Interesting article on the making of Eminem's The Monster song and how the industry is "balls crazy"

Story Behind Eminen’s “Monster” More Proof Music Industry is Balls Crazy
Posted by Nathan S. on 01/08/14 | Filed under Top Stories, Opinion, Eminem



I've gone over this before, most deeply with Dr. Dre producer Dawuan Parker, but the biggest lesson I've learned as I've moved beyond this here keyboard and started getting the occasional peak into how the music industry works, is that it's completely balls crazy.

Before I started hearing stories from artists, songwriters and producers, I assumed the flow between a song being written and landing on an album was a carefully constructed, deliberate process. Producer A gets in the studio with Artist A, Artist A selects the song for their album, all the paperwork and legal **** gets worked out, marketing plans are developed, and then the album drops. And to be sure, that does occasionally happen, but most of the time? Not even close. The music industry essentially operates on some MacGyver **** - billion dollar labels are essentially held together by rubberbands and paper clips.

Case in point, Eminem and Rihanna's mega-uber smash ****, "Monster", which has already sold well over two million copies and will go down as one of, if not the, biggest hits of Em's stellar career.




You'd think a song like that would have been the product of months of coordinated and careful planning, but, you guessed it, nope. Pigeons & Planes has an even more detailed breakdown (salute to them), but here's the abbreviated version of how the number-one hit came to be:

* Bebe Rexha was a struggling singer who got dropped from Island Records about three years ago (as the singer of the due Black Cards with Fall Out Boy member Pete Wentz), and after losing the deal she struggled with depression. She and Jon Bellion wrote a song that channeled those struggles for Rexha's upcoming project.
* That song ending up being produced by Aalias and Frequency and sounded like this:



* The producer, Frequency, knew current Atlantic A&R, former Shady Records A&R, and Eminem's friend, Riggs Morales, and just so happened to play him the song. Morales liked the song, thought it could work for the "MMLP2" album Em was working on, and passed it along. Now everyone involved in the record starts thinking, "Sweet baby jesus, we might get a song placed on a Eminem album!"

* 10 months go by and they don't hear anything. Nothing. For essentially a whole ******g year it's just this. Imagine having to wait that long knowing that your life may be changed forever..or, you know....not at all and everything will be exactly the same.


* Bellion's lawyer hear's a rumor that Rihanna is recording with Em, then Rihanna tweets, "Just recorded a monster hook." They have to assume that "monster" hook is a reference to their song, and Rihanna would sound good on the hook, so maybe the song will make the album?!?!?! They wouldn't bring in Rihanna to record a hook for a song that doesn't make the album, would they? (Side note: They totally would, happens all the time.)


* A week later the album tracklist gets posted online, "Monster" made it. Celebration ensues.

So in summary, the people who wrote the biggest song on the biggest hip-hop album of the year found out the song was placed at the same time as the rest of th world VIA A TRACKLIST ON THE INTERWEBS.

That's ******g pistachios. What other business could operate like that? Imagine if you were an engineer for Ford and submitted a design for a new truck, didn't hear anything for a year, and then saw your truck for sale when you just happned to drive by dealership. Ok, so that's not really a good analogy, but that's the point. No other business could possibly work like this, where million dollar decisions like whether a single makes a mega-album happens at the last minute with almost no communication. But that's what happens when you try to marry creativity with commerce - it rarely makes logical sense.

And we're just hearing about this story becuase it actually came through. For every Bebe Rexha, there are literally hundreds of other artists who submitted material for "MMLP2", waited a year in anticipation, then has to fight off disappointment when that same tracklist dropped and their song wasn't on it.

Sweet baby jesus bless all of you who live that life, much respect to you. I don't know if I could hack the constant uncertainty; but who knows, sometimes your life really does change overnight. Just ask Bebe Rexha.


http://www.refinedhype.com/hyped/entry/story-behind-eminens-monster?noredirection=true

This past week, Eminem’s Rihanna-featuring single “The Monster” sold a massive 433,000 copies digitally, its best sales week yet, pushing its total to an impressive 2,224,000 in nine weeks. “The Monster” has been perched atop the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop songs since debuting at number one on the chart—a surprising first-time achievement for one of the world’s most popular rappers. It is already the fifth best-selling single of Eminem’s career, likely to eclipse the song right ahead of it (“Till I Collapse,” which has sold 2,813,000 copies to-date) within the next two to four weeks.

It is no secret at this point that many major hits are the product of a process often long, arduous, and expensive (as detailed in this excellent 2012 piece on top hit-makers Ester Dean and Stargate in The New Yorker and this piece about the cost of making a hit song for Rihanna on NPR’s Planet Money blog). Some readily refer to it as a sort of manufacturing, a delivering of smash singles ready made for the artists that bring them to the public and ultimately popularize them. The reality is a bit grayer as with anything artistic, no matter how plastic or popularly-minded.

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When artists and songwriters Bebe Rexha and Jon Bellion joined forces with producers Frequency and Aalias, their intention wasn’t to create Eminem’s next chart-topper.

“It wasn’t something that we originally planned,” says Rexha. “We were all just working on a great song for my project that we all loved. But it’s crazy, because I actually had one of those premonitions as I was cutting the vocals in the studio. I was like ‘This would be a great song for Eminem.’ And I remember Frequency saying something like ‘Stop it Bebe, just focus on what’s in front of you and finish the song. You’re all over the place.’”

As Bellion told XXL,“The Monster’ started out as this indie, Florence And The Machine, tribal-y, almost Spanish-esque dance record. I wrote the hook—I was just sort of mumbling over some chords, and somehow, ‘I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed’ just kind of popped out of my mouth.”
“

I just had a gut feeling that [Eminem] would relate to the spirit of the lyric, and my gut was correct.
”
–Bebe Rexha

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Initially titled “Monster Under My Bed,” the song was intended for Rexha’s own album. “Monster” was intended as an intensely personal meditation on the singer’s despondency after a failed stint on Island Records.

“I was dropped from my first record deal with Island Records 2-3 years ago and I fell into a deep depression. I felt really alone. I felt like a failure,” said Rexha. “I started seeing a therapist to help manage my anxiety and depression. This psychiatrist prescribed me all these different meds, saying that was the only way I was gonna get better. Those pill bottles sat on my drawer in my bedroom for a year. I’d stare at them every morning and fought myself on whether I should start taking them or not. I couldn’t leave the house and I’d cry for hours at a time. I was scared to be alone just incase I’d hurt myself. I was living a nightmare inside my mind.”

“I decided not to take any of the meds, instead I’d sit at home in front of my computer and write songs for 12 hours straight. Music was the only thing that got me through. When I wasn’t writing songs, I’d browse the internet for quotes that would make me feel better. I had come across a quote that went a little like this.’We stopped checking for monsters under our beds when we realized they were inside us.’ That quote really spoke to me, because of all the **** I was going through.”

“I went into the studio that day and I read it to Jon, Aalias and Frequency,” continued Rexha. “I told them what I was going on in my life and everything fell into place. The song is about accepting the fact that we are not perfect, that we are all ****** up and that’s okay. It was a breakthrough for me because I felt like I was accepting myself, my anxiety, the panic, all my flaws. It’s an anthem for the people who aren’t perfect.”

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After the song’s completion, an encounter between Frequency and Riggs Morales, a VP of A&R at Atlantic and a long-time Eminem confidant, sparked its migration from Rexha solo-song to Eminem single.

“Frequency is good friends with Riggs. Riggs would hang out at Frequency’s studio often (formerly Stadium Red in Harlem, NY), playing songs and just shooting the ****,” said Rexha. “Frequency played Riggs the song. Riggs loved the song and sent a stripped down version to Eminem. A few days later, Frequency was sending files to Eminem. That was almost a year ago. We didn’t hear from anybody on whether the song was actually happening for about 10 months. And then, finally, a track listing was released, and the rest is history.”

“My lawyer called me out of nowhere and was like, ‘I heard through the grapevine that they got Rihanna off tour for a couple of days or something to come cut the chorus,’” Bellion told HipHopDX. “I was like, ‘No way.’ Then like, two days later, I checked my Twitter and Rihanna tweeted, ‘Just recorded a monster hook for one of my favorite artists.’ I was like, ‘Damn, that could be her.’ Then I think five days later, I check the internet, [Eminem] dropped the tracklist and we all saw that it was on the album. We were just like, ‘Holy ****.’ And because it’s Rihanna, we were like, ‘Yo, maybe this can be a single or something.’”

For a further peek behind the curtain, listen to the original demo “Monster Under My Bed” below



http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2014/01/eminem-rihanna-monster-bebe-rexha-jon-bellion/

Interesting stuff. Thank for sharing. Crazy how you find out with the masses when YOUR the one who made it, doesn't make sense

i wonder what their check looks like

how does payment even work for something like this? % of revenue or is it just a specific number?

Interesting. If it was a fair world, Bebe would've been on her own song and not Rihanna. Sounded just as good if not better.