Modern pop music is HARD

[Polkasound]

It helped, but there's no getting around her perfect diction and "schooled" performance.

Sorry for thinking that was your wife, but yes, that's what I was hearing... a schooled performance. I tend to favor enunciation, but over-enunciation can be as undesirable as cursive singing.

So yes, the next step is to find the right singer. It's actually the most important thing - far more important than all the production details I've been geeking out over. The vocal is what sells a song.

When I write a song, I either have a particular vocalist in mind and write the song to mesh with their range and style, or else I write the song first and then spend hours or even days searching for and auditioning singers to find the perfect one.

To understand today’s pop music you have to really listen to what’s out there - and happening. Then analyze and sub-analyze. Tomorrow it may be different.

Exactly. You can't just arbitrarily pick up bits here and there and get the vibe. You have to immerse yourself into today's pop music and analyze it like a WWII code breaker until you understand the language. It takes real ambition and commitment to do that.