Hitmakers’ bland, bitchy world of songwriting

Hitmakers, Netflix’s new music series that launches on July 24, is a curious hybrid of two specific strands of the unscripted universe. It’s partly an F1: Drive To Survive-style peek behind the scenes of a niche scene — the teams of songwriters that pen Hot 100 smashes for the likes of BTS and Justin Bieber — and part Selling Sunset-style workplace reality show, in which the protagonists work and party together, falling out and sniping behind each other’s backs. Like the songs that many of these talented people churn out in a matter of hours, the result is a bland but nonetheless entertaining experience that will speak to you if you’re a regular on pop stan Twitter.

Hitmakers arrives at a time when the importance of songwriting has never been higher. Industry minds like Amy Allen (Harry Styles, Sabrina Carpenter) and Elvira Anderfjärd (Addison Rae) are adored by the fans of the artists they write for. Despite this, the mechanics of their work have always been shrouded in mystery; how does a songwriting camp work and what is everyone’s role when there are 11 names in the credits of one song? Hitmakers wants to answer that question — but how to do that without making it boring?

At the start of each episode of Hitmakers, the whole group of songwriters are challenged to write a new song for an existing superstar. John Legend sets the first test, tasking the writers to pen him a “hit” before sending them to the Bahamas to get to work. The writers have enjoyed varying levels of success but nearly all have a No.1 hit under their belt: Laid back wife guy Harv worked with Justin Bieber on “Peaches” while the calm duo Nova Wav are credited all over Beyonce’s Renaissance; they line up alongside the talented R&B artist Sevyn Streeter, “thank u next” producer Tommy Brown, Nashville songwriter Ben Johnson, and Whitney Phillips, who jokes that all her best songs are written about sex. Married couple Jenna Andrews and Stephen Kirk wrote “Butter” for BTS and are shown hosting a dinner party for the others at their new mansion, a not-so-subtle reminder of what one big hit can do for a writer’s bank balance. (They provide most of the drama in the show, both together and individually.)

On the other end of that spectrum is Trey Campbell, a talented writer and vocalist who, despite having written songs for Dua Lipa and Lola Young, reveals he’s still driving for Uber between gigs. It’s made clear early on that placing a song with a pop star isn’t necessarily lucrative unless it becomes a hit. That’s the carrot that dangles in front of them all as they break off into smaller groups and get to work, hoping that Legend will like their song the most.

Collaboration is key in the world of the songwriter, and the show recreates the writing camps that major labels finance in the hope of creating new hits for their biggest stars. As expected, some writers are more confident than others, and this gathering of alpha figures inevitably leads to clashes. Kirk, in particular, becomes a villain early on, both for the petulant way he handles a technical mishap and his tendency to cut off his wife mid-sentence.

Ironically, this might be the biggest shortfall of Hitmakers: its pursuit of the reality TV direction over a more documentary-style approach. Throughout the show, we never get to hear songwriters like Streeter, behind hits for Kelly Rowland, or Campbell talk about the juiciest specifics of their careers — How much do you actually make writing a b-tier Dua Lipa song? What does it do to your ego to be an artist and still write for others? — though plenty of time is spent on Campbell’s recent break up and Streeter’s dating life. All of this plays out in glamorous locations including Cabo and the Bahamas. Luxury porn is a tenet of these types of shows but it’s a strange decision to jet these people off to a beachside mansion to compete in a show where the action is largely confined to the windowless rooms of an anonymous recording studio.

Still, it’s that action that makes for the sharpest moments, as best seen during writing sessions for Shaboozey and BLACKPINK’s Lisa. With the group gathered in his hometown Nashville, Johnson, an affable character with credits on songs by Morgan Wallen and Jelly Roll, argues with Harv over whether to take their Shaboozey song down a more traditional or modern country route. In another group, the Nova Wav are writing lines mixing cowboy imagery with VVS diamonds, showing that playing it safe is rarely where the stickiest hits come from.

This nitty gritty of the songwriting process is where Hitmakers comes alive. It’s a little Hollywood — conveniently, nobody ever has writer’s block and hooks arrive fully formed — but hearing the largely pretty good songs appear in real time is thrilling. The group also gets remixes with the arrival of new writers to shake up the dynamics. Think of them as Love Island bombshells but with a working knowledge of how to invoice Def Jam. One of these newcomers, Ferras (Katy Perry), is great reality show fodder, showing his disdain for one song with the memorably scathing line: “My brain feels like it’s been injected with cyanide.”

Some will find this depiction of the pop world a little shallow and limited. Others will no doubt enjoy the Bravo-ification of the machine. Not everybody cares about middle eights and verse melodies, after all.