As a writer, Sting says you need to give him something every 8 bars, all while staying in a pretty typical song form.
And I can confirm, after 100’s of songs written, thousands of very slow hours logged @ various recording equipments/ DAWs, and A LOT of listening, all agreed.
Make life easy; start with a completely standard, run-of-the-mill song form, and go from there.
Many youthful Instagram influencers with a course or membership to sell will tell you that up-front hooks that are Tik Tok-able are the thing.
But theirs has always been the thing. Also known as intros. This is corporate America enlisting the masses to no longer sell songs but portions of songs. Nothing new to see here.
Exploiting a different part of the song or part of it instead of the whole. Again nothing new to see here. This is the way things have always been. Unleash songs out to the world at your peril. But the alternative is keeping them, which never does you too much good. Art in a vacuum is just—I’m not sure what.
These are the rules: Do your thing. Keep it interesting. Learn from the best. Be very careful who you listen too. All of everything is an influence. Stay away from garbage.
-jd
Alpha Juno Records 