Customer Reviews

Breakin' into Nashville: How to Write and Sell Country Music

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Pierce provides a nice overview of two distantly related subjects - writing a good country song and the business of country music. Neither topic is developed completely, though the songwriting portion of the book is definitely more insightful and informative than the business analysis. The author briefly describes the roles played by writers, managers, publishers, labels, etc. in the country music business, but doesn't really provide the detailed information a prospective writer or artist would want or need. Royalty splits and the like are barely mentioned while the radio side of the business gets a lot of airplay. An inordinate amount of space is devoted to definitions straight out of the dictionary - yawn. The songwriting analysis of Buffet and Croce tunes is very well done, if not fascinating. The insights from various industry professionals range from useless one-paragraph postcards to very interesting multi-page interviews. All in all, a good book if you know absolutely nothing about the business of Nashville. If you want to improve your songwriting or obtain some insight on getting into the business, try some of the other titles listed above.

Being that this book was published over ten years ago, the possibility of this book being a valuable resource as a guide for musicians and songwriters wanting to break into the Nashville market is very low. The book is outdated and out of touch with today's market. The only real benefit this book gave me was a small amount of insight to chord structure, sequence, and lyric organization, all of which was only breifly discussed. If it is this information you are looking for, there are other books that cover this material in much further depth.

This is a fabulous book for understanding the fundamentals of song writing. The author does a great job of explaining meter, assonance, etc.But, the business part of the book is superfluous. Though, the book does manage to list subjects areas that one should research more in depth in order to gain an insight into their true importance.