The Short Version

The Short Version Song-poem music is a scam in which innocent people are deceived into paying to have a poem or song lyric they've written set to a tune and recorded. Although the song-poem company suggests in its promotional literature that it will support the finished recording, and that it therefore has a chance to become a smash hit, in reality once the record is completed and returned to the customer it is quickly forgotten about, in favor of the location and seduction of new victims.

Song-poem companies profit by doing volume business, and so must create a literal factory of music, with the songs being shuttled from melody-writing to fabrication on an assembly-line basis. It is the aesthetic clashes between the work of the amateur and often graceless lyricists and that of the professional studio personnel forced to work too hastily that sparks song-poem music's unique pleasures. The genre has a long and colorful history, much of which is imparted throughout this website.