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Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

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Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#51

Post by gmarx »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #34
bazoom42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?

You'd like to think that the music (that became popular) didn't start out that way though. You'd like to think that the Beatles were emulating their Black American heroes, writing songs that got the kids along the Reeperbahn to kick up their heels and belt a few more lagers. That it found a larger audience and caught on is what made it "pop"ular. It's art when it moves the needle of what we think "commercial" means.

Wasn't there a Beatles anecdote where Lennon says to McCartney "let's write a swimming pool!" People get good at music because they love it, but just because they love it and we love them, don't assume they aren't in it for the money.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#52

Post by Gigachad »

forevergreenyon wrote: post #37

call me old school, but it doesn't make sense to me that people get to live off the work done once, then repeated (recreated or reproduced by technology) while the 'creator' in practice whomever owns the 'licenses' continues to collect payment for what the technology does (namely: machine-based repetition/reproduction) I guess this is the way NFTs can make real sense: when whomever owns the NFT receives auto-blockcha…

Blockchain will literally never be used for this. There are such trivial fundamental issues. Imagine for example, the rights owner has their computer hacked or stolen and their NFTs are stolen. Legally, they are still the rights owner as they never agreed to transfer them. So now you are left to either ignore the blockchain record or to do the insane option of treating a thief as the rights owner.

There are seemingly no advantages to using NFTs for copyright.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#53

Post by qotgalaxy »

ryandrake wrote: post #41
manachar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Art that doesn't sell is just a storage problem." Had an artist tell me this once and it stuck with me ever since. He was referring to paintings, but has generally held for every other artistic endeavor. Looking through history art has always been commercial - it's just the audience that changes. For music, musicians who got paid used to be focused on the tastes of just the wealthiest folks who liked to go and be se…

Far be it from me to try to define art, but at some point I imagine an artist must stop and ask him/herself "Is my work an original thought? Am I telling a story here, sending a message, engaging with an idea, being provocative, being honest, making my audience feel something, or is my work... mass-produced background mall muzak? A soulless sculpture for some corporate headquarters?" Pop music has always been right i…

[dead]

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#54

Post by Gigachad »

solarmist wrote: post #12
bombolo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point of AI currently is to NOT remunerate.

Sure, but once it becomes commercially useful in creative works that will likely change.

When have we ever decided to compensate people who were automated away?

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#55

Post by Dalewyn »

AlbertCory wrote: post #45

There's a cynical saying among traditional songwriters: Change a word, get a third. In other words, they give a song to some established star, who makes trivial changes and then claims partial songwriting credit. Is that fair? I don't know. Publishing royalties are so massive that you have to expect people to try to get in on them. Robbie Robertson is notorious for claiming all the songwriting credits for The Band's…

"You made this?"

"..."

"I made this."

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#56

Post by Gigachad »

delecti wrote: post #22
solarmist wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but once it becomes commercially useful in creative works that will likely change.

I suspect the mechanism of that will be that Disney lawyers and/or lobbyists will start throwing their weight around once AI trained on Disney media is making money for someone other than Disney.

Disney IP is still safe. The tech can generate new content but it still isn’t legal to distribute.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#57

Post by refuse »

I happen to know someone in the music industry. Not huge, but you might have seen them on MTV and you've probably heard their hits.

They say modern songs get written by a huge group of songwriters in hotels. Individual words and phrases will earn credits. They go through the list of everything floating in the songwriters' heads and whittle it down on a huge whiteboard and anything put up there and put into the song gets credited. I think the phrase they used to describe it was "Shit Smoothie Song Writing."

The person I know hates this and doesn't work with these people but they know the industry, etc.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#58

Post by colanderman »

msla wrote: post #25
bazoom42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was pop music not commercial? Isn’t this basically the definition of pop music?

Exactly. That's what differentiates it from folk: Both are music of the people, but pop music was explicitly written for a commercial purpose, and it's existed in that form since before audio recording existed, as another poster mentioned.

As someone who has played in several original but not monetarily motivated pop bands, I have to somewhat disagree. If I showed up to a folk festival I'd probably be booed off the stage.

I think the more salient difference is that folk music is accessible to produce (simple, common instrumentation). Pop music is accessible to consume (catchy melodies, danceable beats). One could say these traits co-evolved with the contexts the genres serve (cultural tradition vs. commercialization).

"Folk" I think also carries the connotation of traditional instrumentation and musical style, whereas pop is allowed to evolve. I'm not sure whether there's an umbrella term for music in modern musical style with accessible modern instrumentation.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#59

Post by colanderman »

pram wrote: post #47
vouaobrasil wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are right. Though, I think the idea is that pop music has become more of an industry now than it was before, in the sense that every aspect of it is optimized and all those optimizations are pushed to the extreme over any artistic merit, far more than 30 years ago.

30 years ago we had fabricated boy bands like NSYNC.

Heck, 60 years ago we had The Monkees.

Re: Why do modern pop songs have so many credited writers?

#60

Post by andsoitis »

refuse wrote: post #57

I happen to know someone in the music industry. Not huge, but you might have seen them on MTV and you've probably heard their hits. They say modern songs get written by a huge group of songwriters in hotels. Individual words and phrases will earn credits. They go through the list of everything floating in the songwriters' heads and whittle it down on a huge whiteboard and anything put up there and put into the song g…

That process sounds easily automatable! I can’t wait for that to be unleashed so that human pop song writers can delve deeper.
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