JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Industry Message Forum Iggy Azalea explains to fans about songwriting credits

I found this very interesting and I think it's a really good thing that fans understand the process of credits and the writing and production of a song. Now they know why on some pop songs there's 8 or 9 names on credits.

http://www.idolator.com/7588937/igg...riting-credits-new-album-work-little-mix

So does than mean the Janitor cleaning up the room, a guys dog and the a drunk who is sleeping it off on a couch gets part credit. They Devalue Songwriting to such a degree that it's a disgrace. We get NO respect at all.

No, I think it just means that they value collaboration to a higher degree. Remember these songs are beat and production driven and the lyrics are not as important (although they may be important to the lyric writer!).

Songwriting by committee, new concept, terrible results.

Yeah, such a new concept. This stuff has only been going on for about 15 years. The only surprise is that people are just finding out about it. By the way, most of the groups of the 50's,60's and 70's didn't play their own instruments either. Don't tell anybody.

MAB

Eh,
RELEASE ME, by Ray Price, if I'm not mistaken had 4 writers. But Hank Didn't have any Co-Writers that I know of. Funny but Webb Pierce would wait for musicians who may be on the road to come back
to play on his recordings. No wonder he put 97 Songs on the charts.I guess he was a committee of one!

Hank did not have "official" co-writers, but many who were familiar with him, claimed his publisher, Fred Rose, had a lot to do with the writing of the songs. Or very careful 'editing.'Fred had been a hit writer with big band music and standards in the 20's, 30's and into the 40's. Hank was an uneducated redneck hillbilly from Alabama (There are a lot of us from there, LOL!) and many feel Fred did the part of what today would be co-writing. Publishers at that time, (and some in this time) didn't take credit for it.

The solo written song is actually a fairly new concept and much rarer than people realize. up until the Bob Dylan era of the late 60's into the singer/songwriter era of the 70's, most songs were written by more than one person. Usually a lyricist and composer, and in the case of Broadway and musicals, usually a librettist.

Today with politics, downshifting in money in songs themselves,it usually requires more people to get a song to it's eventual destination. Many have very little to do with the actual "writing" of a song. As time has changed, the demands for credit have increased. People can complain all the want, but as usual that is not going to accomplish much.

100% of nothing is still nothing. And if it takes that to get a song from one person's mind, to the finish line of actually being a productive entity, sometimes you have to do what it takes. I recently had to include 3 other writers who didn't write a line or a note on a song. But the end result is much larger than I could have done alone, in fact, had it not been for two of the other writers I would have never even tried to write the song.
And one of the writers is the artist, so that is part of it.

And having been included on songs that I didn't have much to do with as well, has gone the other way. It all washes out.

MAB

Also that is a clever way of having to pay less for a demo. More people in on it the better I say. Not like you're gonna make a killing off it anyway eh.

Well said Marc. I was just remembering hearing that about Hank's publisher. I think at the end of the day there is nothing exceptional about writing a song. Everyone has something to say, and some degree of primal musical ability to communicate. What's exceptional is creating noise that actually moves people, whether composed by committee or the true solo-writer. I believe in this case the end is more important than the means.... and the drunk guy on the couch, or the janitor may just have that elusive hook that we were waiting for to finish the 'masterpiece'. Then again, he may just be a drunk guy on a couch:)

Cheers everyone and happy writing.

Oh, and I've kept 100% of nothing and 50% of nothing. The 50% is more fun!

-Mike D.

Em, Well,
If Fred Rose was Hank's unofficial Co-Writer we will never know, will we. I did read one time that Rose told Hank to say it, "This Way" No doubt Fred Rose was a help to Hank. And we do have that Weak, No Name Song by Fred, BLUE EYES CRYING IN THE RAIN! So all you songwriter's, Top That!

Seems Fred Rose was happy with his share of the song, which was publishing. He did not want to take part of the writers share too. Today it seems everyone wants to take the writer's share and leave him/her with nothing, not even the glory of writing the song. It's going back to the old days when songwriters got nothing and died broke while others got rich on the writers talent.

"It ain't about right it about money"

Wallace thinks it's still cool the guy had the idea.

This scene from The Wire about the person who invented Chicken Nuggets is relevant to this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq3Pf3j61c