What do the big hit songs of 2010 have in common?

Jay Frank's 'Future Hit DNA' site and book provide analytical data on what characteristics made songs become hits.

His book is WELL worth a read - you can get it here.

But, without spending a massive $10 on access to Jay's hugely insightful ideas, you can look at his report on the top 100 songs of 2010 and what common features they had...for free. Persoanlly, I think it's pretty much the best $10 you can spend to improve your chances of writing hit songs, but that's up to you!

I'm not saying that you should try to seek out a perfect formula and, of course, you should remain innovative, but it would be plain stupid to ignore the data about intro length, song length and bpm.

You might choose to not always stick to that framework but when working on something that you know is strong and has radio potential, get the fine tuning down and go for the jugular.

That’s not compromise or selling out – it’s just intelligent!

As well as checking out Jay's post, if you don't have it already, you'll benefit from the way we cover this and the way songs need to be crafted in a free eBook on our site here – http://www.makeitinmusic.com/free-ebook.

So, Jay's post:

2010 has finally wrapped up, which means it’s time to analyze the common threads of the biggest hits of the year. At the mid-year point, I looked at the Top 50. This time, I extended the analysis to the Top 100. Collectively, these 100 songs accounted for 187 million downloads and well over $200 million in revenue. These 100 titles also account for approximately 36% of all new music track sales. This means over one in three new music downloads come from these songs. Many elements that have been brewing for the last few years that are detailed in Futurehit.DNA really started to show their ability to bring success this year. Here are some of the shared traits:

Read his post and data here.