161–170 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.
Why don't actors just make a movie without a script? They're just words on paper. Why doesn't an orchestra just start jamming, with no score or sheet music? It's just notes on paper. Why don't construction workers show up on a jobsite and start hammering without waiting for plans? It's just lines on paper. Why don't...you get the idea.
Wow I had no idea this was taking place. It reminds me a little of the fight hollywood screenwriters have fought to get equal billing and recognition. I always assumed that the writer got the most money!
Yeah, writers have been kinda screwed. That goes for screenwriters, too, but I think they have actually done a fairly good job of standing up for themselves. The one relationship that immediately springs to mind, when I think of this type of thing, is Elton John and Bernie Taupin. I understand that they split up for a while, and that Elton John's music lost its lustre during that period. Although I like some of Elton…
I'm sure it's not as cut and dry on every song necessarily but Elton writes the music and Taupin writes the lyrics. Of course EJ performs the songs.
Neither would be what they are without the other, certainly, the same as Lennon and McCartney's solo work was great but didn't come close to their collaboration.
Anyways just want to point out EJ isn't one of the "manufactured" pop artists who had others write his songs for him. He's a true artist and musician in his own right even though Taupin is obviously hugely important to his success.
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Why don't actors just make a movie without a script? They're just words on paper. Why doesn't an orchestra just start jamming, with no score or sheet music? It's just notes on paper. Why don't construction workers show up on a jobsite and start hammering without waiting for plans? It's just lines on paper. Why don't...you get the idea.
That's not an equivalent analogy. It's the exact opposite in fact. The equivalent analogies would be: Why don't screenwriters just film their own movies? Why don't composers just form their own orchestras? Why don't architects just build their own skyscrapers? The screenwriter example should make it obvious why these song-writers' complaints are baseless. A movie filmed by amateur videographers with no editing experi…
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Is this really the true story? I see that claim a lot and it's obviously a nice story. But isn't it quite likely that they were just acting like obnoxious rock stars, and they made up the story later when they didn't like being legendary for being assholes anymore? Or are we just taking their word for it?
Everything can be a conspiracy if one tries hard enough.
If true, it is very surprising. Surely in most venues the people responsible for back stage hospitality are not the same people responsible for lighting, electrics, sound installation and stage safety? Isn't it quite likely that one of those teams would have met the requirements perfectly, and the other would have cut corners? How about the situation where extremely professional and scrupulous venues do all the important things right but resent having to sort M&Ms for overpaid stars? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Van Halen to have their own electrical inspectors who would check safety and reliability of the installation? How do other touring rock groups make sure everything is set up correctly? How did Van Halen come up with this particular canary test among all others?
Is it really that conspiratorial that an extremely famous 20 year old acted like a dick, and that at age thirty he made up a story to cover up his youthful dickishness?
So I guess the answer is no.
LMAO why dont they sing themselves? Sorry as it seems the lyrics are nothing without the artist performing it, just letters in your notes.
Why don't actors just make a movie without a script? They're just words on paper. Why doesn't an orchestra just start jamming, with no score or sheet music? It's just notes on paper. Why don't construction workers show up on a jobsite and start hammering without waiting for plans? It's just lines on paper. Why don't...you get the idea.
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…
Eh, to an extent. Audio production is a highly involved process. Few people have the equipment and knowledge to mic instruments & track sound properly, mix audio properly, apply professional-level production, master the tracks properly, master the album properly... It's not as easy as having a computer and some software.
You can get a pretty good sound at home now for sure but for professional albums you still need a decent professional studio. And even at home, getting good mics and hardware is still quite costly.
"A megastar can choose to record any of dozens of equally good songs."
There are famous or well-known (in the industry) songwriters that get chosen time and time again because they can consistently produce hits.
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I always thought the artists make token edits to the songs so they can keep up the charade of writing their own songs for marketing reasons. Someone told me "Taylor Swift writes her own songs." Sure, but when you look at the songwriters on 1989, over half of them were at least co-written by the song writer with the most #1 hits after McCartney and Lennon.
I looked this up and while some of her older hits were just credited to her, a really impressive number of them were co-written by Liz Rose, who I’ve never even heard of.
Haha. "Some". I think if we dove deeper we'll find that number shockingly close to zero.
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…
Indeed, and it goes back before Elvis. Screwing popular songwriters of their royalties has been a fixture of the music business since time immoral. From what I've read, Jelly Roll Morton's publisher added his own lyrics to Morton's instrumental tunes, to get a cut of the royalties. And it goes back before the recording industry. Before the phonograph, the "music business" was sheet music, there were "stars," and shee…
The entire system seems incredibly open to bad faith abuse.