POP SONGS 101

First things first.

You’re going to need a beat.

A phat beat.

What does phat mean?

Don’t matter.

Also, quick side note:

When writing pop music, always make poor use of grammar.

Not doesn’t matter,

Don’t matter.

Why?

Because it’s hip.

Now back to that beat. It has to be pounding.

The bass levels have to be off the charts

If you wanna be on them charts.

Naw’m saaaaaaayyiinn?

Right.

OK.
Good.

Next up is lyrics.
All you need to know about them is that they aren't that important right now.

Don’t think too much about them.

We'll get back to that after we consider

Melody!

Melodically speaking, you want something in the key of C.

Not too many chord changes,
And not too many weird chords in general.
Keep it vanilla;

You want all the kids in middle school just learning how to play the guitar

To be able to pick this up in ten minutes,

So that he can get that girl

Or vice versa.

We don’t judge.

Speaking of,

Make sure to throw in a couple references to poorly-thought-out teenage

Cries for social justice.

Oh, don't worry.

They don't have to be intelligent commentaries.

Just make sure to make fun of Bush, or Obama,

About screwing up the country
Somehow, in some way.

Or something like that. It’ll work.

And remember to stop all the music so that it’s just your voice making of

Important person X.

Alright. Now let's move onto lyrics.

They’re a huge pain.

The trick with writing popular lyrics

Is that they either have to actually be really smart,

Or have to be drowned in so much melody that nobody pays attention to them.

As you might have guessed,

The latter is much easier.

Plus it works better.

I mean,

Just think about the amount of work it takes to actually write a song

That’s melodically interesting

And lyrically meaningful. At the same time!

I know!

Ridiculous right? Just not economically efficient!

Now,

Assuming that you’re going with the second option,

You can pretty much let your freak flag fly.

Try not to be racist or homophobic though,

Those things are a big no-no right now.

But sexism is just fine.

In fact, it might just make you sound cooler!

Treat women as things to be conquered if you are a man

(If you are a woman, talk about how much in love you are

With the bad boy, people eat that up)

Promote ideas like slut-shaming and

Tell your audience that YOU

Are the one in control. YOU

Have all of the power. YOU

Are cool and smart and funny, not them.

Remember that.

Now, I’m aware that all of this sounds very difficult.

You may think to yourself:

Nobody’s going to fall for anything this stupid!

Don't worry about it.

Your audience won't even think two whits about any of it. 

They are dumber than you think.