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I’ve heard Pharrell agrees with this read. From what I’ve heard, he was contracted to write a song for something and the execs kept turning him down, so in his frustration he wrote the most shallow cheerful song he could. He thought they’d recognize that and reject it to, but they loved it.

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ABasilPlant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I was surprised by this because it sounds like one of those internet stories that aren’t true, or were morphed so many times after multiple retellings. But a quick search shows me that this is completely true:

npr.org/…/pharrell-says-his-hit-happy-came-from-a…

WILLIAMS: Well, after nine times of, you know, nine nos, like, nope, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, doesn’t work, then I had to kind ask myself a rhetorical question. How do you write a song about someone that’s so happy that nothing can bring them down? I’m paraphrasing. And the song ended up being the sarcastic answer to that.

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- cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Kinda like how Sara Bareilles wrote “I’m not gonna write you a love song” in response to the execs asking her to write a love song and it was a hit. Now that I think of it, maybe this is a common excuse for artists who write corporate slop. They just blame the system for making them do it.
  
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- pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Well he didn’t mean for it to be sarcastic really
  
  Yeah, it’s sarcasm. But I didn’t realize that I was being sarcastic. It just was - like, that was just my sarcastic response to my rhetorical question. And it was just like, OK, let me just go with this. And before you knew it, it was that.
  
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- gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  oh the irony to be successful with exactly that
  
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