Does Writing Pop Make Me a Sell Out?

The most ubiquitous feature of the overly-processed, plastic pop music that dominates radio today would have to be the hook. Not only must the main chorus quickly grab the listener, but now you need hook-y ad libs in the intro, hook-laden verses, and a hookish bridge to boot or else, well, people just won’t latch onto - and thus buy - your product.

After all, in a ringtone-driven market full of consumers with the attention span of a spastic gnat, a catchy hook is money, and money is what powers the machine.

However, there are those of us who do not court the attention of Top 40 program directors. We are a niche-y bunch of weirdos, and we like it that way. We like to think we create music to make art, not a product. Within this community of “conscious” musicians, there has come to be a stigma around using hooks, and any musician that uses them is often considered a sell out.

Is it true that hooks are “too mainstream” for all of the crunchy ones that are too ‘woke’ to listen to top 40?

I think not!

Over the years, I have written many songs, some that were very hook-centric, some with little semblance of concrete melody at all, let alone a hook, and everything in between.

I like that freedom.

True art is free expression. If a hook wants in, I choose to be the clear, non-judging vessels that allows it to come through. I like to let Baby Songs become what they want to be, while still remaining true to my core identity as an artist.

I don’t believe hooks are all evil minions of pop culture looking to capture our minds and brainwash us into singing along with beige mainstream music-like products. Actually, hooks can be sacred.

A hook is much like a chant or mantra. Chants and mantras are meant to be repeated over and over, and are catchy, either in their rhythmic cadence, in their melodic quality, or both.

As you repeat a mantra or chant, not only does its catchy aspect open the doors of your mind to remember its message, it opens the doors of your heart to feeling, and opens your body to movement and dance.

A hook is an invitation to open up.

A hook is an invitation to follow.

There is sacredness in the repetition of a hook.

And, when you follow a hook you’re not spinning in a circle like a broken record in 2 dimensional space, despite the fact that it may feel like that when you’ve got an earworm!

Like so many aspects of life, a powerful hook or chant moves in a spiral.

A hook is an invitation to ride the multidimensional spiral of a song that has cyclical patterns, but that is not limited to just going in 2 dimensional loops.

Essentially, a hook is a sacred doorway.

All that being said, It’s not even about whether your music should have hooks or not. It’s about whether or not your music hooks you.

If we think music is more “woke” without hooks, or cannot qualify as “art” if it has hooks, that judgement will only serve to narrow our own reality tunnel and limit our own experience. Frankly, music is bigger than our judgements.

Rather than allowing judgement to contract our experience, it may be more fun and expansive to ask, “Why am I feeling this hook, and where is it taking me? How deep and high does the spiral go, and how far am I willing to follow it?”

I say, bring on the hooks! If they want to come through, I will allow them to live. I won’t judge them as good or bad, or too “pop” for the style and brand I have become identified with in my egoic mind. ;-)

I choose to make sounds that extend an invitation to connect, to open up, and to follow on a journey of creative expression and discovery. Isn’t that what being an artist is all about?