come in. No big stuff.
You will let him know beforehand. The most important thing is to get a
rapport going with him; attempt to keep him in touch with what is
happening over the next few weeks.

As well as having the pusher’s instincts, the bank manager has the
instincts of the old mother hen. The small business accounts are his
baby chicks and he loves to watch them grow. If you were to go in and
try and convince him of world domination plans he could only be
disappointed with whatever results you had. It is necessary that he
should feel part of it all when everything starts to take off. It will
be then that you will need his serious help. It will be then that you
will have to find £17,000 by the end of the week and there is no
sight of anything coming in until the beginning of the next month.

MONDAY EVENING

Spend Monday evening around at some mate’s house. See if he has any
records worth borrowing. More importantly, tell him what you are up to
and see if he has any great ideas worth using. It is a little known
fact but when it comes to creative ideas the majority of people are
creative geniuses. Your mate is bound to be one of them. It’s just
that all these folks never dare to translate their creative brilliance
into reality. We guess a couple of libraries could be filled with the
reasons why they never attempt it. Something to do with mother and
when she first said, “No!”

That night, don’t forget to set the alarm for 8am the next morning.
Before you do whatever it is you do before you go to sleep, see what
group names are beginning to float up (mates are also a great source
of group names).

TUESDAY MORNING

The history of pop music has been littered with all sorts of unlikely
people plucked from obscurity and chucked on top of the heap. Pop
music would be thrown out of the Showbiz Ball if it could not provide
its full quota of rags-to-riches stories. We have all heard the old
tale about how it was the downtrodden working class background that
provided the true grit passion in the artist’s work that won the
hearts and minds of the masses. The other side of the same coin is
that it is because of the down trodden and working class background
that the smart middle class machine was able to unwittingly, maybe,
but ruthlessly all the same exploit these raw and gullible talents to
the full. With each new generation in pop music there comes along some
sort of revolution where supposedly the kids are able to get up and do
it for themselves: skiffle bands, protest singers, beat groups, punk
rockers, U2 and Casio kids. Of course, the kids do very little for
themselves. They might believe they are. Their public are encouraged
to believe they are. All that is happening is that the new young,
waving fields of corn are allowed to grow full and ripe before a very
strange combined harvester will come along and pick the few lucky ears
of corn while the rest of the field cheer, whither and die. A new
harvest is always needed. 1988 saw the latest wou~d-be revolution
happen in pop music.

The DJ, with his pair of Technics and box of records can make it to
the top with a little help from a sample machine, squiggly bass line
and beat box. Yet again this was interpreted as the masses finally
liberating the means of making music from all the undesirables and now
terminally unhip. These records were reportedly made for very little
money. The common ingredient these records had that was far more
important than the icing of “Now” style that covers the age old Golden
Rules of Pop, is that they are being made by complete unknowns. No
hype. No massive record company advances. No front covers in the rock
papers. No loyal following built up over months of solid touring.
They have all been released by what is commonly known as Indie record
labels (however, this is not the place to define indie). Since the
rise of the indie label in the days of post-punk they have provided a
healthy means for no hopers, outsiders and terminally angry types to
unload their angst. They have also proved rich hunting grounds for the
major record companies looking for fresh meat.

The indie record companies were cottage industries fuelled by
enthusiasm, passion and belief. Some grew, became strong and
established international links, whilst others withered and died. The
strong ones were able to provide plafforms for the artists who were
able to build up large and loyal followings to develop and prosper,
even have moderate hit single success. The Smiths and New Order on
Rough Trade and Factory respectively were the obvious champions in
this.

It was always understood that it was only the major record companies
that had the infrastructure, the money, the efficiency, the might, the
power and the means of persuasion to take singles all the way to THE
TOP. Like the giants of Fleet Street weighed down by ancient union
agreements and strapped to out of date means of production, the major
record companies are beginning to look like lumbering dinosaurs.

Over the past ten years anybody with overtly commercial material would
never have considered using the indie network. Everybody with an eye
on the Top Spot knew that the indie scene was for the spotty and
marginal and people who celebrated the glories of being spotty and
marginal. The majors were secure in their knowledge of this.

All through these years, alongside the scratchy and austere indie
labels, has grown what might be termed the independent service
industries, providing services that previously only the majors could
command: numerous pluggers, publicists, sales forces and, most
important of all, reliable and comprehensive distribution. All of
these independent service industries are now highly organised and
competing to cut deals with YOU the much sought after client. Each of
these individual services will have a section dedicated to their own
peculiar practices.

However efficient and organised these service industries became, they
could only do so much with the spotty and marginal. But it was only a
matter of time before something came along from within the indie scene
that was neither “spotty” nor “marginal” and had definite mass appeal.
That record was “Pump Up The Volume” by MARRS. It was a turning point.
That record not only became Number One in the UK it became an
international smash.

The “indie scene” in this country since then has been filled with a
new found confidence: everything can be achieved. It was as if having
a Number One single was the last bastion of the majors. Certain
cynics will point fingers and whinge that the indies of today will be
just the majors of tomorrow. Wasn’t Richard Branson and his Virgin
Records the ultimate hippy ideal in the early seventies? We won’t deny
that behind the majority of indie labels is a would-be Branson, whose
stunted megalomania will undoubtedly be reflected on the way he brings
up his children.

From now on, whether or not the technology makes the traditional
musician’s craft redundant, the young creative type will become more
aware that he is able to control more areas of the way his music is
communicated to the masses. The manipulation of this control will
become a very important creative form of expression in itself.

Of course there is a place for the major record company in the future
as there is still a place for brass bands, large national orchestras
and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. The precise function the major
record companies will play in the music business as we turn the corner
into the 21 st century is something we are not going to bother
guessing at. One thing they and we suppose all major international
companies are good at is moving the goal posts; probably because they
owned them in the first place.

As more and more creators of music begin to realise that it is
possible to make records themselves and steer those records in
whatever direction they want, at the same time as retaining all the
copyright in the product thus a bigger chunk of the action, the
attractiveness of signing your soul and its products away from now to
eternity (well at least fifty years after the day you die) will become
to look rather silly. Nothing to do with ideology, just straight
forward business sense.

Twenty five years ago no unknown artist signing to a major record
company would dare demand the right to only record their own material.
The success of the Beatles changed that. In the past ten years it has
become the trend for the writer (of songs) to retain the copyright of
their work and either just get the publishers to administrate it, or
have their own accountants do the lot.

If the rise of the UK indie label can be seen as a positive offspring
of punk sensibilities, a very negative one was the cult of the very
big advance. This can be traced back to the supposed situationalist
shenanigans of Malcolm McClaren. The idea that the major record
companies were some how being ripped off and some clever scam was
being pulled was totally false. There was no Great Rock ‘n’ Roll
Swindle. The four living ex-members of the band have nothing left
except fading memories of their glory days, like fuddled old soldiers;
a front man trapped by his own cynicism and a corpse forever young.
While the record companies and publishers involved are still getting
bigger and stronger and the employees are busy negotiating their next
rise over the expense account lunch. It’s as if Malcolm never
understood Faust.

Another point that we can throw in at this juncture is that down
through the history of pop music the cult of the svengali figure has
often risen. Svengalis might be very interesting characters but
invariably make bad businessmen. They spend too much of their time
cultivating their own image and coping with their own creative urges.
We repeat, it has only been possible since the beginning of 1988 to
single-handedly achieve what this manual is all about. The myth of the
major label deal is totally blown. Their might and power is too slow
moving. Their seduction techniques threadbare and dated. The barn
door cannot be closed. While the new technology might be the downfall
of any kinds of standards in the world of television, in both printing
and music the future is ours.

JUST AFTER 1 PM TUESDAY

Just after 1 pm Tuesday telephone the studio that you have booked and
tell them you are going to need someone who can programme, ideally a
programmer who can play the keyboards. Every studio can get one for
you. This programmer is going to be the person who will provide
sample, originate, compute, even play all the music you will need on
your record. They usually have a boffin’s mentality mixed with the
talent of a musical wizard. We are afraid they will not be included in
the price of the studio, but the studio manager should be able to sort
out the going rate for you and cut the deal with him. Get him booked
for the full five days.

Have a spot of lunch and read the following chapter. It will allay any
doubts you might have in your talents as a hit song writer and
explains the Golden Rules. Between now and next Monday morning you are
going to have to come up with the goods. Those goods are out there
waiting for you to find before the others get there.

THE GOLDEN RULES

Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Berry Gordy, Chinn and Chapman
and Peter Waterman have all understood the Golden Rules thoroughly.
The reason why Waterman will not continue churning out Number Ones
from now until the end of the century and the others had only limited
reigns, was not because lady luck’s hand strayed elsewhere or that
fashion moved on, it is because after you have had a run of success
and your coffers are full, keeping strictly to the G.R.’s is boring.
It all becomes empty and meaningless. Some have become emotionally or
business wise embroiled with artists whose own ambitions now lie
elsewhere and far from merely having Number One’s. Lieber and Stoller
could walk into a studio tomorrow and have a world wide Number One in
three months if they were so motivated.

The basic Golden Rules as far as they apply to writing a debut single
that can go to Number One in the U.K. Charts are as follows: Do not
attempt the impossible by trying to work the whole thing out before
you go into the studio. Working in a studio has to be a fluid and
creative venture but at all times remember at the end of it you are
going to have to have a 7″ version that fulfils all the criteria
perfectly. Do not try and sit down and write a complete song. Songs
that have been written in such a way and reached Number One can only
be done by the true song writing genius and be delivered by artists
with such forceful convincing passion that the world HAS TO listen.
You know the sort of thing, “Sailing” by Rod Stewart, “Without You” by
Nilsson What the Golden Rules can provide you with is a framework that
you can slot the component parts into.

Firstly, it has to have a dance groove that will run all the way
through the record and that the current 7″ buying generation will find
irresistible. Secondly, it must be no longer than three minutes and
thirty seconds (just under 3′20 is preferable). If they are any longer
Radio One daytime DJs will start fading early or talking over the end,
when the chorus is finally being hammered home - the most important
part of any record. Thirdly, it must consist of an intro, a verse, a
chorus, second verse, a second chorus, a breakdown section, back into
a double length chorus and outro. Fourthly, lyrics. You will need
some, but not many.

CAUSALITY PLUS A PINCH OF MYSTICISM

It is going to be a construction job, fitting bits together. You will
have to find the Frankenstein in you to make it work. Your magpie
instincts must come to the fore. If you think this just sounds like a
recipe for some horrific monster, be reassured by us, all music can
only be the sum or part total of what has gone before. Every Number
One song ever written is only made up from bits from other songs.
There is no lost chord. No changes untried. No extra notes to the
scale or hidden beats to the bar. There is no point in searching for
originality. In the past, most writers of songs spent months in their
lonely rooms strumming their guitars or bands in rehearsals have
ground their way through endless riffs before arriving at the song
that takes them to the very top. Of course, most of them would be
mortally upset to be told that all they were doing was leaving it to
chance before they stumbled across the tried and tested. They have to
believe it is through this sojourn they arrive at the grail; the great
and original song that the world will be unable to resist.

So why don’t all songs sound the same? Why are some artists great,
write dozens of classics that move you to tears, say it like it’s
never been said before, make you laugh, dance, blow your mind, fall in
love, take to the streets and riot? Well, it’s because although the
chords, notes, harmonies, beats and words have all been used before
their own soul shines through; their personality demands attention.
This doesn’t just come via the great vocalist or virtuoso
instrumentalist. The Techno sound of Detroit, the most totally linear
programmed music ever, lacking any human musicianship in its execution
reeks of sweat, sex and desire. The creators of that music just press
a few buttons and out comes - a million years of pain and lust.

We await the day with relish that somebody dares to make a dance
record that consists of nothing more than an electronically programmed
bass drum beat that continues playing the fours monotonously for eight
minutes. Then, when somebody else brings one out using exactly the
same bass drum sound and at the same beats per minute (B.P.M.), we
will all be able to tell which is the best, which inspires the dance
floor to fill the fastest, which has the most sex and the most soul.
There is no doubt, one will be better than the other. What we are
basically saying is, if you have anything in you, anything unique,
what others might term as originality, it will come through whatever
the component parts used in your future Number One are made up from.

Creators of music who desperately search originality usually end up
with music that has none because no room for their spirit has been
left to get through. The complete history of the blues is based on one
chord structure, hundreds of thousands of songs using the same three
basic chords in the same pattern. Through this seemingly rigid formula
has come some of the twentieth century’s greatest music. In our case
we used parts from thrcc very famous songs, Gary Glitter’s “Rock ‘n’
Roll”, “The Doctor Who Theme” and the Sweet’s “Blockbuster” and pasted
them together, neither of us playing a note on the record. We know
that the finished record contains as much of us in it as if we had
spent three months locked away somewhere trying to create our
master-work. The people who bought the record and who probably do not
give a blot about the inner souls of Rockman Rock or King Boy D knew
they were getting a record of supreme originality.

Don’t worry about being accused of being a thief. Even if you were to,
you have not got the time to take the trial and error route.

The simplest thing to do would be to flick through your copy of the
Guinness Book of Hits, find a smash from a previous era and do a cover
of it, dressing it up in the clothes of today. Every year there is at
least a couple of artists who get their debut Number One this way.
From the eighties we have already had:

Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin “It’s My Party”
Roxy Music “Jealous Guy”
Soft Cell “Tainted Love”
Paul Young “Wherever I Lay My Hat”
Captain Sensible “Happy Talk”
Neil “Hole In My Shoe”
Tiffany “I Think We’re Alone Now”
Wet Wet Wet “With A Little Help”
Yazz “The Only Way Is Up”

There are, however, the negative facts in taking this route. Using an
already proven song can give you a false sense of security when you
are in the studio recording. You can end up under the illusion that
the song is such a classic that whatever you do, the song itself will
be able to carry it through. You tend to loose your objectivity in the
production of your version. The all important radio producers hate
nothing more than a classic song covered badly.

The classic oldy, while fulfilling all the Golden Rules in pop,
might have a lyrical content that may only ever relate to one period in
pop history. There have been numerous past Number One’s where
this has been the case:

Scott McKenzie “San Francisco”
The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations”
The Beatles “All You Need Is Love”
Mott The Hoople “All The Young Dudes”
MARRS “Pump Up the Volume”

Unless there is a revival of the zeitgeist of times past where the
lyric in some way makes sense again, these songs should be stayed well
clear of.

Sometimes, almost the opposite can happen. By covering a cleverly
picked old song it can be re-recorded in such a way that it is now
more relevant to today’s new record buyers, both lyrically and
musically, than the original was to the past generations of hit
makers. Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” and Yazz’s “The Only Way
Is Up” are both perfect examples of this in 1988. The original of “I
Think We’re Alone Now” by Tommy Roe and the late seventies cover by
The Rubinoos were classics for the discerning but could not compete in
the U.K. market place of their day.

The other negative in doing a cover version is you loose all the
writing credit. That means you will earn no publishing money on the
record, however many it sells. We will explain later the mysteries of
publishing, but for now just take it from us that having a Number One
with a cover, as opposed to your own song, is the equivalent of
throwing away a minimum of £10,000.

There is no denying that in picking the right smash from the past and
recording it well will result in a sure fire success. The producers of
the day time shows at Radio One will have to only hear 30 the opening
bars of your record to know that there will be a few slots in their
shows for it; “the housewives at home and the husbands on the building
site” will be singing along with it immediately. It’s not going to
take them three or four listens before they decide whether they like
the song. That decision was made long before you ever thought of
having a Number One. As for the current 7″ single buying generation
who might have never heard the song before, they will automatically be
given the chance to hear the record three or four times on the radio.

If there is not a cover that takes your fancy the trick is to
construct your song out of disguised, modified and enhanced parts of
previous smashes, so that when those Radio One producers, T.V. youth
programme researchers and multiple-chain-record-store stock buyers
will subliminally warm to your track and feel at ease with it.

We obviously took the middle route in not doing a straight cover, but
in doing the above so blatantly that we had to give away the majority
of our publishing thus losing a sizeable chunk of the readies.

GROOVE

The first of the component parts you are going to need to find is the
irresistible dance floor groove.

Before we go any further we had better define “groove”. It is
basically the drum and bass patterns and all the other musical sounds
on the record that are neither hummable or singalongable to. Groove is
the underlying sex element of the record and we are afraid for U.K.
Number Ones this can never be left too rabidly raw on the 7″ format.
It upsets our subliminal national moral code. We can cope with smut
but not grind. Of course, there are the odd exceptions.

In the same way that our sexual fantasies change and develop,
sometimes double back over a period of months, so do our dance floor
tastes in groove. It is always on the move, searching for the ultimate
turn on and when you are almost there it’s off again and you’re left
looking for a new direction.

Black American records have always been the most reliable source of
dance groove. These records down through the years have inevitably
laid so much emphasis on the altar of groove and so very little into
fulfilling the other Golden Rules that they very rarely break through
into the U.K. Top Ten, let alone making the Number One spot. A
by-product of this situation is that gangsters of the groove from Bo
Diddley on down believe they have been ripped off, not only by the
business but by all the artists that have followed on from them. This
is because the copyright laws that have grown over the past one
hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent
and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song
should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line
(sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in. If the copyright
laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least
eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the
remainder split between the lyrics and the melody. If perchance you
are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for
yourself. Right the wrongs.

The best place to find the groove that 7″ single buyers will want to
be tapping their toes to in three months time is to get down to the
hippest club in your part of the country that is playing import
American black dance records. The unknown track the DJ plays that gets
both the biggest response on the floor and has you joining the throng
will have the groove you are looking for. Either try and get the name
of the track that night, or at least remember some stand out feature
of the record. If you are lucky to have a specialist dance shop near
you they should have this record you are after.

If there is neither a suitable club or specialist dance shop in your
part of the country don’t throw in the towel as this is where the
dance music compilations we have instructed you to buy on Monday
morning come in. Stick them on the record player, turn it up loud and
get lost in the groove, leave your mind on the bookshelf where it
belongs, feel yourself if need be but keep going until you “feel the
force” and you are “lost in music”, when the only answer to the
question “can you feel it” is “yes”.

Pure dance music, if it has any lyrical content at all, will only deal
in the emotions experienced within the four walls of a club late at
night; basically desire and, more importantly, that area which is
beyond desire at the very centre of the Human Psyche. Everything else
is meaningless. Any creator of pure dance music that is attempting to
communicate any other subject should be treated with deep suspicion.
With a danger of getting too carried away on our own pretensions we
state that it is through dance music and dancing we are able to get
momentarily back to the Garden. Of course, in the clear light of day
this is all very silly.

At the time of writing it is the Summer of Love 1988 and we would
seriously advise anybody in search of the Groove to spend the night at
the ubiquitous acid house event, drink very little alcohol, loose your
mind on the dance floor and shake your hands in the air ’till you feel
it. Of course drugs are something we cannot be seen to advocate, but
we understand that a certain very expensive narcotic makes this a lot
clearer.

“Can you feel it?”. Of course you do.

By the time you read this acid house will already be history but it is
always easy to find out what’s happening. There is an army of eager,
young media types out there doing the research for you and writing it
all up in any one of the competing youth-orientated journals.

We of course used the Glitter beat, which was more by accident than
design. It being the most clubfooted white beat going, it goes against
the grain of what we are advising above. We think the British
love/hate relationship with that said beat can only be tried once a
decade. They won’t take it any more than that.

On a far less metaphysical level, groove has to be understood in the
practical terms of beats, bars and BPM’s. Except on very rare
occasions all pop music is rhythmically based on having four beats to
the bar. You naturally tap your toe to the beat and every time you tap
your toe four times is one bar, you naturally clap your hands or snap
your fingers on every second beat (twice every bar).

The speed of modern records is measured by the amount of beats per
minute (BPM) there are in any given record. Using BPM’s as a
measurement has only come into existence since the early eighties,
since which time nearly all records have been made with the use of a
click track (electronic metronome). This enables any musicians who may
play on a track to keep in perfect time. In bygone times records might
have speeded up and slowed down throughout the performance thus an
accurate BPM could not be quoted. Knowing the BPM of each record in
his collection is all important to a club DJ. So that he can be sure
that when he is programming each section of the night he won’t jolt
the dancers on the floor by suddenly dropping from a 124 BPM record
down to an 87 BPM record, then back up to one that is 114 BPM. Heavy
acid sessions the exception.

The different styles in modern club records are usually clustered
around certain BPM’s: 120 is the classic BPM for House music and its
various variants, although it is beginning to creep up. Hi NRG is
always above 125 but very rarely has it reached the dizzy heights of
140 BPM’s. Rap records traditionally vary between 90 and 110, but in
an attempt to stay with the current (Summer 88) domination of House,
are speeding up. In doing this rap has lost some of its slow, mean and
cool strut feel. LL Cool J or Rakim would never be seen dead trying to
rap at 120 BPM but those whose commercial instincts are more important
than their home boy cool may attempt it to keep their hit single
profile high.

The classic rare groove track that found favour throughout 1987 and
into early ‘88 were all recorded in the early seventies before click
tracks and drum machines held sway to bay and are all oozing around
and below 90 BPM’s, guaranteeing plenty of slippery grunt and grind.

In this day and age no song with a BPM over 135 will ever have a
chance of getting to Number One. The vast majority of regular club
goers will not be able to dance to it and still look cool. The vast
majority of indie bands, however large their cult following is, who
play what various music journalists often describe as “perfect,
classic pop” will never see the inside of the Top Five for one reason
alone: they perform all their songs above the 135 BPM ceiling. Their
love traumas and balls of confusion of hate and bile all rush by at
some immeasurable blur of a BPM.

As we have already mentioned, the Golden Rule for a classic Number One
single is intro, verse one, chorus one, verse two, chorus two,
breakdown section, double chorus, outro.

Each of these sections will be made up of bars in groupings of
multiples of four. So you might have an intro containing four bars, a
verse sixteen bars and a chorus eight bars. At times the first verses
can be double length verses, or the second chorus a double length.
These sort of decisions are not going to have to be finally made until
you reach the mixing stage of the record, when the engineer will have
to start editing the whole track to make it work in the most concise
and exciting way possible within three minutes and thirty seconds.

Hopefully, at sometime over the remaining days of the week, you will
have been able to get out to a club and found the groove you need,
been able to buy it on vinyl and get it home. It has to be the 12″
version as this will have whole great tracts of raw groove where each
of the component parts of the groove are broken down and left exposed
for your engineer and programmer to study and imitate when it comes to
recording your record. Do not make the mistake of “going clubbing” a
habit; it is a way of life that people can get trapped in. They begin
to believe if they are not continually going to clubs they will miss
out on something. The only thing that they do miss out on is
themselves. Once in a club you have to leave your mind outside.

CHORUS AND TITLE

The next thing you have got to have is a chorus. The chorus is the bit
in the song that you can’t help but sing along with. It is the most
important element in a hit single because it is the part that most
people carry around with them in their head, when there is no radio to
be heard, no video on TV. and they are far from the dance floor. It’s
the part that nags you while day dreaming in the classroom or at work
or as you walk down the street to sign on. It’s the part that finally
convinces the punters to make that trip down to the record shop and
buy it. So, slip on the 12″ or your dance compilation and sing along
with the breakdc~wn sections; any old words will do, just whatever
comes out of your mouth. If you have difficulty in forming a tune in
your head or you feel a bit inhibited, flick through your copy of the
Guinness Book of Hits and pick any Top Five record that takes your
fancy and see if you can sing the chorus of it along to the track.

Take for example:

“That’s the way a-ha, a-ha
I like it a-ha, a-ha
That’s the way a-ha, a-ha
I like it a-ha, a-ha”

by K.C. and the Sunshine Band. That one usually works and should get
you going in the right direction but there are hundreds to choose
from.

The lyrics for the chorus must never deal with anything but the most
basic of human emotions. This is not us trying to be cynical in a
clever sort of way when we say “stick to the cliches”. The cliches are
the cliches because they deal with the emotional topics we all feel.
No records are bought in vast quantities because the lyrics are
intellectually clever or deal in strange and new ideas. In fact, the
lyrics can be quite meaningless in a literal sense but still have a
great emotional pull. An obvious example of this was the chorus of our
own record:

“Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who
Doctor Who, in the Tardis
Doctor Who, hey Doctor Who
Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who
Doctor Who, Doc, Doctor Who”

Gibberish of course, but every lad in the country under a certain age
related instinctively to what it was about. The ones slightly older
needed a couple of pints inside them to clear away the mind debris
left by the passing years before it made sense. As for girls and our
chorus, we think they must have seen it as pure crap. A fact that must
have limited to zero our chances of staying at The Top for more than
one week.

Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, however, are kings of writing chorus
lyrics that go straight to the emotional heart of the 7″ single buying
girls in this country. Their most successful records will kick into
the chorus with a line which encapsulates the entire emotional meaning
of the song. This will obviously be used as the title. As soon as
Rick Astley hit the first line of the chorus on his debut single it
was all over - the Number One position was guaranteed:

“I’m never going to give you up”

It says it all. It’s what every girl in the land whatever her age
wants to hear her dream man tell her. Then to follow that line with:

“I’m never gonna let you down
I’m never going to fool around or upset you”

GENIUS.

As soon as they had those lyrics written they must have known they
could have taken out a block booking on the Number One slot. Then
within the next twelve months to have written the chorus:

“I should be so lucky
Luck, lucky, lucky
I should be so lucky in love”

Out of context, as meaningless to lads as our own Doctor Who chorus
was to girls but in those three lines there are for many more meaning
than in the complete collected works of Morrisey. Stock Aitkin and
Waterman are able to spot a phrase, not actually a catchphrase, but a
line that the nation will know exactly what is been talked about and
then use it perfectly:

“Fun Love and Money”
“Showing Out”
“Got To Be Certain”
“Respectable”
“Toy Boy”
“Cross My Broken Heart”

They are ridiculed by much of the media and only have their royalty
statements for comfort. History will put them up there with Spectre
and the boys. Waterman might be a loud mouthed, arrogant, narrow
minded, self publicist, but the man has never outgrown his true, deep
and genuine love of “Now” pop music.

The year that the pair of us spent working with Stock Aitkin and
Waterman pulled into focus what we had learned about pop music
throughout the rest of our lives.

Michael Jackson may be the biggest singing star in the world. Sold
more L.P.s than any other artist at any time in the history of pop but
he has had very few U.K. Number Ones. If he would like to make amends
on this front he should start co-writing with the SAW team or read
this manual. He has quite a bit to learn about the opening line of a
chorus.

We have just taken a coffee break from writing this lot and while in
the cafe have come up with the ultimate Stock Aitkin and Waterman
chorus never written. It’s called “Live In Lover”, either performed by
Sinitta or ideally by a Dagenham blonde called Sharon:

“Live in lover I want you to be
My live in lover for eternity”

Either use it for yourselves or we will go and blow what last vestiges
of credibility we have and do it ourselves. We can see it now: we’d
call the act “Sharon Meets the KLF” and of course the b-side would
have to be “Sharon Joins The JAMS”. If there are any good looking
Sharons out there that want to be pop stars please don’t hesitate to
contact us.

We are afraid you can’t just go down to the local supermarket and
listen to the check-out girls’ talk and hope you can pick up the right
line before Waterman gets to it. The line has to come to you and when
it does you’ve got to grab it. Mindlessly singing along to the 12″
groove track you have is the best way.

Morrisey has undoubtedly come up with some of the wittiest titles of
the decade. “Shakespeare’s Sister”, “Girlfriend In A Coma” or “William
It Was Really Nothing” are classic. However, with titles like these he
will always be guaranteed a non Top Five placing.

We made the mistake of calling our Number One “Doctorin’ The Tardis”.
Obviously, we thought it a clever play on Coldcut’s “Doctorin the
House”. We had the title before we made the record. If we had had our
wits about us we should have changed it to plain “Doctor Who” or at
least “Hey! Doctor Who”. Us trying to be witty- clever must have lost
us a-few all important sales.

Do not attempt writing chorus lyrics that deal in regret, jealousy,
hatred or any other negative emotions. These require a vocal performer
of great depth to put it over well: the epic Euro balladeers or the
kings of Country, the great soul men or the crown prince of hate -
Johnny Rotten. You should stick to nonsense, pleasure, good times, “I
wanna dance all night long, love you forever, or at least until the
morning comes”, but nothing too sensual; that too requires too much
performance talent. Just remember there is a difference between bland
cliche and cliche and only you can tell the difference in the context
of the song you are constructing.

So make sure you find a title that can be used as the opening line in
your chorus and that the chorus is no longer than eight bars.

SINGING AND SINGERS
(TO SING OR NOT TO SING)

You must be worrying by now how you, or if not you, who on earth is
going to front this record! If you already think you are a great
singer and a well happening front person, then we have a problem. It
means you will have the sort of ego that will render it totally
impossible for you to be objective about everything else that has got
to be done. Singers have historically made the worst producers of
their own work. The reason for this is simply that singers have to
become so emotionally involved in their performance it cancels out any
sort of over view. At the very least they need a musical partner that
can give them some direction. If a singer was able to have this
calculated view of their own work the end product would undoubtedly
come over as cold and empty.

So if you do see yourself as a singer, find a partner fast before
going any further.

If you do not have ambitions to sing it looks like you are in luck, as
we have entered a period of pop history where singing as a focal point
to communicate the emotional content of a Number One hit single is not
necessary. The potential of this is something that seems to have been
forgotten since the Beatles took their place on the world stage back
in 1963. Yet again we have to thank the advent of DJ style records for
helping rediscover this fact.

The club D.J. (like his forerunner the dance band leader of the
thirties, forties and fifties) realises that the most important thing
is keeping the dance floor full and the thing that keeps the dancers
dancing now (as it was then) is the music with its underpinning groove
factor. Singing throughout has always just provided a distraction from
the main event - what is happening on the dance floor and not on the
stage.

The balance is to have a vocal chorus with instrumental verses. This
will be the form that a sizeable percentage of chart music will take
for some time to come, long after the novelty of scratching and
blatant sampling has worn off.

With debut records that become big hits it will be even more
noticeable. A debut record on becoming a hit relies totally on its
novelty quality. There is no fan base rushing out to buy it. Instant
voice recognition of the artist doesn’t exist. People don’t get into
the quality of a singer’s voice until they have heard at least three
tracks by him or her.

A quality singer might sell platinum albums and go on to have an
incredibly successful long term career but the sound of their voice
would have never got their debut single to Number One. Benny Hill had
more of a chance getting to Number One with “Ernie” than Aretha
Franklin ever has.

The only way a singer’s voice can help it get to Number One is if it
has such a distinctive quality the world can’t help but react to it
instantly, almost to the point of inspiring ridicule: Kevin Rowland’s
performance of “Geno”, “Save Your Love” by Rene and Renate and “With A
Little Help From My Friends” by Joe Cocker are three examples that
spring to mind. We are sure if you check your Guinness Book of Hits
you will find dozens more.

So unless you know of somebody down your way who has got a
ridiculously outrageous voice that’s going to grab the punters’
attention with one hearing and work in the context or your record,
forget it. The world is full of competent singers that don’t get to
Number One.

The vocals for the chorus of your record are going to be easy enough
to sort out. They need no individual distinctive qualities whatsoever.
When you get into the studio they will be able to book a couple of
backing singers for you. All studios are in touch with numerous local
singers desperate to do any sessions they can; you only have to decide
whether to have male, female or a mixture of both. Of course, if you
want an “all lads together” type chorus like we had with “Doctorin’
The Tardis” you just rope in whoever’s hanging around the studio at
the time and record it. That cuts out having to pay proper session
singers. Nobody would dare ask to be paid for having a laugh, acting
the lad - buy them a pint and they will be well happy.

Singers - good or bad - are invariably a problem. They not only make
incredibly bad time keepers which can lead to disasterous consequences
when you are facing a jam-packed schedule during the period when your
record has entered the Top 30 but not yet made Number One, they also
tend to confuse their role as singer of songs with that of would-be
world leaders.

For the majority of people the sound of the vocals and the words that
are being sung throughout the verses just merge into the over all
sound of the track. The words that are being sung could be any old
gibberish, only the words to the chorus have any real importance. Of
course there are the exceptions when the classic narrative song breaks
through and storms the Number One slot These can never be planned and
I’m sure the performers of these freak hits are as surprised as
anybody when it happens. So unless you want to risk everything on some
bizarre tale you have to tell, stick with us.

When it comes to TV. performances singers make obvious focal points
for the cameraman thus the viewers at home are forced to watch. This
is not because what is coming out of their mouths is of any great
importance, it is just the easy option tradition of the medium. In
fact most singers on Top of the Pops make complete prats of
themselves. The viewers at home amuse themselves discussing this
pratishness, either the size of the singer’s nose, his taste in
shirts, the dickhead state of his haircut or their shagable qualities.
This last example is usually done in such a disparaging and sexist way
that it hardly inspires any real admiration. That said, you will need
an act to go on TV. with. People will need some sort of human focal
point to relate to. When you get your three minutes of prime time TV.
exposure you are going to have to grab the nation’s attention in
whatever way possible and at the same time keep the programme’s
director happy. The first half of 1988 saw numerous D.J.s standing
motionless behind their pair of Technics desperately holding onto
their cool. Its novelty value soon wore off.

We will sort out the problem of getting a nation-grabbing act together
in a later chapter, once you have the track written and recorded.

The type of devotion inspired amongst pubescent teenage girls for a
certain singer or band takes effect on the second or third single.
The hype machine is usually only smelling the scent by the second
single and can then only shift into top gear on the third one. The
chapter’s precis is the quality of a singer’s voice and their
attractiveness is only of any real importance in terms of a follow up
career.

THE VERSE (THE BASS RIFF FACTOR)

So now you can tackle the construction of the verse without worrying
about singers.

Using the basic groove you have decided upon you are now going to have
to choose a bass line that will work as the basis for the whole song,
or at least the verse sections. We take it there is no point in us
trying to describe what the bass line is in any great detail, but it’s
the bit in the record that throbs and keeps the flow going. In days
gone by it was provided by the bass guitar player, now it is all
played by the programmed keyboards. Even if you want it to sound like
a real bass guitar, a sampled sound of a bass guitar will be used,
then programmed. It’s easier than getting some thumb-slapping dick
head in.

The groove might already have a killer bass line in there, making the
whole thing happen and to remove it and exchange it for another might
destroy what you have already got. There are plenty of monster bass
lines out there to try. You will know them, they are the ones that you
can almost hum. The great thing about bass lines is that they are in
public domain. Nobody, even if they do recognise it, will seriously
accuse you of ripping somebody else’s bass line off.

Michael Jackson, who we cited earlier on for not being that adept at
coming up with the killer Number One hit choruses, CAN come up with
the bass lines. “Billy Jean” was the turning point in Jackson’s
career. That song, on his own admission, took him into the mega
strataspheres where his myth now reigns. The fact is, “Billy Jean”
would be nothing without that lynx-on-the-prowl bass line; but he
wasn’t the first to use it. It had been featured in numerous dance
tracks by various artists before him. Jackson and Quincy must have
been hanging out around the pool table in their air conditioned dimmed
light atmosphere, L.A. studio one evening wondering: “What next?” when
one of them came up with the idea of using the old lynx- on-the-prowl
standby. Without making that decision back in 1981 there would have
been no Pepsi Cola sponsored jamboree in 1988.

We are not trying to deny any of the very real talent that Jackson
has, just trying to emphasise the possible importance of the killer
bass line.

Serious groove merchants hate it when a song has a dynamite bass line
for the verse and then when the chorus comes the chords change,
dragging the bass away from its “bad self” into having to follow those
limp wristed chords. For them the whole movement of the song is
destroyed for the sake of some nursery rhyme element they would rather
see dumped.

Somehow these two important elements are going to have to be made to
work together without the power of the chorus or the propulsion of
verse bass riff being destroyed. Ideally, when a song hits its chorus
it should feel it’s the natural thing to happen, a release from the
tension of the verse. By the end of the chorus you must feel like
nothing is desired more than to slide back down into the vice-like
grip of the bass line.

Some groove merchants have a talent for getting it all their own way
by coming up with a bass riff that never shifts from the beginning of
the song until the end: intro, choruses, verses, breakdowns, outro all
fitting around the same bass riff. For a song to sound like this and
work away from the confines of the dance floor, it is going to have to
be a real mutha of a riff. There must be some pretty insistent action
going on on top of it to keep the casual radio listener interested.
Even on “Billy Jean” they moved off the bass riff for the chorus.

For the time being the only decision you are going to need to make
about the verse is going to be making this decision on which bass riff
is to be used with the other elements in the groove track.

THE INTRO

This is simple. The classic thing to do is have an instrumental
version of the chorus. Sometimes a record might have a full blown
vocal chorus in the intro, but this is usually considered giving it
all away too soon. The other regular intro used is created at the
mixing stage of the record, where different elements can be thrown in
until the whole track is happening. This is something you can leave to
the engineer who is doing your mixing; they are usually full of
creative ideas on how to start a record off. They usually like to hear
a bit of atmospherics - they tend to think it denotes class. If he
comes up with anything good, use it. This is a route that we
originally took but at a later stage, on the advice of our radio
plugger, we stuck a weirded out version of the chorus on the intro.

BRIDGES

Don’t even think about them. They are for the more musically mature.
If one happens it will happen in the studio. Your programmer might
come up with an idea for one that helps take the song from the bass
riff of the verse up into the celebration of the chorus. As always, if
it’s any good, use it.

Just remember that if somebody else who is directly involved in the
making of your record provides you with chords for a bridge he has
every right to expect a cut in the publishing. Not that giving away
some of the action should deter you from using whatever is going to
turn your recording into a Number one.

THE BREAKDOWN SECTION

Yet again you don’t have to concern yourself with this at the pre-
studio stage. Just account for its length in bars when you map out the
structure of the song. Use the bass riff from the verse or some
enticing variant on it that the programmer can come up with.

When mixing, the engineer should strip the track right back and then
start piling in with the studio wizardry and gimmicks before hammering
into the final chorus’.

In years gone by this was the part of the song that would feature a
solo. Nowadays, solos either get in the way or have to be fabulously
stunning at the same time as being able to fit in with the studio
sculpting that is going on around it. Having some guitarist give you
his interpretation of what a really good guitar solo should sound like
is totally out of the question. Guitar solos only work in modern pop
records when they are over the top things full of hideous histrionics
and lacking in any emotional depth whatsoever. This type of guitar
solo is one of the very few things that heavy metal has given back to
Top Ten chart music. Yet again, Jackson’s name comes in here. It all
started when he used Eddie Van Halen on the “Thriller” L.P. So unless
you have a mate that can play just like Eddie - forget it.

The only other reason for having a meaningless solo on your track is
to give the record some instant profile upon the record’s release by
making it known in the media that it features a boring but sainted
muso, thus giving it some fake cred. The tried and tested guest
soloists of the late eighties are: Miles Davis on trumpet, Courtney
Pine on saxophone and Stevie Wonder on harmonica. Untried
possibilities that might create some interest would be Jimmy Page or
Junior Walker. But really we would recommend you don’t bother - unless
you can get Jimi Hendrix to do it.

The last time the guest solo really helped on a Number One record was
Stevie Wonder on Chakka Kahn’s “I Feel For You”. In the end it only
provides the D.J. on Radio One with a bit of a talking point or at
best a clincher angle in getting a Newsbeat interview.

When song writers were craftsmen that sat in front of their pianos,
heads filled with melodies and hands searching for chords and long
before multi-tracked recording studios became a vital aid in modern
song construction, they would call this part of the song the “middle
eight” (it had eight bars). They would entertain themselves by
introducing a different chord structure at this point with a
refreshing new melody. This technique still has its charms but you can
leave it to the people who take a pride in writing songs for the sake
of their craft. Even Elton John doesn’t bother with them these days.
It’s the sort of thing that Green from Scritti has a go at.

THE OUTRO

Back when whole bands went into a studio to record their songs they
would pride themselves in their tight, well rehearsed, snappy endings.
Either you end on fading over repeated choruses or have a couple of
choruses and sink back into the moody atmospherics that started the
song. Yet again your mix engineer is going to come up with the answer
for you.

HANGING BITS

In some records there will be one or two bars stuck in between two of
the sections where most of the music stops and a few bits are left
hanging in the air before the whole track comes crashing back into the
next section. We do not know if it has an official name but it serves
the purpose of adding dramatic effect to the song. It is a bit
sophisticated for ourselves but your programmer might recommend it -
give it a go if he does.

That’s it. There are no other parts that can possibly exist in Number
One hit records. Relisten to your copies of “Now That’s What I Call
Music” or “Hits” and practice picking out the different sections,
counting the bars as you go.

KEYS, NOTES AND CHORDS

There are twelve different Major keys and twelve different Minor keys.
In each key there is a scale of eight notes, the eighth note being the
same as the first but an octave above. A chord is where two or more
notes are played together. There are three basic Major chords and
three basic Minor chords in each key.

You do not need to know the above but if you do want to, that’s it.
Each song is recorded in a particular key. You can get the programmer
to decide what key your song should be in by telling him that you want
it to be the same as the basic groove you have picked. Some Number
Ones change key towards the end. The reason for this is an attempt to
add dramatic effect into a song which is beginning to flag.

Zager and Evans in their staggering “In The Year 2525″, a Number One
in 1969, took the unprecedented decision of moving their song up a key
for every new verse. This added to the stunning qualities of the
record. Something that today’s 7″ single buyers could not handle.

FRIDAY MORNING

Friday morning. Phone the studio. Check that everything is OK
for starting at 11 am on Monday morning and that the programmer will
be there on time. By Friday night you will have to have got yourself a
title, a groove, a bass line, lyrics and melody for a chorus that you
can sing at the top of your voice in the bath on Sunday evening. Write
down the basic structure of the 7″ version in your notebook.

THE WEEKEND

Take it easy over the weekend. Start fantasising about videos and Top
of the Pops performances, things you will say in interviews and what
your old teachers would think if they knew you had got a Number One.

Have some wild ideas for record sleeves or silly sadistic or sexy
sounds to sample that can be used in the 12″ mix. See what crazy ideas
your friends come up with. Don’t be proud, use them. They will love
it.

Basically, have a good time Friday night, Saturday and Sunday because
the following week is going to feel like the most dreadful few days in
your life. You are going to wish you had never seen this manual and
rue the day you ever thought you could ever put it into practice. At
times suicide will seem like the only way out. Years of financial
disaster will stretch out ahead. The debtors’ gaol your only home.

Up until now you might have felt these chapters have been riddled with
cynicism.

Cynicism is a terrible, disfiguring character trait if used by the
individual who is forced to carry a bitter chip. He will use his
cynicism to cope with the weight of life and all its trials. But
cynicism harnessed to your advantage can help debunk fraudulent
mysteries that prevent us from sharing in what is possible and what is
ours. At all times cynicism must be balanced with a belief and faith
in the intrinsic goodness of our fellow man. Nobody really wants to be
bad, even when they are pulling the trigger or handing out the towels
for the non existent showers.

You are not going to be able to cheat your way to the top. It is only
by nurturing the goodness that everybody wants to express are the
doors going to be held open for you.

We all have the capacity for unlimited fantasy, it is the fuel of
genius. Do not be afraid to turn on the tap and let it flow. As we
discussed before, a record will automatically equal more than the sum
of its parts. However coldly we calculate the making of each part, our
personality will be there on the record for the world to feel.

Fantasy can be a dangerous area to delve into, an unreal place to
escape into. Fantasy is also the place where everything starts from.
The place where a personality can grow. Where “The best-laid schemes
o’ Mice an’ Men” have all bred before climbing onto the drawing board
and long before the ploughshare has had a chance to lay it all to
ruin. Do not be afraid of your fantasies. Dive into them. Swim far out
and see what other strange fish are swimming with you. Bring what you
can back. It will be these discoveries that you will be able to
channel through the strict Golden Rules of the 7″ single.

Without fantasy there would be nothing; man would have stayed up the
trees, never ventured into the cave, Einstein would have foregone his
relativity, Christ his ascension, Leonardo his Mona Lisa, Hitler his
Third Reich and Betty Ford her clinic.

SUNDAY NIGHT

Sunday night. Remember to listen to Bruno Brookes’ Top 40 Show again.

Have a bath; it’s the last chance you’ll have of one until the end of
the week. Remember to sing your chorus while you scrub your back.
Sleep well.

FIVE DAYS IN A TWENTY FOUR TRACK STUDIO

Monday morning. There is no turning back now. If you did you would
look like a complete wimp to your mates who although might be telling
you you are a total crackpot ejit for attempting it, will be
harbouring a deep admiration for your gall. Not only that but you will
face a cancellation fee from the studio, which will amount to at least
half the full costs for the week’s hire.

Using your chosen mode of transport get there for about quarter to
eleven. Don’t forget to bring your records, Guinness Book, note book
and black Pentel.

Don’t bring a brief case or a filofax, you would be in danger of
looking like a minor league group manager.

On arriving at the studio introduce yourself to the studio manager,
find out where the kitchen is and put on the kettle. A day’s work in
the studio cannot start without first having a cup of tea.

On entering a recording studio for the first time you will naturally
be impressed with all the gear. Do not be intimidated - it is all
there ready to work for you. There will be thousands of dials, knobs
and faders at the engineer’s finger tips and he will know what every
one of them does. This might over awe you but just remember he was
most probably reading in Studio Wcekly, only moments before you walked
in, about some new piece of studio hardware that’s just come on the
market and that every studio should now have, if if they are to stay
in the race. That studio engineer is going to be worried that you will
notice that they haven’t already got it in this backwater of audio
technology.

The programmer should already have arrived and have his gear set up.
Sit down with them both. Get another cup of tea if need be and then be
totally frank with them. Don’t try and bluff your way at all. Tell
them that the game plan is to make a future Number One single. Play
them the groove track you want to rip off, sing them your chorus lines
and show them your chart of how the 7″ record should be structured.
Get the engineer to give you a quick tour of the studio and a rough
idea of what everything does. Have the programmer explain what his
computer/keyboard/sample linked together can achieve, revel in the
MIDI revolution of it all and then ask the engineer to either turn up
or turn down the air conditioning.

Tell the programmer that he should stretch your 7″ calculation up to
about six minutes to allow for the 12″ mix then leave the two of them
to get on with it; they will know what to do and you have already
given them enough to keep them busy for the rest of the day. If you
are technically minded feel free to watch them and learn all you can
or just sit back and answer their questions when they ask you. If
something sounds wrong, tell them. If something sounds great, tell
them. At all times encourage them.

If the studio has a tape op he will already be attempting to ply you
with tea. If not, offer to get the engineer and programmer as many
cups of tea as they can possibly consume. To begin with they will look
to you for direction and you can tell them that A, B and C should
sound like X, Y and Z record. Learning the language of making modern
records is learning the language of talking about component parts and
atmospheres of other people’s records.

From now on in you will begin to feel the inevitable pull of the
unseen life force of the record you have allowed to be created. It
will be as if you are in a sailing boat and suddenly from nowhere a
wisp of wind fills the sails. Your job is to hold onto the rudder and
at all times never lose sight of the harbour lights. Let the crew bail
out the water. Let the crew trim the sails. Let the crew man the
galley. Remember, if you ever leave go of the rudder to help the crew
all hands may be lost - along with any chance of ever hearing your
record being played at five minutes to seven on Radio One on a Sunday
evening.

From now on in nearly everybody you will be dealing with has the
possibility of becoming a millionaire by what they do. The success of
your record is going to help them get there, even if they don’t share
directly in the profits of your little enterprise. It is because of
this that you will not come across any “job’s worths”. Quite the
opposite; nothing will be too much trouble.

Engineers are a rare breed. They all assume they are the greatest
engincers in the world - or at least the greatest undiscovered
engineers in the world - or at the very least, given the right gear to
work with and a project like the next Sting or Peter Gabriel album,
would soon become the greatest.

The plus side of this is he will work his guts out to prove this is
the case. The down side is that since Sting started making records of
the sound quality the engineer aspires to, he has stopped having U.K.
Number One singles. Those early eighties Police records had a lot more
in there that the Great British singles buying public wanted than on
any of his mature stuff, whatever the calibre of the guest jazz
musicians.

In five days you are not going to make something that is going to be
able to compete with the latest album engineered by Bob Clearmountain
or produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Once the engineer is on your
wavelength and sees that you are dedicated to your cause, he will go
with you.

In their own world, studio engineers can become superstars demanding
points (a percentage of the gross takings) on the mega selling
platinum albums they work on. They can become very rich men. The
great thing about them is they very rarely become openly arrogant; if
one were to he would never get on. The years of making endless cups of
tea for the client has knocked it out of him. Also the successful
engineer knows he doesn’t have to be arrogant. His craftmanship on the
records he has worked on does all the talking. Whereas the successful
artist suffers from a continual paranoia that his bluff might be
called and will be seen to be a fake. He needs his arrogance to hide
behind. He will also convince himself that his public expects a
certain amount of arrogance from him. The trouble is, the suckers do.

Your programmer can also become very successful; he will be able to
demand a considerably higher rate once he has been associated with a
hit or two. He will also have the opportunity of getting a cut in the
publishing of the songs where his creative input has been above and
beyond the call of a session fee. They seem to develop the uncanny
knack of suggesting alternative or additional chord structures
guaranteeing them, in law, their fare share of the publishing action.

We would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the studio,
the engineer and the programmer whom we use.

The studio is called The Village and it is stuck on an industrial
estate in Dagenham between a printers and a carpenter’s shop.
Whatever we say about Dagenham would do a disservice to the people who
live there. As there are no entertaining distractions in the place it
inspires hard work. Dagenham seems to breed a variety of dope smoking
soul boys addicted to putting highlights in their badly cut hair. The
older males have a constant need to be funny and talk about the price
of second hand cars.

Our engineer, Ian Richardson, is probably a genius. Is probably very
funny. Will take down his trousers at the minimum of provocation. Has
blonde highlights in his hair and has an earring in the wrong ear.
Finds it impossible to talk to girls without at least proposing
marriage. He is a vegetarian and a violent anti- smoker. He drives
second hand Jags and is always rereading a book about the Kray Twins.
He plays drums in the Rubettes.

Our programmer, Nick Coler, is a genius. He can play on the piano
every piece of music ever written, his left hand a blur of fumbled
bass notes, while his spectacles slide down his perspiring nose. His
cathedral choir boy sense of fun has never left him and he sports a
line of strange hand knitted jumpers. Is continually trying out new
haircuts. Drives second hand Audi’s. He plays keyboards with the
Rubettes.

Without them, these two would like to think we would be nowhere. We
like to think, not only would we not have to suffer the A13 Daganese
and twenty four hour joke sessions, but we would have not seen our
career take such turns for the dire.

Tony Atkins, who owns the studio, means well. He is lost somewhere
between forty and fifty but is fitter than all of us. Had a minor hit
in the sixties with a band called Spectrum. Made a living out of
producing Euro Disco. Has to talk to his bank manager a lot. Is very