On Writing Songs For Other Artists

Singers and songwriters have long been individual roles, and together, they create complete and powerful works of musical art; works otherwise not possible without the two collaborators coming together. But the self-actualized, autonomous singer-songwriter that has sharpened both crafts of singing and writing with a clear and consistent message and intention is a special kind of power. The music that came out of the 1960s and 70s (the hippie movement) showcased the seemingly miraculous ability of empowered-artists to move and activate a population; true evidence that music can override and disrupt societal-construct and institutional propaganda and programming that keep a society compliant. During this time, a collection of individuals (a la Mitchell, Hendrix, Dylan, Joplin, Lennon, etc) exploded on to the scene. They were more than poster children for good vibes and long hair. Armed with words and the voice to sing them in a way that reached the mass populace, this collection of artists (singer-songwriters) were causing real and positive shifts in collective consciousness. It is my belief that, while witnessing this shift in motion, the music industry (a faction of global power) made conscious efforts to split the artist from the songwriter to keep any one individual from becoming powerful enough to move those populations in a positive manner. Foremostly, in a direction away from control and programming. This agenda-driven initiative of disconnecting the voice from the visionary not only makes it exceedingly difficult for a powerful, clear message to land on a commercially backed record, it also creates more capital for the stakeholders involved. If a song’s artist is also the song’s songwriter, that one person takes publishing and master royalties, then only that one person, plus their camp of stakeholders, (manager, label, publisher) get to split 100% of the song’s royalty revenue. Whereas if a song has an artist and a separate, additional person as a songwriter, an entire second camp is now in on the royalty flow: the financial entities connected to that song is doubled. Instead of four entities: artist and their manager, label, publisher, you now have eight entities, the artist and their satellites, and the songwriter and their manager, label and publisher. That's double the extraction attached to the same source. With the onset of digital technology, creating a distributable record (producing a song) became a reality for anyone who can afford the now-cheap gear and has the time and effort to dedicate to producing the record. While this dissolution of the barrier to entry affected studios and producers, it also, over time and with the onset of social media, allowed artists to sing and record their own songs fully autonomously, though that autonomy can also be an echo chamber, and I speak from experience. Now, I'm seeing two things happen: At the top of the charts, I'm seeing almost no artist as the sole writer on their songs. This is not new, it’s just compounded. What is relatively new, however, is the sheer number of songwriters on every single song on the charts, which supports my “creates more capital” argument from earlier. Then, at the opposite end of the industry spectrum, in the amateur/social media sphere, you've got self produced or DIY artists who want to—or think that just because they can, they should—sing the songs they write. That’s great for personal empowerment, but a lot of the time, the songwriting is so niche (or plain bad) that it’s not commercially viable and leads to a lot of good voices wasted on bad songs or dissolved into the void of social media algorithms. This page is intended to give those voices a fighting chance to be heard and to be validated, while contributing to the greater good of society.