It has been just two days since Samantha Jade was crowned the winner of The X Factor Australia for 2012 and already her first single “What You’ve Done To Me” has reached the #1 position on the iTunes charts.
For the winner of a competition like X Factor it’s textbook for the first official release to receive a major spike in sales/downloads/curiosity listens because of the publicity machines for Channel Seven and Sony Music Australia trying to push it; p-push it real good. Sammy’s single has more than just the dubious honour of reality television show winner single going for it; the song is an example of a hit-making formula that’s regularly employed in pop music.
“What You’ve Done To Me” more than likely sounds vaguely familiar to you – which is another thing going for it: because our ears naturally enjoy ‘hooks’ (catchy melodies) and don’t necessarily like to be challenged with unusual sounds (hence the reason bands like The Books haven’t sold millions of copies) – and that’s because it is made up of a sequence of chords that just feel good and sound ‘complete’ to listeners.
Take a listen:
Pretty inoffensive and super catchy right? – Kind of like the Lady Gaga song “Edge Of Glory” which, if you sing along to the chorus of “What You’ve Done To Me”, fits almost perfectly within the chords.
… or “Firework” by Katy Perry:
Actually, if you slow it down a bit, the breakdown before the chorus sounds exactly like part of the verse in “Unpretty” by TLC:
But no big deal. This is pop music after all, the genre in which, for aeons, the same riffs and melodic sequences have been rehashed time and time again (right Delta!?) and will continue to be. Same goes for the blues. Basically, to stand apart from other artists before her, Samantha Jade is going to need more than just a catchy hit bound for Pump class to ‘make it’ in the industry. I would suggest starting with new artwork for the record cover that is designed by someone other than a grade 9 student studying CD mockups in ‘Graphics’.
