Before continuing, I need to make the usual disclaimers, I can't postulate to be an expert - only talk about the strategies I apply myself in the hunt for a career. So I might be very wrong, but have to take my chances. Maybe I should do this before every post, but I think it's kind of redundant when posting in a forum on the Internet.

"What rule says that songs have to be cowritten?"

Knowing that others has a lot more clout to say this, I think that must be a rule of sociological probability :-) No rules without exceptions, but we're talking general strategies for getting a major cut here, and not neccesarily just Nashville.

The music vip's are very few in Denmark as well, so if you want to get ahead, cowriting is just as good a strategy here.

Are you saying it's easier in Scotland?

"Quality" is just a popular buzz-word, and every contender fight over it. It's a premise for everything of this that the songs are commercially competitive, and in that perspective quality for Britney Spears, Taj Mahal and Kenny Rogers are very different beasts.

Back in the days, the word "quality" was singular and reserved for fine art, usually meaning the tastes of the dominant classes. Today the plural pragmatic meaning of 'quality' prevails, meaning if the song works and match the artists/ labels needs at a particular time and gets commercial success, it has the right "qualities". Discussing "quality" in the same sentence of commercial songwriting, just undermines the discussion, because of this.

Im talking commercial songwriting, not poetic justice.