Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Every time I think about putting something into the game for profit, a reality like this holds me back. Between 1977 to 1993 I wrote around 200 songs. I like most of them, but that doesn't mean much. Maybe 10% of them were hit-worthy, but then there are a select few that I would stand up to most anything. Where they came from I don't really know, but they never fail, and they always surprise an audience.

Well, good for me, but why even try when vultures like this proliferate the business? Better to keep them among friends and family who appreciate them and let them pass away quietly.

Some of the best songs ever written have probably never been heard, because they weren't written out of a desire to generate cash.

The article may hint that this practice became a common thing under the Elvis' management, which to me means that it not only should have been done away with long ago, it should be illegal.

It's also weird that someone in the business hasn't approached writers and tried to get them to corner the market. After all, if the writers won't go for this rubbish, there are no stars because the Elvis' of the world can't write squat. No tunes, no career.

Maybe so. But the writers providing the songs for the artists described in that article are not exactly earthshaking. In fact, they're providing rubbish for good performers. The songs sell because they're being sold hard by savvy business people, but we all instinctively know they're trash.

Well, a massive hit can be a masterpiece of writing or rubbish as you say.

I don't like crummy songs anymore than you do. But the bottom line is, a hit is a hit and is written by writers. Writers don't get credit for what singers or bands do, or a cut of concert and recording sales as the article notes.

Yet the public thinks when Madonna puts her name down as co-writer of a song, she's a genius when she probably did nothing more than put her name down on it.

And this problem has not just been limited to singers taking advantage of writers. Norman Petty, Buddy Holly's producer, is said to have totally hosed Holly and the Crickets. He put his name down on everything that passed through his studio (and he only paid the band members, some like Jerry Allison, who did indeed write 50 percent of some of their biggest songs, pennies on the dollar when the money came in, if anything at all. According to just about everyone who delt with Petty, it was nothing at all. And Petty never opened his books in his lifetime, though he was asked to by several people.)

And then there are artists themselves who've put their names on songs they didn't write or even rearrange. Even after Jimmy Page was dragged into court by Willie Dixon's estate, for taking "You Need Love" and changing the title to "Whole Lotta Love" he left his and Plant's names on the label, for what some person in this very forum said "changing two words." Page has lately been trying to, and failing miserably, to answer who wrote "Dazed and Confused," and parts of Stairway to Heaven.

http://www.metafilter.com/63172/The-Theiving-Magpie-Jimmy-Pages-Dubious-Recording-Legacy

Valid point re: piece of the touring and merchandising pie going to songwriter as a fair exchange in naming the singer as co-writer. If the songwriters banded together and said no more song credits given unless an actual collaboration has taken place and if you don't like it then write your own song. What do you think will happen then? Perhaps a thinning of the herd? Are all song writers freelancers or are some under contract with record cos. to produce material for the label's "Artist's? Curious has to how this can be remedied.

The games people play...can't do much if "the company" will only use your tunes for a piece of the action. Write your songs...join ASCAP or BMI as writer AND publisher....

Trouble now is, through their own idiocy (i.e. shutting down Napster instead of cutting a deal with them) the major labels are now trying to get a slice of touring revenue from touring acts. Let's hope it's just the ones that put their names down on the publishing without merit. Standby for even higher ticket prices.