Songwriter
The pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that song writing is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed among a number of people.
Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers.
[1] The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees, college diplomas and "rock schools".
They may exclusively write lyrics or compose music alongside another artist, present songs to A&R, publishers, agents and managers for consideration.
Song pitching can be done on a songwriter's behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters.
This salary is in effect the writer's "draw", an advance on future earnings, which is paid monthly and enables them to live within a fixed budget.
[4] In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up: "I was able to concentrate on writing the whole time and have always had enough money to live on.
[5] Songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal.
[7] In modern commercial writing, it is a common practice for the musical track to be produced first without any vocal melody or lyrics.
Occasionally, the producer might choose a few lines of melodic or lyrical ideas from one top-liner without properly crediting or paying them.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys is one of the earliest and most widely known examples of a songwriter turned music producer.
[13] In solitary songwriting or sole writing, only one person is responsible in creating the entire music and lyrics of a song.
[14] A very few artists solely wrote, produced, and performed a Hot 100 number-one song such as Prince ("When Doves Cry"), Debbie Gibson ("Foolish Beat" and "Lost in Your Eyes"), Lauryn Hill ("Doo Wop (That Thing)"), Alicia Keys ("Fallin'"), and Pharrell Williams ("Happy").
Songwriting partnership can be between a composer and a lyricist (Andrew Lloyd Webber with Tim Rice, or Elton John with Bernie Taupin),[18][19] a performer and a producer (Madonna with Patrick Leonard or Mariah Carey with Walter Afanasieff),[20][21] or between bandmates (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones or Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA).
[24] Songwriting camp is a gathering of multiple producers and topliners in a pre-selected location for the purpose of writing songs for a specific artist.
[25][26][27] As one of the most successful artists in releasing many hit songs, Rihanna has been known for holding various writing camps to make her albums.
For example, Sting is credited as a co-writer alongside Todd Gaither and Faith Evans for "I'll Be Missing You" (1997) due to the sample of "Every Breath You Take" (1983), a song he solely wrote for the Police.
However, "I'll Be Missing You" did not have legal approval for the sample before its release, thus Sting sued and received 100% of the song royalties, with payments reportedly going until 2053.
