This week, a very old recording industry tradition took center stage. We’re talking, of course, about the answer song.
Answer records are songs that “answer” a previous recording by a different artist, sometimes directly addressing a specific incident, other times playing off its themes. The novelty has been around for decades, crossing over from blues to R&b to country to hip-hop, and often is an answer by one gender to another.
The trick originally was designed to capture the sales momentum of the original song. Rarely has it achieved equal success, but certainly gave fans and the industry something to latch onto in the wake of a hit.
For example, the 1963 song by Andrea Carroll, It Hurts To Be Sixteen, was the answer record to Neil Sedaka’s Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen. In this case, sales-savvy Sedaka wrote the melody to both, using different lyricists to convey the differing perspectives.
Answer records are songs that “answer” a previous recording by a different artist, sometimes directly addressing a specific incident, other times playing off its themes. The novelty has been around for decades, crossing over from blues to R&b to country to hip-hop, and often is an answer by one gender to another.
The trick originally was designed to capture the sales momentum of the original song. Rarely has it achieved equal success, but certainly gave fans and the industry something to latch onto in the wake of a hit.
For example, the 1963 song by Andrea Carroll, It Hurts To Be Sixteen, was the answer record to Neil Sedaka’s Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen. In this case, sales-savvy Sedaka wrote the melody to both, using different lyricists to convey the differing perspectives.
- 1/23/2021
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
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