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Comment by bredren | Hacker News Reader

Marketing doesn't make a song listenable. Musicians do.

The success of this single is not due to the marketing or "mystery" this article suggests. The success of this single is due to the contributions of legendary recording artist AND producer Nile Rodgers, who has written dozens of break out singles including:

Good Times - Chic

We are Family - Sister Sledge

Let's Dance - David Bowie

Material Girl - Madonna

If you listen to this album, it does not have hit songs except for Get lucky. Almost all marketing focused on this single, because it was the only good track.

Learn more about Nile Rodgers Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGUAiAxpu3E

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"If you listen to this album, it does not have hit songs except for Get lucky"

That's really not saying much because most of the tracks are intentionally constructed to be unfriendly to Top 40 radio; e.g. the end of Contact.

"The success of this single is due to the contributions of legendary recording artist AND producer Nile Rodgers"

Nile Rodgers is a legendary producer but Get Lucky was produced by Daft Punk like every other track on RAM. How confident in their production are they? They used legendary producer Giorgio Moroder only for his (non-musical) vocals. The whole album would have come off as a huge act of hubris if it came out and only had one good track.

"it was the only good track."

Opinions are like children -- we often like our own more than other people's. Instant Crush and Contact are great tracks. Better than Get Lucky? I don't know how you graph track quality. The entire album is good though.

Lose Yourself to Dance is one of the weaker songs on the album but more radio friendly and so I think it's going to be the second single which is a disappointment because it isn't very good next to Get Lucky.

This album was a huge let down. They made this big hoopla about how it was 'so expensive to make' because of the amazing talent like Julian Casablancas they brought into the studio, and they made something no one wanted to listen to. The sales tell part of the story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/random-access-memor...

And they tell some of the rest of it:

"The thing we can ask ourselves at some point is like: We're making music for 20 years. How many bands and acts do you have that are still making good music after 20 years? It always sucks - almost always, you know?"

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo concluded: "So our new album is supposed to really suck." http://www.mtv.co.uk/news/daft-punk/381428-daft-punk-new-alb...

When it comes down to it they squandered amazing talent like Julian Casablancas, Pharell and Nile Rodgers to give history lessons on electronic music. The album would have been better if it had been released as a mixtape with no marketing at all.

Instant Crush is one of my favorite songs in recent years, for what it's worth. The chorus is just absolutely meticulously well engineered and well performed. Couldn't stop listening to it for days, along with Doin' It Right.

Musicians make a song listenable, but not necessarily a hit. There are many artists out there who write music that is as good (or sometimes better) as that written by artists who make it, and who will remain mostly unknown outside a circle of dedicated followers. If success depended on good music alone, they would be better known than they are. I guess there is more than one reason for this, image and marketing are just two.

Here, the journalist writes that "[Daft Punk] opted for their own small-scale marketing strategy", having billboards popping up all over the world and TV spots doesn't sound at all like a small-scale operation to me, just creative. I assume that a lot of recording artists out there would love to have access to such small-scale marketing strategy.

But that's just me, and what do I know?

>> "Here, the journalist writes that "[Daft Punk] opted for their own small-scale marketing strategy", having billboards popping up all over the world and TV spots doesn't sound at all like a small-scale operation to me, just creative. I assume that a lot of recording artists out there would love to have access to such small-scale marketing strategy."

I think the journalist means it's small compared to the huge marketing operation a record label would usually put in place for this kind of release.

How is this not a huge marketing operation? It's the biggest campaign I've seen for reveral years.

Yes, the rest of the album is a sort of primer on the elements of disco and that track is the example of what happens when you put all the elements; hooks, beats, bridges, vocals and feelings together.

I expect that in a couple of years, people who obsessively listened to this album in an analytic manner will be producing the chart-topping hits.

Spot on.

You hire Nile Rodgers to help write a disco tune and this is what you get. A very catchy disco tune.

I thought this article was going to be how Daft Punk assembled their music, not their social media marketing strategy.

Without marketing, potentially breakout hit songs fly under the radar. I'm pretty sure it happens more often than you think. If memory serves, the work of both La Roux and Ed Sheeran ("The A Team") didn't become popular in the USA until a year or two after the songs in question were released. If that can happen, I have no difficulty believing other songs are simply never "discovered"- which is something marketing helps address.

In summary, musicians make music "listenable"- but marketers make music "discoverable".

A recent documentary about Bowie, "Five Years" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2013/22/david-bowi...) covers some of his work with Rodgers.

Basically it was Bowie looking to get a mainstream hit. Which he did, and the Serious Moonlight tour ended up far larger than expected.

Pharrell doesn't hurt its success either.

When did Niles Rodgers last produce a breakout hit? I too am of the opinion that the success of the song had more to do with the music than the marketing in this case... but I dont think picking to work with a 'washed up' 70s & 80s producer was an obvious no brainer.

This dude just survived cancer. He is not washed up.

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