How To Become A Better Songwriter

Before I begin I have to get this out of the way: Most music sucks. There's no sense in making it worse, so stop.

I've been listening to my recently created Last.fm radio station and as an unsigned indie artist, most (read all) of the similar artists that get played on my station are the same. *NOTE* I don't choose who the "similar" artists are on Last.fm - they do all of that. So when I listen to the radio station, I'm hearing all of these bands for the first time. And most of them suck.

The first thing I've noticed is that most of the songs are well over five minutes long. I don't have a single song that I've recorded that's five minutes long. Because that's too long. There is a reason why radio stations don't play a lot of long songs, and it's the same reason most big labels don't usually let their artists put out long tracks as their lead singles. That reason is simple: People have a very short attention span.

If you're writing a song that's five or six minutes long you better change things up a lot. I mean Stairway To Heaven a lot, or Paranoid Android a lot. When people sit and listen to the same riff playing over and over it becomes more annoying than anything else - especially if it's not a very good riff (and most indie songs don't feature a lot of great riffs)

The radio stations don't want their listeners to change the station because the same song has been playing for ten minutes. They also don't want to play a single song and then have to go to commercial break because the song took forever.

It doesn't really matter weather you're talking about an FM radio station or an internet radio... people's short patience for songs that drag out doesn't change, so keep it short and simple please.

I could go on forever about this (which would be ironic) but there's a football game on! And besides, if you don't get it by now I can't help you.