Analysis Of Hit Charade By Nathaniel Rich

In the article Hit Charade, the author, Nathaniel Rich, explores the behind-the-scenes business of pop music. He goes into great depths about how pop hits are made, and how “artists” are created. Rich also writes about how some of the best and most popular songs are not written by the singer, but rather by, more commonly, “...middle-aged Scandinavian men…”(Rich). I know what you’re thinking, that that seems oddly specific. In a way, you are right, but Rich supports this claim by mentioning some hit pop songwriters. Examples that Rich provides would be Karl Martin Sandberg, Mikkel Eriksen, Tor Hermansen,all who are middle-aged Scandinavian men, as well as Lukasz Gottwald and Esther Dean. Nathaniel Rich brings up a very excellent point about the other side of the music industry, the forever …show more content…
Rich gives several other examples of top hits from this past summer, and again, the singers are all very well-known multinational celebrities, whereas the songwriters are practically anonymous. Another interesting point that Rich makes throughout his article is that “artists”, aka singers, are just that. Because most singers get their songs from songwriters, and are not original pieces, Rich makes the argument that the singers are not actually artists, but just people who can sing. Since they are not writing their own music, in my opinion the hardest part of being a musician, and crafting their art from the ground up, they are then no longer artists, but just merely world famous singers. In case you are wondering how hard writing a song is, one famous singer who tried to transition from using a songwriter’s creation to writing their own pieces would be Taylor Dayne. Despite great discouragement from the man who signed her, Clive Davis, Deane started to write her own