There is no way to say for sure what specific elements, sounds or aspects of a record make it a HIT. Yet every hit has a few key things that grab our attention and make it memorable. Reviewing a long list of hits, we find that many of the same or analogous elements work over and over, in their separate contexts, to create their charisma. Some of these have to do with the song itself, others with the way it is arranged, performed, or with the recording and production process.

Finally, some factors may work from the outside, i.e., current events, trends in society, marketing, etc.

Here’s how a song recorded in a dingy, warehouse attic on an 8-track became one of the biggest hits of the 1980's:

Eurythmics, "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This"
Lead vocal: Annie Lennox
From the album: “Sweet Dreams,” originally released 1983.
CD issued 1987: RCA CD# RCD 25447
Music and lyrics by Annie Lennox, David Stewart
Produced by David Stewart
Recorded by D. Stewart, A. Williams, and R. Crash in a London warehouse
Key: C minor
Tempo: 126 bpm
Time signature: 4/4
Key elements: Riff, mood, vocal, chorus, artist’s look, recording
Signature: Mechanistic, dehumanized, synthetic tracks; Lennox's haunting, doleful, sometimes soulful voice; grim lyrics focusing on the risks, danger, and pitfalls of life and love; the “Look”!

"Sweet Dreams" begins with its signature two-bar progression, a hypnotic loop of 1–flat-6–5. No chords: just pulsating eighth-note arpeggios sound on a reedy synthesizer patch, prowling ominously left and right. A constant quarter-note kick drum beats time, while the downbeat of each two-measure phrase is marked by a heavy, ringing floor tom or similar-sounding Brazilian sordu. Altogether, the feel is grim, mildly horrific, and definitely threatening.

Lennox's rich, soulful voice enters, dry and sibilant. In eight terse lines, she surveys mankind's dark, perverted motives. Like Martha in Edward Albee's play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," or Philip Marlowe, the protagonist of Joseph Conrad's novella, "The Heart of Darkness," Lennox pronounces that we are all jungle creatures, terrified by the eyes staring at us from the void.

The dual choruses are totally dry, stark, and devoid of emotion. In contrast, each release paints a pitiful, highly stylized picture of mankind's lot. A whiplike snare drum drives the beat while the synths prowl over a variant of the original progression.

Two soulful voices harmonize plaintive "ooh's" in deep reverb on the left, while a catlike lead vocal writhes and shouts from the depths of hell on the right. Chills creep up my spine as images of subterranean torture and abuse flash across my mind.

The bridge, announced by a momentary swish of preverb, is suddenly charged with energy. A constant sixteenth-note hi-hat spins a brittle web of tension on the left as the kick and whip-snare continue, stepping up to double-time in the final bars.

Synth chords rise through inversions of 1-minor and 4-minor chords, thicker and more harsh in each subsequent phrase. A bright, compressed piano enters on the right as a metallic, bell-like percussion jars our nerves, clanging on the left.

Over all this, two pairs of voices harmonize desperate advice from right and left. Lennox wails "Hold your head up" in breathy two-part soprano, then answers each repeat with a gravelly, baritone reading of "moving on." The track grows denser and more threatening, depicting the confusion and adversity of the world. Meanwhile the combined vocals offer their grimly positive message: persevere!

After this, the somber, mildly bluesy synth solo on the original progression seems almost cheerful by comparison. The arrangement repeats both choruses, adding a third vocal harmony, then one more bridge, with ever-thickening clouds of synths. In the final chorus, Lennox superimposes her doleful wailing as the record solemnly fades out.

Lennox and Steward revealed all sorts of personal and studio tidbits to interviewer Connor Freff Cochran for the November 1983 issue of “Musician” magazine. Their "studio" was a dingy, v-shaped warehouse attic. No acoustical tiles, no drum booth, no double-sealed glass window. They played and sang in the same room with their tape deck and mixing board, which were a TEAC half-inch 8-track [an upscale semi-pro format] and a cheap, used Soundcraft, respectively. They had two mics that they used to record everything, and for outboard processing, a handful of old effects boxes, a space echo, and one spring reverb.

"Dave and I almost split up the day we wrote 'Sweet Dreams,'" says Lennox, remembering a particularly bitter point during their between-contracts period. "I'm very negative and he's very positive. But we were having a terrible time and I couldn't take it anymore, and I said so. And he said, 'Okay, fine. You don't mind if I go ahead and program the drum computer then, do you?' I was lying on the floor, curled up in a fetal position or something, and he programmed this rhythm. It sounded so good, in the end I couldn't resist it. I sat down behind the synthesizer and fam!, the riff came. I got that and said, 'Oh, that's good,' and we put it down." And then she improvised the lyric. Into the microphone. With the tape running. What you hear when you put your stylus down in the groove is Annie's first and only take (except for the part about "hold your head up" in the chorus; that came later).

(Editor’s note: This tale was excerpted from the book "Inside The Hits" by Wayne Wadhams, available at the Berklee Press web site.)