The new Netflix reality series Hitmakers takes viewers inside songwriters’ camps, where top songwriters get together to collaborate and write songs they hope will become pop hits. They’re under time constraints, and are often asked to work with people they’ve never worked with before. And while the interpersonal strife seems to be what the main thrust of this series is, we’re here for the music that comes out of these pressure-filled sessions.
Opening Shot: “Behind every hit song is the person who wrote it,” says some of the participants in Hitmakers as we see scenes from hit music videos from Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus and others.
The Gist: In Hitmakers, twelve top songwriters in both the pop and country genres attend three different writers’ camps — the Bahamas, Nashville and Cabo San Lucas — where they will collaborate in smaller groups and try to come up with songs that can sell to top recording artists. In this case, the artists they will writing for are John Legend, Shaboozey, Lisa and Usher.
In the first episode, the initial group of songwriters land in the Bahamas, with the goal of selling a song to Legend. The initial group consists of Harv, Ben Johnson (the only country writer in the group), songwriting couple Stephen Kirk and Jenna Andrews, Whitney Phillips, Sevyn Streeter, Nova Wav (the team of Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu June” Andrews), Tommy Brown and Trey Campbell.
They all stay together in a luxury house, to foster camaraderie, but it is definitely a competitive atmosphere, and the pressure is on to write a hit during the next day’s songwriting session. When they get to the massive studio space nearby the next day, they split into three different teams, and have six hours to write a song and record a demo to be heard at the listening party that evening. Eventually, they will pitch the best song they wrote to Legend, and he will pick which one he wants to record.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hitmakers feels like The Real World, only with songwriters.
Our Take: We couldn’t put our fingers on exactly why Hitmakers felt so contrived to us, but it did. It’s not like songwriters’ camps don’t exist, and it’s not like the idea that the writers who attend them are tasked with coming up with songs in a limited period of time. But something about how this particular series of camps are structured make us wonder if things happen this way when there aren’t cameras around.
Yes, we get the sense of camaraderie and collaboration — and the idea that restraints and deadlines foster creativity — that these camps are trying to develop. But it felt like most of the participants were spewing “I’m not here to make friends” kind of talk, mentioning how cutthroat things are and how competitive the atmosphere at the camp is going to be. More than one songwriter talks about coming out on top by selling a song, as if there are “winners” and “losers” in a reality competition.
But here’s the thing: These are all talented songwriters and producers, all of whom who have written songs for A-list recording artists. All of them except Campbell (as he points out repeatedly) have penned a chart-topping song. Is there really a need to be competitive with each other? Do these writers need to feel that competitiveness to do their best work? It belies how we always imagined songwriting was done, with someone noodling on a guitar or piano, jotting down lyrics, and sometimes waking up with entire songs in their heads.
But what got to us more is that we’re not sure if Hitmakers is a music series or a reality soap. Is it about writing hit songs or is it about the clashing personalities as they go through the three camps? Even though there doesn’t seem to be any eliminations, new people join the group as they move from camp to camp, ostensibly to throw off the established group dynamic. The scenes from the upcoming season indicate that it’ll be more about personality conflicts than about songwriting.
Then again, watching these groups try to come up with something in the recording studio isn’t exactly scintillating television, unless, like we saw with the temper-challenged Stephen Kirk, something goes wrong. Perhaps the producers sensed this and decided to concentrate on the personalities in the final edit. We’re not sure.
What we do know is that the songs that come out of these sessions are pretty good, especially given the time constraints. It shows just how talented these people are, and that they can perform when under a quick deadline. If we can see more of this as the series goes forward, the show will be fun to watch.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Everyone celebrates the success of the first full day after hearing the songs that came out of the day’s sessions.
Sleeper Star: Ben Johnson is the only writer for country artists in this group, and he managed to bring some melody and chuch-choir vibes to the song he collaborated on in the first session.
Most Pilot-y Line: Tommy jokes around at dinner and says, “I’m not dating until I get married.” He thinks he should have an arranged marriage.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re on board with Hitmakers because of the music that’s being produced in these camps. The interpersonal stuff may drive the drama, but it’s much less interesting to us in this context.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.