What does it take to be a real songwriter? I mean a true artist leaving timeless material for the next generations, someone who truly bleeds his/her heart out on the music page and writes songs that will always be relevant for the human condition. How ambitious is that?
If you look at the current pop princesses, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Adele, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Shakira, Beyonce and current pop heartthrobs, Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, the One Direction kids… how many really deserve the title of artists? Probably none, I would say. First of all, very few of them actually write their own songs, they co-write songs at the best, but what does it mean exactly? They contributed to a few lines? A few parts of the melody? At the end of it, they are just performers, like Rihanna, Beyonce or Britney Spears who work with many writers and get all the fame and glory.
I don’t want to diminish the role and power of ‘just’ being a performer, but it is absolutely not the same thing than writing lyrics, composing music and recording the song! But I see it coming, some of you are gonna say, and so what? Being a performer is being an artist, Elvis Presley never wrote a song and he was a very important artist … yes sure, but, for me, it has never been the same thing, very few of these young girls can be compared to a Joni Mitchell, a Rickie Lee Jones, or a Bob Dylan, and not enough distinction is made about this in our society, as many people receive the same status without being at the same level of artistry.
As a matter of fact, they resent it, Presley insisted to get some songwriting credit even though he hadn’t written any of the songs, and there is a controversy surrounding Beyonce’s songwriting credits as she is listed first as a songwriter and a producer for many of the songs off ‘4’, whereas these songs existed long before she had gotten them! A few articles explain this scandalous appropriation, as Beyonce is apparently credited for many songs she hasn't written at all! This not only proves she is dishonest and a thief, but that she feels she will only be recognized as a true artist if she is a writer!
But what about the exceptions, the Taylor Swift types who are writing most of their songs alone – even thought they still may get some help on some. They are regarded as true artists, but are they? I still have reservations,… Aren’t most Taylor Swift’s songs super calculated? Is she even revealing something about herself in all these songs, or aren’t all her singles built to please her audience and become hit songs selling as if we were in 1990? I mean nobody buys music anymore, but some of these girls still manage to sell millions.
Idealistically, a true artist should not even co-write a song, the song is his/her own and unique voice and something is lost in a collaboration, McCartney and Lennon being an obvious exception, but I am not talking about bands here. I am talking about these types of ‘collaborations’ we see all the time in the music business, with a few skilled writers writing all the hits behind the scene for a major star. They are skilled because they know the recipe for a hit maker-crowd pleaser, they have done it many times and it works. We just have to wonder, how many people are behind the success of Taylor Swift or Lana Del Rey who also claims to write/co-write her songs? There are actually two other persons' names (Max Martin and Shellback) before Swift’s own name for the credits of her successful tune ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’.
But even if some songwriters write most of their songs, which ones are really making a connection with an adult audience through their lyrics? Very few, and certainly not the pop princesses already named who mostly have an audience of adolescents.
True artists are the ones who aren’t afraid to dig very deep into themselves to reveal something about the world. For that, they accept to take risks, and they aren't the ones who are running after the perfect pop song, since perfection is not the point in this process. Even the most humble ones produce art with greater plans, universal and timeless ones. As Roland Barthes wrote ‘we know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author’, I know I may sound like a snob, but how many songwriters are successful at this? Only the greatest… Current successful songwriters are too concerned about themselves, and their very own break up stories; they are not ready to die for the survival of their art, as they are too concerned by themselves and their own fame.