WHEN I WAS IN high school, I was obsessed with VH1’s Behind the Music. This worked out well, because it frequently seemed like it was the only show the network played at the time.
For someone who spent far too much time analyzing the story behind rock songs, it was a wonderful resource for informing what was happening with bands while they created their tunes – what drugs they were on, who they were sleeping with, who was fighting over money, etc.
But one thing that always annoyed me about Behind the Music, was the show didn’t delve very far into the “music” part of an artist’s career. As interesting as it was to learn about Billy Joel’s fledgling boxing career before hitting it big as a singer, the show always spent way more time on these types of details than say, Joel’s choices for the chord progression on “Movin’ Out.”
While I understand this to an extent, as the songwriting process would probably make for boring television, I’ve always been curious about the method of creating music. In fact, almost any creative process has been a curiosity to me.
Whether it’s Michelangelo’s painting at the Sistine Chapel, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, or maybe just Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” it’s interesting to learn what went into the making of iconic works of art. It’s also amusing to me how much the creative process can differ. Whereas the average classic novel typically takes years for an author to write, many of rock’s most famous songs were thrown together on the fly in one day.
Rock ‘n’ roll, which doesn’t require pre-written scripts or word processing, lends itself well to spontaneity and random fits of creativity. Most modern bands take a few years between releasing albums, but history shows this pace isn’t necessarily the way to stronger results.
In the 60s and 70s, artists like the Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin were churning out classic albums within months of their previous ones. This pace was the norm at the time - artists got into a creative zone (perhaps with the help of chemicals) and simply struck while the iron was hot.
It’s impressive that the Beatles were able to churn out albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album and Abbey Road pretty much one after another in just a few years, but their songwriting process allowed for this to happen. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were preternaturally creative types and their songs often just popped into their heads close to fully formed. They didn’t need years to work out the bridge to A Hard Day’s Night.
On the other side of the coin, there are some musicians who seem to think nothing great can be accomplished in less than five years. The best example may be Guns N’ Roses, who took more than a decade to finish their Chinese Democracy album. But they aren’t the only ones.
Neo-soul R&B singer D’Angelo has been working on his third album, the follow up to his critically-acclaimed 2000 album, Voodoo, for close to 10 years. He is reportedly finally in the home stretch and the album will be released this year (though I wouldn’t hold your breath).