Blinding Lights: The Art of the Hook
The #1 Billboard Hot 100 Song of the 21st Century
Download this eBook to uncover
the hooks that made 'Blinding Lights' a record-breaking hit!
What Hit Songwriters & Producers Are Saying About Hit Songs Deconstructed
"I can't stress enough how important HSD is to any serious professional hit songwriter."
Hilton Wright II
Record Producer/Songwriter, Billboard #1 RIAA Platinum & Gold winning songwriter & producer, (Drake, Mike Posner, black•𝘪𝘴𝘩)
"As a songwriter, an important part of my job is to analyze what works in successful songs. By identifying the tools that were employed in hits, writers can incorporate them into their own songs--using techniques that have proven successful--while putting their own spin and unique creative angle on them. HSD does the research for me."
Jason Blume
Songwriter w/50 million album sales
"Even though I’ve been writing professionally for over ten years, I’ve found several nuggets of gold that have improved my writing already."
Roy Stride
Hit Songwriter, Producer, Artist, One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer, Scouting for Girls
"Spot on with the analysis and relevant to any composer, songwriter, or producer in the game now.”
Dr. O
Producer, Young M.A., Chris Brown, Lil Wayne
"I was blown away by the Max Martin Hits masterclass. So thorough and insightful - a great blend of theory and art."
Amy Sky
Recording Artist, Songwriter, Producer, 3x SOCAN-winning singer-songwriter
"I’m going on 40 years of working with top-level artists and you have made me understand even better all the things I’ve learned over the years working with them.
Thanks much for all you do."
Khaliq Glover
Grammy Award Winning Recording Engineer (We Are the World, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera),
What Industry Executives Are Saying About Hit Songs Deconstructed
"ASCAP aims to provide members with a multifaceted toolchest to augment their craft and their careers. Hit Songs Deconstructed is a cutting-edge service that can support our members' creative process with in-depth data and analysis of current songwriting techniques."
Nick Lehman
Chief Strategy & Digital Officer, ASCAP
"I find the site VERY valuable. I’m a fan."
Eric Hurt
VP, A&R Publishing / Nashville at EMPIRE
"Hit Songs Deconstructed reveals so much detail about things you might never have noticed before in hit songs, but are right in front of you. They go beyond identifying what works and explain WHY it works."
Jem Aswad
Executive Editor, Music at Variety
What Leading Popular Music Programs Are Saying About Hit Songs Deconstructed
“I have been giving hit record analysis exercises to my students for years, but the level of depth in a single Hit Songs Deconstructed report is a full semester’s worth of information. My entire thought process as a producer, an engineer, a musician, and a songwriter are fleshed out in the pages of the HSD reports. It is such a great tool that I’m integrating it into the songwriting and music production curriculums.”
"Prince" Charles Alexander
Grammy Award winning producer, audio engineer, recording artist and professor, Music Production and Engineering, Berklee College of Music
"The depth, detail and level of care that Hit Songs Deconstructed exercises in their song analysis is something I want my students to aspire to. I am using their analysis techniques as a benchmark for them to apply when analyzing songs, their compositional analytics to keep them in tune with what’s happening now, and the quarterly trend reports to keep them up to speed with who the key industry players are. Additionally, it’s a huge time-saver when it comes to prepping for classes. I can pick any compositional variable in the database based on what I’m going to be discussing in a lecture and easily find examples of current hits."
Chris Sampson
Founding Director, Popular Music Program, USC Thornton School of Music
"Hit Songs Deconstructed is a great teaching tool and an extremely valuable resource for my songwriting students. We’ve made it an integral part of the songwriting curriculum at MTSU and I’m thrilled to say that Middle Tennessee State University is at the forefront of songwriting education as a result of this partnership."
Odie Blackmon
Middle Tennessee State University, Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University Lecturer of Music, Award Winning Hit Songwriter
What does a Hit Songs Deconstructed Subscription Include?
Hit Song Deconstructions
A Library of 60+ Hit Songs Deconstructed Reports
The Hit Song Deconstructed reports provide unparalleled analysis of today's hits.
Each deconstruction breaks down a current hit to its foundational building blocks and pulls back the curtain on the patterns and science behind how the song was written, produced and arranged.
Leaving no stone unturned, everything is presented in a clear and concise manner and is complimented with unique Hit Songs Deconstructed visualizations that can be used to assess your own songs for strengths and weaknesses as well.
Among them are the HSD melodic parts tables and graphs, rhyme scheme tables, narrative structure tables, energy graphs, and more.
Each report is published in ten segments every two weeks, and analyzes structure, genres and sub-genre fusion, instruments and arrangement, energy and dynamics, vocal melody, vocal production, lyrics, and rhymes. The last segment features a top 10 benchmark and highlights the most important report takeaways.
By reading these deconstructions, you'll become privy to the same tools and techniques today's hitmakers are using.
The insight you'll gain will take your craft to the next level, guaranteed.
Downloadable DAWs
A visual roadmap for understanding how today's hits are arranged.
Every Hit Song Deconstruction includes a downloadable DAW project (Logic).
Using empty MIDI regions to visualize the instrumental arrangement, energy, vocal melody and production, structure, select techniques and more, these DAW projects provide you with a visual roadmap for understanding how today’s hits were effectively arranged.
By watching as you listen, you will gain valuable insight into the strategic decisions today’s hitmakers made to help prime their songs for maximum impact, giving you a host of new tools, techniques, and ideas to help take your own songs to the next level.
Fuel Your Inspiration with a Library of 100+ Hit Song Techniques
Hit-Scope: A Searchable Library of Songwriting Techniques
Fuel your inspiration with the techniques that helped today’s most successful songs become global hits!
This extensive collection houses examples of the most effective techniques found in Hot 100 top 10 hits spanning various genres.
Every Tuesday, you’ll receive an expertly curated technique that has been deconstructed by the Hit Songs Deconstructed team to study. Each technique is accompanied by a detailed explanation, visual aids, and audio clips revealing the what, the why, and the how behind them.
It's the perfect way to continuously hone your craft and incorporate techniques from current chart-toppers into your own music.
Techniques include: Hook Techniques, Intro Techniques, Outro Techniques, Duet/Group Lead Vocal Structure Techniques, Audience Participation Moment Techniques, Energy Techniques, Section Impact Accentuator Techniques, Sub-Genre Fusion Techniques, Chorus Vocal Structure Techniques, Departure Section Techniques, Prosody Techniques, and Rhyme Techniques (with more technique categories to come!)
Hit Song Search
200+ filters to find the exact song you are looking for with the click of a button.
Need reference tracks? Mix and match 200+ compositional filters to find Hot 100 Top 10 songs with very specific compositional characteristics.
In addition, this tool can be used to:
- See how your song stacks up against proven hits with similar compositional characteristics
- Get insight for ways to take your song to the next level and/or give it a unique spin
- Understand the space you are looking to compete in
- Or simply get inspired!
Search Filters include:
Unlike AI-Powered analytics, each song is manually analyzed and every data point is vetted in accordance with HSD's proprietary methodologies for accuracy.
Compositional Analytics
Round out your toolbox with songwriting analytics for today's most successful songs.
Looking for insight into what today's hits have in common? Or want to spot trends on the rise, or in decline? Or need to back up gut feelings with factual data?
This powerful, fully interactive database provides you with critical insight into how the current musical landscape is evolving with valuable, real-time intelligence on the compositional characteristics of the songs that land in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Hundreds of different searches keep you in tune with what’s driving the Hot 100 Top 10 at the compositional level. Trends are visualized with graphs and tables with each data point linking to a list of the corresponding songs.
Search for trends pertaining to primary genres, sub-genres/influences, instruments, lead vocals (gender, vocal delivery, etc.), lyrics (lyrical theme, title placement and appearances, etc.), song structure (key, tempo, song length, song form, etc.), song sections (intro characteristics, first chorus occurrence, post-chorus types, etc.), and much more.
Save your most important searches to your dashboard for easy access!
Benchmark Tool
Compare and contrast compositional characteristics across songs, artists, songwriters, producers and labels.
This powerful tool gives you the ability to compare and contrast any of the compositional characteristics in The Immersion Database across songs, artists, songwriters, producers and labels.
- Gain insight into a specific body of work of a particular artist, songwriter, producer or label
- Understand what compositional characteristics a select group of songs have in common
- Discover how songs stand out from the pack by going against the grain
- Make targeted pitches by researching what creates the signature sound of a particular artist, producer, or songwriter
Trend searches include number of songs in the Top 10, weeks in the Top 10, trends for featured artist, genre breakdown, team size, and more.
Searches can be filtered in a multitude of ways including by date range, primary genre, peak chart position, among others.
All search results include links to the corresponding songs and profile pages.
Artist, Songwriter, Producer and Label Database
Stay in tune with the artists, writers, producers, and labels behind today’s hits and the trends behind them.
Every artist, songwriter, producer and label has its own personal profile detailing which artists, songwriters, producers and labels they’ve collaborated with, their compositional profile, charting information and a link to their Twitter and Instagram pages.
Hit Songs Deconstructed Trend Reports
The State of the Hot 100 Top 10 Delivered to Your Inbox
Today’s hits are changing faster than ever, from the songwriting and production techniques used to craft them to the influences and instruments shaping their sound. To stay ahead of the curve, it's critical to proactively stay on top of what's driving today’s most successful songs at the compositional level. The Hit Songs Deconstructed trend reports deliver an easy-to-digest snapshot of the trends driving the Hot 100 top 10.
A deconstruction of the most recent quarter's new arrivals, and how they differ from the songs that carried over from the previous quarter.
This report delivers an in-depth look at trends for all the compositional categories we track, including primary genres, sub-genres, lead vocals, lyrical themes, instruments, key, tempo, song length, song structure, and much more.
A deconstruction of the compositional characteristics that are unique to #1 hits.
A deconstruction of the compositional characteristics that are unique to songs that chart for 10+ weeks in the top 10..
Don't Miss this Chance to Gain Access to this Powerful Suite of Tools for Just $1 a Day!
For just $1 a day you can empower yourself with cutting-edge tools that support your creative process and help you take your craft to new heights.