In the movie Hot Tub Time Machine and in the trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine 2 one of the main characters lives out the time travel fantasy of performing hit songs of artists that haven’t been released yet. In HTTM1 they perform a Black Eyed Peas song at a ski resort in the 80s and in HTTM2 one of the main characters releases a Lisa Loeb song on his own.
So, if given the opportunity to go back in time how difficult would it be to reproduce any of the future songs that are still bouncing around in your head?
If you have no musical background? If you have a musical background? If you have unlimited amounts of resources?
Say it’s 1995 and I want to get famous with my reproduction of Pharell’s Happy? Or Golddigger, Party Rock, Thriftshop, Gangnam Style, etc.
Could I hire some song writers, singers, and musicians then hum the melody and some remembered lyrics and produce a hit?
Or would it be incredibly difficult?
One way to test this could be to get a few musicians to agree to go into seclusion for a few months (maybe a year or two), with no internet access, no phone, no CD of the week, strictly censored mail (written text only, no discussion of music) etc. Maybe put them on an island in the Arctic Ocean or something. That should prevent them from even hearing new tunes. After the time is up, send in a few casual music fans who have heard the latest stuff and see if the fans can “teach” the songs/tunes to the musicians.
Of course it’s impossible to know, it’d be all circumstantial. But one thing I’d find more interesting is how would the artist who should’ve/would’ve wrote and performed the song react upon hearing it years earlier? Would it strike some weird, uncanny cord within them, if say, Kurt Cobain heard Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1987?
Chuck? Chuck, it’s Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you’re looking for? Well, listen to this!
If you can play the piano reasonably well, and carry a tune, seems like it should be pretty easy. I have no musical talent at all, and yet I can remember most of the details of the songs I really like – not just melody and lyrics, but pretty much the whole arrangement – which instruments come in where, harmonies, bass line, etc. I don’t see why conveying all of that to a real musician should be a problem.
The hard part would be getting someone (with access to all the resources needed to create a hit record) to take the time to listen to you.
What percentage of the songs would even be hits?
A lot of hits rely on a combination of luck, quality of performance, and, of course, a ton of marketing.
Stuck in there is a need for the song to resonate with an audience ready to hear it, and for the song to be matched up with the right performer.
Why’s the song gotta be bouncing around in your head? Just take a laptop (or MP3 player) loaded with songs back in time with you, hook up with some musicians, and ask them to reproduce the songs you play for them. They’ll be gettin paid too, so not like they have reason to rat out your shenanigans to the Time Variance Authority.
You could always write the lyrics (and tune if you know how to write music) and copyright them. Once the song is a hit, ask for compensation. If you could show a 1962 copyright on “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band” word for word, who wouldn’t believe the Beatles had stolen it.
Something like that happens in Harry Turtledove’s story “Hindsight” in which a time traveler to the late 40s (or so) is publishing science fiction plagiarized from the future (and some stories ripped from tomorrow’s headlines (like “Watergate”)), only to get caught out when one of the authors being plagiarized has a draft of the story from well before the copier submitted it.