学文网相信不少同学喜欢听流行音乐吧？为什么有些曲子能脍炙人口、经久不衰，有些曲子却只是昙花一现、转瞬即逝？音乐指挥Charles Hazlewood带我们走访众多音乐人，一起探讨伟大流行曲诞生的秘密――
学习小提示：本文为英式发音，但被访者之间有口音差别，喜欢英音的同学模仿时需留意。另外，文中出现了不少音乐用语，我们用不同颜色做标记，大家不妨收集起来归类记忆哦。
A great pop song tells a human story. It demands our attention and sticks in the memory. A pop song can make us want to sing and dance, or transport us to another time and place.
Martin Fly (Songwriter): Pop’s almost like a…it’s a different country; it’s a different place; it’s an imaginary place where everything’s perfect.
What does it take to create a hit song?
A Killer Tune
Steve Levine (Arranger): With a pop record, there are so many 1)defining things that you have to get right, because essentially it’s going to land on a radio producer’s desk, and if you don’t hit him “bang” in a few seconds…gonna go down the pile to the next one.
The best songwriters and producers have mastered the art of 2)hooking listeners, finding 3)subtle but effective ways of 4)seducing us. The most fundamental of these is a killer tune.
When it comes to melody, most pop composers agree simplicity is best.
Nick Ingman (Arranger): They are mostly simple and of very limited range[音域]. That’s partly to do with the skill of the performer. It’s also partly to do with 5)Joe Public’s, you know, 6)accessibility to that material. They don’t want something that’s too complicated.
Richard Niles (Conductor): The human mind works in a certain way. We don’t like to be bored and we don’t like to be constantly 7)assaulted with information, so to get the balance right is a 8)recipe for success.
Something that’s really important for a pop song to be successful is that it instantly grabs your attention. And something ABBA注 are great at is the memorable melody, the memorable motif[乐旨] which just sticks in your mind. Now this is called a “hook,” because
9)literally it hooks into your brain.
Allan Moore (Professor of pop): There are two different kinds of hook. One is a sort of a memory 10)shorthand. So we hear a small 11)snippet of a song and we think, “Ah, yes, that’s the song it comes from.” The other type of thing that we call a hook is, I think, what actually 12)reels you in, what actually makes you sit up and take notice.
John Harris (Music critic): It’s almost like a doorbell ringing or a car horn or something.
Moore: It can be a particular sound quality. It can be a particular note.
Harris: I mean, there’s something 13)relentless about them. They sort of crush you into 14)submission, but you’re quite pleased to sort of give in.
The Golden Three Minutes
Levine: There are certain rules that you need to stick to. There’s no point in having a 15-minute guitar solo[独奏] at the front of a pop record. No one is ever going to play it. You need to come in fairly quickly and state the message.
Guv Chambers (Songwriter/producer): One of the first things…when you’ve started writing something and you’ve put it onto pro tools, computer, one of the first things you say is: “How long is it?”
John Altman (Arranger): You know you’re going to have your intro[即introduction，前奏], a couple of verses[唱词，主歌], the chorus[合唱，副歌], another verse, maybe a bridge[过门，间奏],
a chorus and then out, and there’s your three minutes.
Chambers: If it is longer than four minutes, it’s probably saying...it’s not saying clearly enough and it’s…there’s too much fat in there and you’ve got to take that fat out.
’Cause the world hasn’t got time to listen to a four-minute song.
Story-telling Lyrics
Niles: A lyric needs to speak in language that everyone can understand. But that is not to say that it has to use the same language that everybody else uses.
Fly: And sometimes it’s the most simple, 15)emotive, obvious things that you can put into a song that make them work.
Some lyrics succeed because they tell us something powerful about our life and times.
Fly: With lyrics, somebody kind of sneaks in through the back door and has a way of saying something. It really kind of…it might sum up that kind of three months while the record’s out; it might sum up that year.
Levine: Pop music often becomes the soundtrack to people’s lives, and, so, when you hear that song, it’s like a photograph. It immediately gives you those images straight back again.
But some of the most memorable lyrical lines don’t actually seem to mean anything at all.
Niles: Sometimes a song just needs that break from constantly listening to somebody’s words, and that’s the genius thing about a chant[有节奏的重复曲子] like that. That…it, it starts out by annoying you. But then it gets into your brain and you kinda want to go with it. And you know, when we sing along as, as ordinary human beings to songs, a lot of times we don’t know the lyrics but we…we like the melodies, so we…that’s what we sing “na, na, na, na, na,” you know.
Perfect Arrangement
Niles: The producer/arranger do[es] one job, which is to put the picture in a frame. There are at least maybe 30 or 40 16)viable pop ways to arrange any 17)decent song, all of which will work. But which will work best? And which really will connect to the most people?
Throughout pop history, arrangers have taken 18)vital creative decisions that have been 19)crucial to a song’s success.
Altman: There is a sort of code of, of what instruments are and what they do that you can sort of 20)fall back on as an arranger or a composer.
And choosing the right instrument can gift a song with its signature sound. Many memorable hooks have been created by arrangers, not songwriters.
Plus：The Power of Difference
When you have a fundamental set of principals of rules to the structure of a…
of a basic song, there’s nothing more enjoyable than breaking them. And a classic example of that lies in Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
Fly: It’s kind of 21)nonsensical, isn’t it? And yet it makes a lot of sense. It makes all the sense in the world.
Altman: That is not a classically structured pop song. So there are always 22)maverick songs that, that suddenly leap out from the pack.
What makes Bohemian Rhapsody such a successful song is it does 23)genuinely break all the 24)preceding rules. It 25)rips up the blueprint and creates its own new structure, which is a kind of anti-structure in itself, because you never quite know what’s going to happen next.
一首优秀的流行曲讲述的是人类的故事。它吸引我们的注意力，长期驻留在人们的记忆中。流行曲让我们想随之歌唱起舞，也能将我们带到另一个时空。
马丁・弗莱(作曲家)：流行曲就像……那是一个不一样的国度，一个不一样的地方，一个尽善尽美的幻想之地。
那么，创作一首大热单曲到底需要什么元素呢？
“必杀调”
史蒂夫・莱文(音乐编排)：对一张流行专辑来说，有许多明确的要求你一定要做到，因为关键在于，这张专辑会放到电台监制的桌子上，如果你不能在几秒钟里让他怦然心动，他就会在唱片堆里找下一张专辑。
优秀的作曲家和音乐制作人善于引起听众的注意，他们会用微妙但有效的办法吸引我们。最基本的方法就是一段“必杀调”。
说起旋律，大多数流行乐作曲家都同意“简单就是美”这种说法。
尼克・英格曼(音乐编排)：这些曲子大多很简单，音域也不广。造成这样的原因部分是歌手的技艺，部分是一般人对曲子的接受度，人们不喜欢太复杂的音乐。
理查德・奈尔斯(指挥)：人类的大脑有特定的运作方式。我们既不喜欢沉闷无聊，又不喜欢被不断涌入的资讯弄得烦扰不堪；因此，在这两者之间找到平衡就是成功秘笈。
一首流行曲之所以成功，其中很重要的一点就是它能马上抓住你的注意力。而“阿巴合唱团”之所以伟大，就在于他们的旋律让人记忆犹新，那令人难忘的乐旨会一直留在你的脑中。这种旋律叫做“引子”，正如其字面含义那样，它能在你的脑子里生根。
艾伦・摩尔(流行乐教授)：引子有两种。一种类似于速记。我们听见一首曲子的片段就会想：“啊，没错，那旋律就是从这首曲子里来的。”另外一种我们称之为“引子”的旋律，我想，能把你带进其中，让你不禁坐起来，用心聆听。
约翰・哈里斯(乐评人)：那差不多就像门铃响了，或是汽车在鸣喇叭之类。
摩尔：可以是某种音质，也可以是某个音符。
哈里斯：我的意思是，这种旋律会无情地冲击着听众，有点儿逼你屈服的味道，但你也乐在其中，甘愿被它折服。
黄金三分钟
莱文：（在音乐创作中，）有些规矩你一定要遵守。在唱片开头来一段15分钟的吉他独奏没有任何意义。没有人会这样做。你必须迅速进入正题，开篇明义。
格夫・钱伯斯(作曲家/制作人)：首先要做的一件事是……当你开始作曲，准备将它放到专业机器或者电脑上进行制作时，你首先要做的一件事就是问问
自己：“这曲子有多长？”
约翰・奥尔特曼(音乐编排)：你知道自己要安排一段前奏、几段主歌、副歌、另一段主歌，或许还有过门、副歌，然后结束――这就是你的三分钟。
钱伯斯：如果曲子超过四分钟，那大概就是……也就是说曲子没表达清楚，
它……里面有多余脂肪，你得把这些多余脂肪拿掉，因为人们没有时间听四分钟长的曲子。
会讲故事的歌词
奈尔斯：歌词要使用人人都能听懂的语言，但这并不意味着歌词非得用人人都在用的语言方式。
弗莱：有些时候，正是那些最简单、最真挚、最显而易见的东西，填上这样的歌词，曲子就能成功。
有些歌词能成功是因为它们很有力地阐述了我们的时代和生活。
弗莱：在歌词当中，仿佛有人悄悄从后门溜了进来，对你讲出一些道理。那确实有点儿……它或许总结了唱片发行后三个月的生活百态，又或许总结了那整整一年。
莱文：流行曲常常会成为人们生活的背景音乐。所以，当你听见那首歌，它就像一张老照片，马上将昔日的情景呈现在你眼前。
然而，某些最让人难忘的歌词似乎根本没有任何含义。
奈尔斯：有时，一首成功的曲子需要的不过是让听众免于一直听别人说话，那正是这种重复调调的天才之处。那样……一开始，它让你感到不胜其烦；但这旋律渐渐潜入你的脑子，你不禁想跟着它唱起来。你知道，我们这些人跟着哼歌时，很多时候我们根本不知道歌词但……我们就是喜欢这个旋律，所以我们……这就是我们跟着唱“啦啦啦啦啦”的原因，你知道。
完美编曲
奈尔斯：音乐制作人（音乐编排）要做的事情就是将***片用合适的相框装裱起来。任何一首不错的曲子都有至少三四十种可行的流行乐编排方式，全都能编出好音乐。但（问题在于）到底哪一种方式最合适？哪一种方式能引起最多人的共鸣？
在流行乐史上，音乐编排的重大创意决定对一首歌曲的成功与否至关
重要。
奥尔特曼：音乐编排有一套类似于密码的东西，例如用什么乐器，不同乐器有什么效果等，这样你编曲或者作曲时就有理可依。
选择合适的乐器可以赋予歌曲标志性的声音。许多人们记忆犹新的引子并不是作曲家的杰作，而是音乐编排的功劳。
加分：与众不同的威力
当你掌握了一套基础的歌曲结构定律之后，没有什么比打破框框更让人快乐了。而这种做法的一个典型例子就是皇后乐队的《波西米亚狂想曲》。
弗莱：这有点荒诞不经，对吧？但它也很有道理，它能说明世上一切问题。
奥尔特曼：它不是一首具有典型结构的流行曲。所以，总是有那么一些与众不同的歌曲……它们会忽然突围而出。
《波西米亚狂想曲》如此成功的原因就在于它真正打破了所有之前提及的规则定律。它毁掉了原有的蓝***，创造出乐曲本身的新结构――也就是反结构，因为你永远不知道下一刻会听到什么。
以下为本文涉及的部分经典流行曲，感兴趣的同学不妨在网上找来听听，回头再听一遍讲解，两相对照能加深对文章的理解哦!
Push the Button The Sugababes
Valerie The Zutons
I Can’t Get Next To You The Temptations
Dry Your Eyes The Streets
Town Called Malice The Jam
Two Tribes Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Can’t Get You Outta My Head Kylie Minogue
Golden Brown The Stranglers
Baker Street Gerry Rafferty
Bohemian Rhapsody Queen