What comes first The Beat or the lyrics?

Answer 1

The beat is way more important than the lyrics-- if anything the vocals are the least important part of any song.

<3 Luv Clo

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Generally speaking I, respectfully, could not disagree more with the statement above.

Well... wait a minute... I suppose it depends on the music genre.

With R&B and rap you could argue that the beat is the most important- and in fact, that IS how those genres of music are made. They lay down the beat first and then record tracks on top of that.

A singer-songwriter might play a chord progression and sing over it.

I've read four books on songwriting which give examples of hit songs and show how they use the principles given in the book to be successful.

If we are talking about all the other music out there, besides rap and r&b, the melody that goes along with the lyrics is the most important part of the song- and is the part that makes the song memorable... assuming that the songwriter first understands the basics of songwriting and is writing an actual song based on established song structures like "Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus" for example- as opposed to writing a poem that is vague, doesn't tell a story, has no structure and doesn't build to a climax and release like a song must.