[Lewton]

> (just to be clear, for a typical length pop song, writing it in an hour is _remarkably, exceptionally fast_).

I think you'd find that the vast majority of pop hits are written fairly quickly. Yes producing, recording, finishing a pop song, adding everything that makes a pop song.. pop... can take a long time. But the actual writing is literally just

1. Get an idea

2. put it into the standard pop song structure

Especially for someone like Pharrell who has probably written a hundred songs or so.

It's by no means _remarkably, exceptionally fast_.

Edit:

Look at the way Notch writes code. Yes okay, we could call it remarkably fast. But he does it consistently. It's not a surprise when he finishes a game during a game jam.

Just as I do not find it surprising that one of the most accomplished songwriters of his generation writes a song in an hour

[stolio]

You may underestimate him, Pharell's probably written well over a thousand songs. He has 59 songs with wikipedia pages!

You're absolutely right about people writing fast though. Even Bob Dylan wrote some of his songs in under 20 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pharrell_Williams_song...

[gd1]

Sia supposedly wrote Rihanna's Diamonds in 14 minutes.

[Lewton]

also Nickelback - How You Remind Me was written in 15

[hawkice]

Okay, at some point this counts as improvised. We're talking about lyrics, percussion, bass guitar and other instruments (at least in the case of Blurred Lines, where the writing of the lyrics and instrumental tracks were what was in question). Assuming you have only two hands/ears with which to write/play with the sound of, that's writing at nearly 1/2 the speed it is performed (and could be considered near-live writing if you aren't da Vinci'ing it).

[Lewton]

He doesn't write the chorus four times :P

[msg]

This and parent form a pretty backhanded compliment to 15 minute songwriting!

Depending on your feelings about the songs, of course.

Diamonds makes me cringe.