111–120 of 363 posts
LMAO why dont they sing themselves? Sorry as it seems the lyrics are nothing without the artist performing it, just letters in your notes.
It feels like in order to have this conversation intelligently, we all need to me on the same page about how royalties work, and the difference in royalty types (at least mechanical vs performance royalties).
Are pop songs inherently valuable? Artistically they're not usually interesting but in the market sense, would people listen to them without the massive marketing push? I strongly support distribution of profits in the relation to the value being created. While it is absolutely possible, even commonplace, for organizations to exploit their workers and other smaller orgs, I also suspect that value in "hit" songs is cr…
Plenty of interesting music flies under the radar. Even without the massive marketing push some artists get, the same artists would still rise to the top producing familiar song structures the average listener can recognize.
Who's taking claim for WAP?
Several people, all listed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAP_(song) . The song has topped numerous charts, for instance Pitchfork and Rolling Stone's best song of 2020. Why wouldn't they want to take credit?
It seems as though this is not a well understood issue from reading the comments here. This isn’t artists doing interviews and saying “I wrote this”. The problem is that the artists are bullying their way into getting points for the song writing credits (publishing royalties) when they had little(change a word in the lyrics) or no input into the song. I fully support artists getting as much of the live performance/me…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
With these types of "manufactured" performance groups I don't think there's any question that they are not composers. The Lady Gaga case (she promotes herself as a composer / guitarist / pianist) is much more of an intentional mislead, in my opinion.
Lady Gaga has chops and is a real artist. This is a video of her performing an original composition in college: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM51qOpwcIM
A lot of people seem to be taking a legalistic or moralistic view on this. Along the lines of "copyright works like this" or "people should get credit for what they do". The economic view would be something like: - There's a pie to be split, often beforehand. Some players are in better negotiating positions than others. Sadly, if you don't know a lot of performers, you'll have a hard time getting a bigger slice from…
Heretofore there's been a gentleman's agreement about writing credits which benefited the artist, and that's largely been enforced by the reality that artists (and publishers) need writers less than writers need them.
But, what does a pop artist in the 21st century need more than anything in order to succeed? Their image on social media. The underlying threat here is the class issues, and the tactical deployment of the gig economy (song writers driving Ubers) was not accidental.
When the word "exploitation" starts getting thrown around, and comparisons to how black artists were treated in the early years of the music industry start getting made, the pressure on artists and their representation will grow, and the dynamics of the contract process will change. That's what the writers are hoping will happen, anyway.
It seems as though this is not a well understood issue from reading the comments here. This isn’t artists doing interviews and saying “I wrote this”. The problem is that the artists are bullying their way into getting points for the song writing credits (publishing royalties) when they had little(change a word in the lyrics) or no input into the song. I fully support artists getting as much of the live performance/me…
This parallels my entire experience with comp-sci and "group" projects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know what he's about. He's just a boring old culture warrior who has to inject his personal politics into every situation while simultaneously decrying how everything is now political.
Or it’s a joke
I don't think there's a reason that doesn't circle back to my original assessment of the guy.
The music business has been massively "democratized" last few decades. Now anyone can record high quality music at home. Anyone can self publish their music for the world to enjoy. Both were unthinkable a few decades ago. But there are still a few gatekeepers, and gatekeepers will usually charge for opening their gate. Why wouldn't they? A megastar can choose to record any of dozens of equally good songs. Whoever the…
I don't think this is actually true, at least if you define "good" as "likely to be a hit". There's a reason top pop performers go for songs written by songwriters with a proven track record, the most famous of which is perhaps Max Martin. Not anyone can write (and produce) songs that consistently appeal to whatever the public preferences of the day are. And no one wants to take unnecessary risks.