Does It Matter?

 

Beyoncé has had a very successful career, starting with the group Destiny’s Child which rose to fame in the late 90’s, and more recently on her own with several albums as a solo artist.

However, all through her solo career there have been rumours that the songwriting credits she receives (and awards, I might add) don’t really belong to her. She began receiving those credits with Destiny’s Child, and according to the Wikipedia site: “Knowles was recognized as a songwriter during the run of Destiny’s Child in the 1990s and early to mid-2000s. She won the Songwriter of the Year award at the 2001 American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Pop Music Awards, becoming the first African-American female and second female songwriter of all time to accomplish the feat. Knowles received three songwriting credits in a single year for co-writing “Irreplaceable”, “Grillz” (“Soldier” was sampled on the song) and “Check on It”, the only woman to achieve since Carole King in 1971 and Mariah Carey in 1991. In terms of credits, she is tied with Diane Warren at third with nine number-one singles.”

That last sentence is the one that caught my eye. Tied with Diane Warren? If you are a serious songwriter, you know who Diane Warren is. If you don’t, she is probably the most prolific and successful songwriters around, receiving not just Grammy’s but also Academy and Golden Globe awards and nominations, and she has been ASCAP‘s Songwriter of the Year six times. She is not a performer, all she does is write. She is 53 years old.

Beyoncé is 28. I can appreciate that she may have shared bits and pieces of songwriting ideas with co-writers, but considering how hard she works, appearing not just in her own concerts but also on Broadway and in films, I cannot believe she has the time to write, let alone write these massive hits.

I recently found the link below, which further exacerbates the rumours. A recently-fired Sony Music (Beyoncé’s label) person apparently has confirmed that Beyoncé essentially just demands writing credits and sometimes pays the songwriters off in order to receive them. You can read the post and follow the link to the Sony letter yourself:

Lipstick Alley Link

At first I scoffed at the fact that this is a celebrity gossip site, so who can trust that? But after I read Beyoncé’s bio, I think there is probably some truth to it.

So here’s my question: does it matter? The general public won’t care too much who wrote the song. But as a songwriter, you should be concerned about this practice. This is what happened to a lot of blues artists a number of decades ago in the U.S.: the record labels would lay claim to all of their songs, and these artists who usually wrote their own songs often died in poverty while the labels made gobs of money. As a songwriter, if Beyoncé offered you a tidy sum of money for a song of yours, you’d probably be so flattered (and maybe even impressed at the amount offered!) that you would be tempted to take it. And that’s your choice.

But it’s a crappy practice. It’s dishonest and it takes advantage of those who are SO OFTEN taken advantage of by people in the music business. It’s your song, you should ALWAYS be given credit for it. It may be the last number one song you write, don’t kid yourself. Most of us aren’t Diane Warren’s who are set for life because of all of the hit songs with our names on them out there. Most of us will be lucky to see even a little success from one or two songs in our lifetime.

Demanding songwriting credits is a greedy and self-serving act, and any artist or songwriter who does it should be ashamed of themselves.

IJ

Are They The Same?

So, the story is that One Republic front man Ryan Tedder was working with Kelly Clarkson on several songs when he began to co-write with Beyonce. Beyonce’s song “Halo” was released first, and when Clarkson heard it, she was none too happy.

You can listen to both songs below. But I’ll give you my impressions.

First of all, the melodies are different and the lyrics are different. And technically speaking, lyrics and melody are the only elements you can copyright from a song. But I can certainly hear how Clarkson might be miffed. The chord progression is virtually the same, the meter and tempo are quite similar and the feel and groove are definitely the same. It’s as if the guy took the same progression to both of these ladies and they just wrote whatever came to them on top.

So the question is, did he do this intentionally? Did he realize he’d given the same basic tracks to both people? Or did he perhaps mess up and forget that he had? He denies, left, right and centre, that he gave them both the same tracks…however, even he must hear the similarities. He’s a songwriter, for pete’s sake. I’m thinking that the poor guy didn’t realize what he had done until it was too late.

I’m also thinking that neither of these two ladies is going to trust his input in future, so he has pretty much screwed himself.

Have a listen to both, and see what you think: 

Write About What You Know

As the story goes, a Halifax band called Sons of Maxwell had a week-long tour of Nebraska last year.  They flew United Airlines for a quick turn-around in Chicago and were sitting on the plane when another passenger (who didn’t know they were musicians) yelled out that they were “throwing guitars outside”.

With a sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs, the band members looked out the airplane windows to see United employees throwing a bass guitar, which they recognized as theirs.  At the end of the flight and once they had claimed their baggage, they noted that a $3500 Taylor guitar had been badly damaged.

Dave Carroll, the prime songwriter for the group, tried a number of times over a nine month period to get some kind of compensation for the damage, but his cries fell on deaf ears.  Finally, he asked himself what Michael Moore might do if he were a musician in the same situation.  What he came up with were three songs, one called “United Breaks Guitars”.  His plan was to produce videos for each one and post them on YouTube, one after the other.  The YouTube video for “United Breaks Guitars” received over 15,000 hits after only a couple of days, and finally caught the attention of United Airlines who are now ready to compensate.

Well, duh.

So, folks…the key to success is to write about what you know   Success may be fleeting, but these guys could turn all of that attention (I just saw their story show up on CNN!) into all kinds of positive things like new gigs and CD sales.  Way to go!

IJ