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One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

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Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#31

Post by nemothekid »

zaidf wrote: post #10

Does anyone know what's the equivelent in rap? Can I assume most mainstream rappers(Kanye, Wiz, 50 Cent etc.) heavily contribute to their own lyrics? I'm particularly curious about Eminem.

Even if "ghostwriting" was a common thing in rap, I doubt anyone would consider anyone other than Eminem wrote his lyrics. His style has always been very unique and complex - and hardly ever imitated well.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#32

Post by busterarm »

zaidf wrote: post #10

Does anyone know what's the equivelent in rap? Can I assume most mainstream rappers(Kanye, Wiz, 50 Cent etc.) heavily contribute to their own lyrics? I'm particularly curious about Eminem.

There are a handful of known ghostwriters in hiphop (who've even used ghostwriters themselves like Nas and Mase)... Sauce Money, Jay-Z, Eminem, Rakim, Pharoah Monch, Royce Da 5'9, Smitty, Skillz, TI, Cardan, but it's so taboo that most times you'll never know.

It's far more commonly known that people buy beats from producers.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#33

Post by jamesbritt »

WalterBright wrote: post #6

Reminds me of the Monkees. In the early days, the studio hired the best songwriters to write the tunes for them. After a while, the Monkees rebelled and insisted they could write their own songs. And the Monkees pretty much ceased to exist. Pretty much the same story for David Cassidy.

To be fair, Mike Nesmith did write a hit song, but it was a big seller ("Different Drum") for the Stone Ponys.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#34

Post by tbrock »

zaidf wrote: post #10

Does anyone know what's the equivelent in rap? Can I assume most mainstream rappers(Kanye, Wiz, 50 Cent etc.) heavily contribute to their own lyrics? I'm particularly curious about Eminem.

It's Scott Storch[1]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Storch

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#35

Post by joelrunyon »

swombat wrote: post #9

"Every major pop song" seems like a bit of an overstatement. He's clearly very good at finding the sound that sells - but there are many successful songs (even just in the genre of "pop") not written by him...

You missed the "virtually" in front of every. That dramatically changes the context & meaning of the sentence.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#36

Post by tedks »

swombat wrote: post #18
tedks wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that. There's also a market for black tar heroin, nuclear missiles, drones, slaves, and so on. >Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field. Is pop music a good thing for the world? (It obviously isn't as bad as any of the things I listed above to avoid claims of hyp…

Are you seriously comparing pop music to heroin and slaves???

Sure. Heroin and slaves are really, really bad. Pop music is just mildly bad. That's a comparison.

The point I intended to make is that there are markets for everything.

I don't even think pop music is that bad, but being successful in a marketplace is never cause alone for accolades. Blindly worshipping people who are successful at some business venture blinds us to the ethics of whatever they're doing. Success shouldn't disable critical thinking.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#37

Post by pronoiac »

When someone close to me had kids, I came close to loading up an iPod with all of Weird Al's music, so that they would hear his versions first, and they would think that he was the prime musical force of the past 30 years. I didn't follow through, though I regret that sometimes.

Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.

#39

Post by icegreentea »

tedks wrote: post #17
joelrunyon wrote: post #14

I don't understand all the hate. Okay I get we don't have a lot of backstreet boy or Britney fans here (not one either) & I get the whole "pop music sounds the same lament, but at the same time, there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that. Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field.

>there's a market for it & he's excelled at creating something that sells that. There's also a market for black tar heroin, nuclear missiles, drones, slaves, and so on. >Just because it's pop music doesn't mean you can't give the guy credit for understanding his market & dominating his field. Is pop music a good thing for the world? (It obviously isn't as bad as any of the things I listed above to avoid claims of hyp…

Addressing your point directly, is pop music a good thing? Well, is music a good thing? I think yes. What makes pop music different from non-pop music? Probably something about ease of consumption. Does ease of consumption effect what makes music good? Possibly to a degree. I think its fair to say that pop music is more disposable, and also far less likely to challenge the listener - and that sometimes challenge is good.

That said, it still brings all sorts of benefits of music, and the sheer popularity of pop music makes the shared experience so much broader and possibly more powerful. So in balance, maybe pop music isn't -the best- type of music for people to listen to. But I don't really think it's -bad-. We can't really expect for everyone to wish to be challenged in all their activities and all the experiences they consume.

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