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Anatomy of a Hit

Anatomy of a Hit
Hit song analysis
View all Anatomy of a Hit Articles

Coming Soon:
Beyonce—Irreplaceable
Corrine Bailey Rae—Put Your Records On
KT Tunstall—Suddenly I See

Nelly Furtado–Promiscuous
Ne-Yo—So Sick
James Blunt—You're Beautiful
Rascal Flatts–What Hurts The Most
Eminem—Lose Yourself

Norah Jones —Don't Know Why
Avril Lavigne —Complicated
Alan Jackson—Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning?

Pink—Get the Party Started
Craig David—Fill Me In
Alicia Keys—Fallin'
Train—Drops of Jupiter
Janet Jackson—All For You
Dido—Thank You
Sisqo—Incomplete
Macy Grey—I Try
Faith Hill—Breathe
Destiny's Child—Say My Name
Santana/Rob Thomas—Smooth
Ricky Martin—La Vida Loca

More Anatomy of a Hit Articles...

Classic Songcraft Articles
Reprints from Cat's columns in The Music Connection and LASS/NAS Musepaper

Outside vs. Inside Songwriting
Cat describes the change of opportunities in today's songwriting scene from Outside Songwriting for established artists to Inside Songwriting for original acts.

Grabbers and Shakers
Cat lists many of hue characteristics that make a pop song a hit song including what grabs a listener's attention and what keeps an audience involved all the way through to the end.

A Songwriter's New Year's Resolutions
Cat lists some goals and resolves we as songwriters can make to improve our writing and our careers for the coming year.

Other Classic Articles

The Hispanic Invasion
Today's pop scene has much in common with that of the mid-'60s. American pop music is being invaded by foreigners. Only this time the British aren't coming, it's the Hispanics.

1999: A Year of Retro and Recycling
Cat looks at the year 1999 in pop music and saw a return to recordings with older more melodic writing and more romantic dance styles including latin dance styles. Hot and sexy began to replace alienation and rebellion as the millennium turned.

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Complicated
Title
Avril Lavigne
  Artist
Album Let Go

Buy This Album

Complicated - album cover
 
A. Lavigne and the Matrix
  Songwriters
 
The Matrix, Antonio Reid (Executive Prod.)
  Producers
Play Song Excerpt Help with Real Audio
Concept
Singer berates a boyfriend who covers up who he is making things needlessly complicated
Lyric
Excellent perceptive teen lyric about the needless games people lay to cover up the feelings and pretend to be someone they are not. Tell me why d'you have to go and make things so complicated, See the way you're acting like you're somebody else gets me frustrated, Life's like this, you, you fall, and you crawl and you break, and you take what you get and you turn it into honesty, and promise me I'll never gonna find you fake it
Groove
A halftime 16th feel is overlaid on top of a rock 8th note groove, giving the recording a hip hoppish rhythmic style, though the rest of hte elements are molre alternative rock, an interesting and very commercial blend. Avril phrases very well in this shuffle beat strongly pushing and syncopating the melody.
Melody
The first time I heard this melody I knew it was going to be a hit song. The architecture is very unusual and distinctive with several intervallic leaps which repeat so the listener gets used to them. The different song sections each have different meldic ideas, all of which are strong. The scale is 7-tone major which gives the songs a pop sound rather than a more basicpentatonic or rock feel.
Harmony
The chord progressions are basic alternative rock, all variations of I vi IV and V, but not necessarily in this order. However, the guitar voicings add 2nds and occassional sus4s to give a more abstract more modern rock sound. Also the melody sometimes lands on one of these abstract tones emphasizing this effect.
Structure
Classic contemporary pop ABCABC structure. Verse1 - PreHook1-Chorus1-Verse 2-PreHook2-Chorus2-Short Breakdown-Verse3-PreHook3-Chorus3-Repeat Chorus
Signature
Effective guitar figure in introductionowever it does not repeat as the song is too loong to have it included again.
Production
Production is as good as alternative pop gets. The track is infectious, the vocal performance strong, and the structure easy to follow for such a complicated tune.
Predicted Longevity
This was a big hit and launched Lavigne's career. It has all the elements to reamin a popula radio favorite for years and will most certainly be remembered as one of hte best songs of 2002.

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