Rule-breaking songs?
May 10th, 2008
Check out this writeup on 13 Rule-Breaking Films.
How can you NOT be inspired to write a rule-breaking song after reading that?
I guess it’s not as big of a deal to write a rule-breaking song, since a song can be written and recorded in mere hours for no money, whereas a movie involves hundreds of people and millions of dollars.
But that being said… what are your favorite rule-breaking songs?
Feel free to include a link to your own rule-breaking song, here, in comments. 
That’s why I love getting official “industry” critiques of my songs. There seems to be this Nashville workshop formula that everyone wants to use….particularly in my genre. And they’ll rattle off the checkboxes every time.
Yet if you look at some of the greatest hits (and greatest songs that weren’t hits), hardy any of them match the critique formula. In fact, most of them would fail miserably under that particular standard.
Now, there seems to be legitimate formulas out there…but I have yet to see anyone quantify it correctly.
Hearing that I’m breaking the rules means I’m on the right track!
The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “SMiLE” by Brian Wilson were 1967’s Rule Breaking Album and Rule Breaking Album That Should’ve Been.
Both are crucial turning points from straightforward, mostly innocent rock-pop to psychedelic, structure defying, lyrically inventive concept albums. “SMiLE” was, in fact, so far from the archetypical Beach Boys sound that the record label (and band itself) refused to jump on the wagon and complete the project. After listening to one of these records, you feel as if you’ve really been taken somewhere – not just shuffled through a collection of songs in a market-friendly order.
I have a sign hanging in my studio that says, “THERE ARE NO RULES.”
And that is definitely not a rule…
-Dr. Zoltan!
One thing to consider is that rule-breaking songs very rarely give rise to rule-breaking acts – sometimes it can become the curse of the one hit wonder *
Music:
* Come On Eileen – what the heck was that all about? Who cares, still one of the most played songs ever
* Ride On Time – Black Box – the song that started the dance thing, used a sample
* Pump Up The Volume – MARRS – this started a lot of it too – an instrumental getting to number one? wierd
Walk This Way – Aerosmith & Run DMC – this changed the rules a bit at a time when rap and rock were poles apart
Me Myself And I from 3 Feet High And Rising – De La Soul – their first album was considered one of the first sample-only rap albums
Close To The Edit – Art Of Noise – pretty much responsible for elevating noises to an art form – which by the early 90’s we were all taking for granted
Video Killed The Radio Star – Trevor Horn again leading the way with a totally left-field way of being number one everywhere for ever
Relax – gay song about blow jobs anyone?
Daft Punk (and now Justice) doing it for the french dance scene, both times reinventing something that seemed done to death
Metallica – Battery – Master Of Puppets – reinvented the tired rock genre and singing about bats and witches and kick started the 90’s before it even started
Jean Michelle Jarre – pretty much invented the synth soundtrack single handedly way before Vangelis was noodling around
Good Vibrations – Beach Boys – most of Pet Sounds is pretty rad
I’m Not In Love – 10cc – no song ever sounded like this and probably never will again – ‘big boys don’t cry’
Funky Cold Medina – everyone was being cool and this was funny and everyone could dig it
NWA – Straight Outa Compton – rule changing rap – pick a song!
Eminem – a white rapper? nahhh – oh, ok, will the real Slim Shady please stand up
I Am The Law – Anthrax – rap shouting over seriously hardcore metal? It’ll never work, except it did and inspired the whole rap rock thing like Limp Bizkit etc
Teenage Dirtbag – Weatus – mention another band in your chorus? could work
Ace Of Spades – Motorhead – filthy rock never bettered, nothing like anything else
God Save The Queen – Sex Pistols – too fucking right, let’s have a mosh before any rockers steal the idea from us
You can go on for ever. Haven’t even talked about Elvis, or Phil Spector and Motown, or how about Chic and the 70’s disco creators? Or Achtung Baby, or the Chili Peppers? Or Smells Like Teen Spirit? Or when The Orb released an album that lasted almost forever? Or when the KLF sang about the Ancients Of Mu? Or even when Madonna sang Like A Virgin. Or I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor. Or Bohemian Rhapsody. etc etc etc
Most of the stuff we take for granted was either a clash of cultures, the overhauling of the old into the new, or the pushing of moral boundaries. You could just go on forever with this list stuff. There is greatness everywhere, but it’s hard to see it at the time. So easy when you look back.
(ok ok I had to have a go at films too because it’s so much fun)
Chinatown – the ultimate evil triumphs over good film, never bettered IMHO
Mullholland Drive – Lynch messes with the timeline AND the characters in this one
Naked Lunch – Cronenberg actually filmed the unfilmable
Clockwork Orange – speaks for itself, can you believe how many years before Tarantino this was?
2001 – so accurate and scarily realistic, breaking rules with choice of music soundtrack too
My Wanna be New Release will fit in the catagory rule breaking. If the public likes you, they will fix the rules.
So continue to invent sounds even if you’re the only fan
The Tone Show
When Doves Cry by Prince has no bass line in it at all.
TO name a few, lots of songs by:
-ween
-Zappa (fz abd DZ)
-tmbg
-oingo boingo
-Mr. Bungle
-Fantomas
Those inspire me to discard tradition form in my songwriting.
BG
http://blakegriffith.blogspot.com
Damn it! I was going to mention When Doves Cry, but someone beat me to it.
When Prince was producing that song all the record label reps suggested putting bass in the song, but Prince remained adamant about keeping the bass out. As it turns out, Prince was ultimately right.
In fact, Prince broke rules constantly in his career and continues to do so. I believe he is the #1 risk taker in the business, second to none.
(Yes, even taking the risk of wearing ass-less pants! It sure got everyone talking, eh? “No press is bad press”)
I always love songs with lyrics that don’t rhyme but still flow so naturally that you don’t even notice it. Listen to “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” by Dylan. The two-line chorus rhymes, but I never realized that none of the verses do until someone pointed it out to me.
BG
On my track “Inside The Big Pussy” the bass is purred by my late cat ,”The Bear”.
The track is part of a the concept album “Lost In Love”.
I also wrote a little short story for the album with one little chapter per track.
http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/bluestarmusic3-04.m3u
http://cdbaby.com/cd/bluestarmusic3
Marc Broussard’s “Home” doesn’t feel like a normal pop song to me, whatever that means, but it grooves hard and always gets me singing along (two signs of a great song, imho). Produced and co-written by a good friend of mine, Marshall Altman.
Kevin Gilbert also broke rules (and will break your heart). He was an incredible talent, and in a lot of ways his posthumous quasi-musical The Shaming Of The True is a total rule-breaker (check out “Suit Fugue – Dance Of The A&R Men” if you can find it).
On a completely different emotional tip, I produced a record last year by a kickass up-and-coming band called Northern Room. They had a nice slow track called “Stars Of God” that really came to life when we dug in at the studio. It breaks some typical rules regarding song structure and that approach to the arrangement allowed for a long build up and eventual payoff. Super proud of that one, I am.
There’s some before and after samples at my site for those that might be interested.
Julian Moore sure put up a very nice list. Of course the great composers were doing that stuff all the time, Mozarts Bb piano concerto number 27 was amazing that way, and he had stiff competition in that genre, his own C minor concerto. Mahler was original in that when he did his 9th symphony one could say that he said it all tonally.
Elvis Costello jamming a ton of Motown style songs in one offering in “Get Happy” was a-typical. Yes blazed great trails with their long virtuoso offerings, (Why they stopped doing it has been a mystery to me)
West of Hollywood (two against nature) had lightly Stravinsky-like bar structures (4, 2) which is not common in pop music giving the key centers involved.
Guitaramio on Wake of the Decider used its initial material at different tempos while merging them at different rates of speed and the counterpoint during this was well managed. Utopia on altruistic phonones (should have been phonons) had original form. The last track on Weazels ripped my flesh was amazing in its wall of shred. (and yes as was mentioned prior Zappa had huge numbers of rule breakers)
Hendrix on Drifting was a textural rule breaker.
What rule breaking that is going on outside of the known musical outlets can only be imagined.
Off the top of my head – U2’s, “Until The End Of The World” first song written from Judas’ point of view
Blur’s ” Song 2 ” – I just like the idea of a wrong song with something like, “yipee” as the hook
Radiohead are masters of this.
I play music with a mainly metal-head audience with mostly acoustic guitars…does that count?
Download my whole newest cd at http://www.mountainmirrors.com/dl/Dreadnought_128k.rar
Cheers!
-Jeff
“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. He never repeats the chorus!
Oh yeah someone mentioned YES and yet another twist when Trevor Horn convinced the band after much debate to let him do his radical thing to Owner Of A Lonely Heart – and it became one of their biggest hits – this was not only a vey different sounding track, but a complete left turn for YES
I’m not sure they ever forgave him – this was one of the first tracks to really play with the edit as a way of making music – fantastic use of space on the guitars with sudden edits into dry material
Trevor also did some good stuff like this with Grace Jones on the Slave To The Rhythm album – which also has a great story – as he burned through the budget on the title track and then had to make the rest up as samples of the one track
Did anyone mention Yello – The Race? That was a hit even though it was very strange
Also Thomas Dolby – Blinded Me With Science – was very different at the time, as was Windpower
Come to think of it Vienna by Ultravox was pretty different at the time, and before that Ant Music – Adam And The Ants was pretty different too
I saw Beefheart once I’m sure doing Tropical Hotdog Night on Top Of The Pops – I mean, that was top 20 and was as mad as a box of frogs
And how about The Wall – Pink Floyd? That wasn’t like much else
I think The Prodigy deserves a mention for redefining the genre in the 90’s with stuff like Firestarter – doesn’t sound like anything else either
I can’t believe no one has mentioned Kate Bush – come on, Wuthering Heights? Completely bonkers and rather wonderful. No one sounds like her either.
Queen – Bicycle Race hahaha – I know lets ring some bicycle bells in the middle bit
Lola – Kinks
Teenage Kicks – Undertones
One Step Beyond – Madness (one of the first music only hits I can remember)
Common People – Pulp – defined the era better than Oasis and Blur put together (as did Sorted For E’s And Whiz) – but common people kind of stands alone
Higher Than The Sun – Primal Scream (in fact, all of Screamadelica when Andy Wetherall and the guys pushed the boundaries of dance meets rock meets drugs)
etc
How about Van Halen’s “Jump”? When Eddie Van Halen suddenly puts down the guitar to play keys, a lot of long time fans were nauseous…but it grew on just about everyone very quickly.
Bjork- “it’s oh so quiet”, all of Medulla, very good ideas on the first album.
Dead Milkmen “Punk rock girl”, have you ever heard a greater “bad” solo?
Prince- “kiss”. his arrangements always kill. he breaks rules by following them so strictly they snap of their own accord.
Soundgarden “Spoonman” nuff said.
Jaco Pastorius “Crisis”; read someday how he managed to record that…
Check out my new song “A Hole”, from Atroxius. Peace!
“A Day in the Life” has got to be an all-time classic rule-breaker, with its multiple voice-overs and sound effects. Way ahead of its time.
As for my own stuff, I like to do pieces that have no drums or percussion and yet, are very rhythmic. Also pieces that have no bassline. Then there’s my ambient music that has none of the building blocks of traditional composition at all.
Yup, Elvis Costello’s GET HAPPY album has my vote.
But we can go back much further than this. A lot of our music RULES contemporary popular music now follows were created by classical composers who were themselves breaking the rules of their time.
I think being a musician almost certainly drives us to want to break the rules as we know them. After all, in many western cultures creating music is not “a real job”! Don’t we LoooooVe breaking THAT rule.
Our song ‘Falling Down’ is always very popular (top 20 in Folk at OurStage currently) even though it doesn’t really follow any set rules – we even faded it in which is almost like intro suicide, but people tend to stick around for the rest of the song
You can hear it at this link:
http://www.ourstage.com/music/channel/81-folk/TAKYZWBEYGXZ-falling-down
Hey Derek,
I’m inspired by your blog and all that you’ve done for us indies out here. Hmmm…do I have a rule-breaking song? My music is instrumental (save a for a few vocal samples here and there) and ranges from new age-like tracks to upbeat pop numbers. Geez, my genre itself might be rule-breaking!
But to go with one track, I’d say my track “Love Goddess” (from my album “Into Orbit”) is rule breaking. It starts out as an ambient chillout track, and then moves into an all-out techno blitz after 3 1/2 minutes…only to subside to a few lonely piano keys at the end. You can all check it out on the “KevOz music player” on my website right here: http://www.kevoz.com/music.html. (click on the album “Into Orbit” first – then select the track to play it)
Thanks again for being constant in keeping everyone in the know.
Regards,
KevOz
http://www.KevOz.com
“Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty. The chorus/hook is instrumental. It’s got an A part with vocals, a B part with vocals, and then it leads into the “chorus” – and there are no vocals! Crazy, I tell you!
Yo Derek and all,
Being the offspring of a “near famous” jazz musician and growing up listening to the likes of Yes, Zappa, Klaatu, The Beatles, Neil Young, etc. Gives much of the music I write/record and perform for kids a bit of an odd slant. Critics, A&R, aggregators and most of the “expert” judges of the children’s awards that my peers hold so dear pretty much hate my stuff. It’s been called “too complicated”, “inappropriate” and “not kid friendly. But parents, teachers, librarians and KIDS love my stuff (I sell a ton). Ironically the music award I have won the most is the only one voted on by kids!
That makes me very happy, too often our young minds are already hammered into nice square boxes before they can create something new. Ever hear a song by Harry Chapin called “Flowers are red”? If not give it a listen and then write something out of the box.
Mr. Billy – http://www.misterbilly.com
And for those of you with kids…
Check out my new CD (soon on CD Baby) http://www.sixlegsongs.com
“Troy” by Sinead ‘O Connor
I think it doesn’t even have a chorus at all.. Fantatsic song.
“O Superman (For Massenet)” by Laurie Anderson
Just heard one the other day that made me think about it’s different, meandering structure, but so beautiful: “Knives Out” by Radiohead
After going through several song critiques about getting right to the chorus, I was sitting in the audience at a Steve Seskin concert and realized that “I Think About You” (Steve’s song recorded by Collin Raye) doesn’t get to the chorus until after the second verse. The story needs to unfold one more layer before the hook can really get you, and it does. Gets me every time.
“Breaking the law”… “Being Caught Stealing”..”Caught By The Fuzz”…
….Er… hang on, I seem to have got the wrong end of the stick here….
Walter (Wendy) Carlos and Bruce Haack, they broke the rules before breaking the rules was cool.
Someone already mentioned this but it’s worth mentioning it again.
The guitar solo in “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen is performed so perfectly bad it’s great!!
Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana): No use of title in chorus/song, completely unrecognizable lyrics, opening riff stolen from Boston’s “More than Felling’; almost single-handedly killed one genre of music while creating another entirely new one.
The Gambler (Kenny Rogers): 3 long verses before chorus, no use of title in the chorus; “gambler” only used once in the entire song- number one smash hit.
America (Simon & Garfunkel): Not a single rhyme in the song and no real melody line repeated.
American Pie (Don McLean): 8 and half minute pop song, say no more.
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen): Too many rules broken to list but let’s just say it was a single that was almost 6 minutes long with no chorus.
Bohemian Rhapsody above is a great mention.
For instrumental rock, Joe Satriani’s “Satch Boogie” blew my mind the first time I heard it. I had no idea who it could possibly be when I first heard it – it was like this phenomenal instrumentalist appeared out of no where.
Does Howard Jones’ “No one is to blame” count? A guy and his electronic keyboard.
How about the unplugged movement. Bon Jovi playing Wanted Dead or Alive was one of the first cases of hard rock songs being played acoustically that I remember. Nirvanah’s unplugged concert on MTV is one of the coolest performances I’ve ever seen.
Basically every song can be seen as rule-breaker. Cause a non-rule becomes a rule in itself.
Every song that gets a rejection becomes a rule breaker, since it breaks someone’s rules.
Now, enough played with words, let’s see what is a big hit, danceable song, with a rhythm that’s not 4/4 nor 3/4 : “Money” by Pink Floyd. Can you expect to play another 7/4 song in a discotheque ?
Gilles
The bridge of “Jive Talkin’” by the Bee Gees is 7/4. :-p
Very interesting post indeed! The reason I say this, is that as one of those self-taught musicians, I didn’t even know the rules until I worked with professionals for the first time, when I got my album “Front Door Key” produced – and this was only last year.
I was surprised and amazed when they told me certain songs of mine didn’t follow ‘the rules’ ( I was like: there are rules for this ??) and for instance, my song ‘Positive Effect’ was ‘rebuilt’ by them in terms of structure, even sacrificing some lyrical parts. That hurt a little – but I was nevertheless satisfied with the outcome.
Of course, in the beginning, I revolted. Then, when the producer explained more to me about the importance of song structure, I realized that these rules were not imposed by some ’school of thought’, but they were based on empiric evidence of how the psychology of the mind deals with music.
Today, I see these rules as basically the same thing that you do here, Derek: you give people advice on how to market their music – and you can call those ‘rules’ too – based on experience, psychology and marketing science. I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you do this and I enjoy reading it, but I think the same kind of knowledge and experience can apply to songwriting. And there are websites out there who specialize in teaching people the ‘rules’ of songwriting.
Why shouldn’t for instance a song be longer than 3:20 ? Well sure, you can make your songs 6 minutes or even 11, but given the attention span of music listeners, I now realize you simply won’t get as many fans of your music. And if that’s fine by you, then it’s fine by anyone – because it’s still the case that in this galaxy of independent and talented musicians, ‘no one’ is out there waiting for your songs, unless you are one of those lucky (and good) enough to have a large dedicated following.
My songs still often are longer than 3:20, but I am nevertheless glad to have received this knowledge, and I believe knowing it has improved my song structure to the betterment of my music.
So let’s change the word ‘rules’ to ‘guidelines’? I am sure many musicians got successful marketing without following Derek’s (and others’) tips – I just believe newcomers have a better chance at it if they do follow them. And the same goes for songwriting ‘guidelines’.
And it will always be the case, I believe, that breaking the rules can be the exact right thing to do at times – but this is a matter of artistic inspiration, timing, and fate.
Derek Says: “The bridge of “Jive Talkin’” by the Bee Gees is 7/4. :-p”
Oh yeah, true. The Bee Gees used to include strange time-signatures in a few ‘easy’ songs, like suddenly a 7/8 or a 5/4, without daring to write a whole song like that.
Similarly, the band Yes did a techno-flavored track on 7/4 too, but without much success. (”Lightning strikes”)
And I won’t mention the band Awaken here… I surely won’t. But if you insist… well…
My point is that I strongly feel that before starting to break the rules you need,at least,to learn some first.For example,when I’m thinkin’ about why Salvadore Dali’s paintings have such a great impact on me (and I’m sure I’m not very original in that),I’m realizin’ the fact that great painter is a Master of realistic painting,and that’s why his surrealistic art is impressive and feel so real.On the other hand, at one point it was very trendy thing to play jazz-rock (fusion),and I’ve heard alot of bands apparantly lackin’ an experience in both of the styles involved,that made their attemps sounds a’bit ridiculous.The best breakin’ of the musical rules (for my two cents) are the examples of sythesizing different musical forms/styles/moods/or whatever pitched noises based on intuitive insight of them having something in common,-kinda Jung’s arhitypes (but in musical domain).’Cause this is kinda re-inventing of the universal things that are appeallin’ to every human.One can concentrate on breakin’ the standard formats of music presentation,but that’s another story.I’m talkin’ more a content of musical message here.
Here are few examples from our stable,-that’s pretty far from being anything revolutional,but those who knows the stykles well,can ,perhaps recognize an unusual blendings:
[url="http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=3159976&q=hi"]Golden Years[/url]
“You Really Got Me” by the Kinks is a great, rhythmically rule-breaking song. There are many more in the musical world but most recently, I’m not condoning the sentiment (!!) having lost friends, etc. but Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” was brilliant in that it went so directly against the day’s political correctness.
This case is held strong even in classical music. Beethoven broke JS Bach’s “rules”. In 1910 Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” had its first performance and the place broke into a riot because it was such a rule breaker.
Good stuff!
Birds of Fire – By Mahavishnu Orchestra. It´s 6/8 except the bridge which
is 4/4… I just Laughed all the way of that song, it was so hilarious… Billy
even drops stick during keys solo…and pics up another and continues.
No critic ever noticed anything…laughs…