Song City: Two Writers for Every Performer

How many performers and songwriters does it take to create a recording? For those who grew up in era dominated by bands, there are two common answers to this question. The first is that a band will contain more performers than writers. The Beatles, the Clash and the Smiths are examples of four-piece bands that had songwriting duos at their core. The Who, the Kinks and Oasis are bands who had solitary writers. The other answer is that the performers and the writers are coterminous. The Doors, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, U2, REM and Elbow are examples of bands that split songwriting credits equally between their performer members.

            Neither of these methods is currently in vogue. This is, in part, because bands are a dying breed, at least when it comes to mainstream success. Instead, it is solo performers who dominate the singles charts. These artists sometimes come together in collaboration or for battles, as signalled by the terms ‘ft.’ and ‘vs.’ that litter performer credits. The charts also feature duos, trios and some girl groups. There are, however, very few ‘traditional’ groups who play recognisable instruments. The other phenomenon is that there are now very few artists who write their songs on their own. They instead work in conjunction with producers and with professional songwriting teams.

We can witness both trends by looking at the Top 40 selling recordings in Britain in 2016. 12 of the songs were by solo singers acting alone. 11 more were by singers working in conjunction with producers/DJs/EDM acts, and one of these acts worked with a three-piece funk band. One was by two singers collaborating. Four were by singers working in conjunction with rappers. One was by a rapper working alone. One was by a four-piece girl group, another by a five-piece girl group working with a rapper. Five were by producers/DJs/EDM acts working without guest vocalists. One was by a four-piece dance-rock band, another by a four-piece pop-soul band. Finally, there was one song by an old-fashioned guitar, bass and drums indie/rock band: Coldplay’s ‘Hymn for the Weekend’.  Overall, the average number of credited artists on a hit record was 2.4. If you takeaway all the ft. and vs. artists this drops to 1.75.

In contrast, the average number of writers per recording was 4.6. Only three of the songs were written entirely by outsiders. This appears to be an old idea, as two of these three songs were cover versions. Shawn Mendes ‘Stitches’ was the only recently composed song in the Top 40 for which the artist did not receive a songwriters’ share. Conversely, only four of the songs were self-contained, i.e. the artists received no help from outside writers. Mike Posner wrote his hit ‘I Took a Pill in Ibiza’ alone; Gnash and Olivia O’Brien co-wrote ‘I Hate U, I Love U’; and Tyler Joseph of Twenty One Pilots wrote their two big hits. Notably, the four members of Coldplay did not write their song on their own; they required help from five other songwriters. The reason why they are the only ‘old-fashioned’ band in these charts is because they move with the times.

Overall, six of the songs featured the artist(s) composing in conjunction with one extra writer; seven songs featured the artist(s) plus two writers; four songs featured the artist(s) plus three writers; seven songs featured the artist(s) plus four writers; two songs featured the artist(s) plus five writers; five songs featured the artist(s) plus six writers; one song featured the artists plus seven writers; and one song - ‘Let Me Love You’ by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber – was composed by the artists plus nine other songwriters. What is more, this plethora of credits cannot be put down to sampling. Only two of the songs have obvious composer credits for sampled works, and there are two more that might feature sampled writers.

            What does this all mean? Well, as my previous blog entry indicated, the money continues to be in the publishing. This economic bias accounts for the massed ranks of writers and for the growing number of solo performers. It also means that to achieve a top-selling song you have to move amongst the elite. You need to find professional songwriters to write with and you need to find successful artists to collaborate with. The digital age was supposed to bring with it a new wave of independence. Within popular music we have instead witnessed the growth of an internet jet set.

The Collaborators

I have written an article titled, ‘A Great Friggin’ Swindle? Sex Pistols, School Kids and 1979’, which is due to appear in Popular Music and Society towards the end of this year. 1979 was the year of the Sex Pistols’ greatest chart success. They had their biggest selling single in the UK (‘Something Else’ / ‘Friggin’ in the Riggin’) as well as three top 40 albums. It was also the year of their demise. Johnny Rotten had left in 1978, but effected the end of the group by taking his old manager, Malcolm McLaren, to court in February 1979. This was also the month in which Sid Vicious died.

            Rotten and McLaren fell out badly. In the song ‘Low Life’, Rotten refers to McLaren as an ‘egomaniac traitor’. In the film The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle, McLaren calls Rotten a ‘collaborator’. In his view, Rotten had stopped fighting the record industry and had become part of the system. He was being courted by Richard Branson of Virgin Records and was accepting his advances.

            In 1979 ‘collaborator’ could only have been taken as a term of abuse. Although punk sneered at hippie values (‘we mean it, man’), it too retained a distrust of ‘the man’, particularly when he was working for a record company. In the song ‘EMI’ Rotten claims an authenticity straight from the rock textbook. He boasts that the Sex Pistols are ‘for real’ and denigrates the record company for thinking the band were just ‘faking’ or ‘money making’. He later wrote, ‘big business is very wise/I’m crossing over into enterprise’, a lyric that should not be taken at face value: Rotten critiqued the idea of ‘careering’.

            Fast-forward to today and everyone is collaborating. Hits Songs Deconstructed have published an e-book that provides a statistical analysis of the songs that reached the top 10 in America last year. Their conclusion is that ‘Above all, 2014 was about collaboration’. 59 songs made the top ten, but out of these only 12% were written by solo writers. The rest were written be teams: 20% by two writers; 19% by three writers; 8% by four writers; 5% by five writers; 10% by six writers; 5% by seven writers; and 7% by ten or more writers. What’s more, these teams work in different combinations. Max Martin, who had a composing hand in eight top 10 hits (including four number ones), worked on different songs with Dr Luke (who had four top ten hits as a writer, two of which were written with Martin, two with other composers), Cirkut (four top ten hits; two with Martin, two without), Savan Kotecha (four top ten hits, all composed with Martin), Katy Perry (three top ten hits; two with Martin, one without), Shellback (three top ten hits; two with Martin, one without), Iggy Azalea (three top ten hits; one with Martin, two without), Taylor Swift (two top ten hits, both with Martin), Sarah Hudson (two top ten hits; one with Martin, one without), and Nicki Minaj (two top ten hits; one with Martin, one without). Writers such as Ed Sheeran, Benny Blanco, Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith – each of whom had three top ten hits – cast their own collaborative nets.

            It’s tempting to say that we are discussing different sorts of collaboration here: McLaren and Rotten were talking about collaborating with the record industry, while these modern songwriters are collaborating with each other. The writers are nevertheless supporting the industry’s aims. As I have written elsewhere, collaboration gives the record companies power. It can best be organised by them – they are the matchmakers and they are the gatekeepers - or at least that’s what they claim. IFPI, the trade body that represents ‘the recording industry worldwide’, produced another of its promotional Investing in Music reports in 2014. These documents make the case for the continuing importance of record companies, stressing that artists need their support if they want to make it big. Record companies offer finance and they offer ‘a network of connections’. They can introduce you to the ‘best producers, sound engineers and session musicians in the business’; they can alert ‘other players in the industry, from songwriters to record producers’ that you have made the grade. You need to collaborate with them if you want to collaborate with others.