Great NYer profile of another pop hit lyricist & production team:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/03/26/120326fa_fact_...
One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
61–70 of 119 posts
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#62When 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.
When I was a lad, I didn't understand that some of Weird Al's songs were just funny. I though that, for every Weird Al, there was a corresponding pop song. The best part is, even though I was wrong, I still sometimes hear a song and think "Oh. That one was a parody, huh."
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#63Earlier 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…
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 g…
I'd offer in counter point that pop music normalizing some of the most base human behaviors in ease to digest packages is actually bad for us, and outweighs the benefits you propose.
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#64Does 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.
That's just silly. Most rappers write their lyrics. You don't become a rapper by buying ghostwritten lyrics, at least in the overwhelming majority of cases.
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#65It's extremely difficult to write a great melody, much less produce a great song. While I don't often listen to his tracks for "fun", I have to give him that he's a great songwriter. Same with Diane Warren.
I agree.
Very few people can come up with catchy tune on consistent basis.
He reminds me of a prolific young Japanese orchestra-style music composer Sawano Hiroyuki who has written some terrific soundtrack for TV, though I'd consider him many level above Max Martin.
Just a few of his work.
http://youtu.be/GiL5_FCbstk?t=19s
(my personal favorite)
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#66I wonder why people find this surprising. This is how pop music has always been done and it even used to be more in the open. Bands/singers didn't have to get people to (ghost)write songs/lyrics for them - they used to just be performers. Many of the important names are on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductees_of_the_Songwriters_Ha... and a really obvious example is a guy like Paul Williams http://en.wiki…
Also, this list of names are the ones that are lucky.
At the low end of things, some songwriters end up selling their songs completely to the label and don't keep songwriting credit or royalties and those end up getting attributed to an artist or producer.
Go dig for names of people who write incidental music for TV shows (especially soap operas) and you'll find people who ghost wrote songs for major rock bands where no one will ever know about it. It's something I wouldn't have even known about myself had I not worked with a guy that did just that.
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#67Does 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.
Eminem's style and lyrics are all mostly personal. You can tell from how his lyrics mirror his lifestyle that much of it is written personally. On the flip side, Dr Dre is known to have his lyrics ghostwritten & is primarily known for his production skills.
The other most well known non-writing rapper is Puff Daddy, famous for the line "Don't worry if I write rhymes, I write checks." I wonder who actually wrote that line...
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#68You would also be shocked by how many pop songs Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic has written.
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#69Many of us on Hacker News dislike pop music. And there are good reasons to do so, but its popularity alone should not be one. I like to remind myself some of the greatest music in the world was once pop music. For example, J. S. Bach used to perform at the Café Zimmerman in Leipzig[1]. Could you imagine going into a coffeehouse and listening to Bach playing a Teleman concerto? Or a flute concerto of his own? Now, I'm…
Well, I do hate -- Max Martin and other slimy pop makes it embarrassing to be Swedish. :-)
At least there is Meshuggah and other good Swedish stuff to be proud of. And yes, some of that is pop.
Re: One Man Has Written Virtually Every Major Pop Song Of The Last 20 Years.
#70I wonder why people find this surprising. This is how pop music has always been done and it even used to be more in the open. Bands/singers didn't have to get people to (ghost)write songs/lyrics for them - they used to just be performers. Many of the important names are on this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductees_of_the_Songwriters_Ha... and a really obvious example is a guy like Paul Williams http://en.wiki…
I don't think this is really "ghostwriting" for the most part - the credits are usually in the open, the writers just don't get much publicity.