What Do Record Execs Know Anyway?

"Clive Davis once told me that a hit song consists of a catchy melody and lyrics with a formula: verse, verse, pre chorus, chorus, instrumental, verse and chorus fade. The perfect song to me would be Pete Seeger's "Turn Turn Turn" even though it doesn't follow the formula. Pete wrote a lovely melody and adapted the lyrics from the timeless truths of Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8."

-Roger McGuinn of The Byrds

NPR asked a dozen or so artists to tell them about the perfect song. While I don't agree that Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn" is the perfect song, I do like what McGuinn had to say. If you don't know, The Byrd's biggest hit was their pop cover of this old folk song. Clive Davis is a long time record exec. He's launched many careers (and re-launched Carlos Santana's career). However, this is proof to me that record execs and A&R reps will NEVER know more about music than a musician. Davis and the like can stick to formulas that will make money, but those forumlas will never be as important as a musician making music that means something to himself (or herself). You can write for the radio and write to please people, but the music we still listen to today (without chuckling to ourselves) is music that defied the formulas and broke the molds and expressed a musician's artistic and emotional desires.