This podcast described the work and money that goes
into producing a top song. This podcast looks at the song “Man Down” and
explains all the work and money spent to make it the “song of the summer.” At
first we learn that the music is written and produced before Rihanna even gets
to the studio. The producers fly in the best song writers into what they
describe as a “writing camp”, or studio in a major city. Renting these studios
a day costs around $25,000 a day in this particular case. These writers and
producers team up to come up with a hit song or songs for an album in very
short time. In the case of Man Down, it only took thirteen minutes.
The next major step is having Rihanna come in as
well as a vocal specialist to coach her in how to sing to this particular song.
Finally, after the song is mastered the total cost is somewhere around $78,000
to produce this song that no one besides the people in the studio has heard.
This is where the real cost comes into play, marketing the manufactured product.
As one producer states, to make a record might take up to one million dollars
to market. The producers need to create a “craze” of the song by having it show
up everywhere and have it playing out of every music device at the same time.
This includes getting the song on iTunes top charts,
artists going on live interviews, radio plays, and even billboards and banners.
This whole marketing part is very costly and this is where some conflict comes
into play. A radio host, Paul Porter, describes how he gets the “royal
treatment” by some producers sending him Knicks tickets (I don’t know who would
even want those), weekend getaways, and even one time when he received an envelope
of $5,000 cash. This type of bribery called payola; and is in some terms “illegal”
to the government and there are some laws against it.
This is because people want to hear the real top
song today and not just the most paid for or must bribed for song of today. I
feel like this is a very important point, but I see nothing wrong with payola.
Yes, people should not be lied to what the top song right now is, but the top
song is their own opinion. Most of the time if a song that I cannot stand comes
on, I turn the radio it off; I do not have to listen to it and neither does
anyone else. One producer explains that the radio host is like a girl and you
got to “treat her right.” If the producer wants to use payola as a way to influence
the playing of their song, I think it is perfectly legal because the radio host
knows in the back of their mind if they play a terrible song all the time(Any
Nicki Minaj music) there will be fewer and fewer listeners. 
In the end, the podcast explains that the song Man
Down in the end cost around $1.25 million. Rihanna sold over 1.3 million albums
which that song was featured on as well as other songs that were produced at
that writing camp. This was a smart investment in the long run, but if it was
not for the album, the song as a single would not have been worth it because
the profit margin was unsure.
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