He's the first person that popped into my head when I read the article, considering this article was about pop music. I watched a documentary about him a while back where he said that he was a co-writer or something on the song umbrella and had a non-hateful smirk comment to Brittney Spears that he had offered the song to her first but she turned it down and look at Rihanna now.
I think I remember seeing "Music & Lyrics" the Hugh Grant rom-com vehicle with my wife a few years ago. It is based on this premise of the washed up hair band lead writing songs for other pop stars.
Why stop? Do you think that when you go see them live that they're actually singing? Of course not. Even if they can sing, they don't. They're up there dancing and doing all kinds of crap that they can barely catch their breath let alone sing. It's all just a mirage. They don't write their own songs, they don't make any decisions about their career, they don't sing live (hell, most have never even performed in front of people before being signed). If you're lucky, that might be their actual voice on the record and the audio engineer might have only had to do minimal tweaking/pitch correction.
That's completely different. As an "artist", your music represents you, the way a van gouge does. That's what the fans are buying. It's false advertising to your fans. Lip syncing your own song that you've previously recorded with your own voice isn't equivalently. An equivalent would be more like Milli Vannili lip syncing someone else's voice.
It's better to think of all of these pop artists as simply performers. They are not there to create, simply look and play a certain part like someone on broadway, sing (or lip sync) and dance on stage...except w/ less talent. The crazy thing is this extends to people ghost producing for big name producers.
katy perry wrote ' i don't hook up' for kelly clarkson. I felt it was disingenuous. Here you have a chic that takes pride in kissing a girl and liking it, then she is writing about not hooking up? that ain't right. R kelly wrote some good ones.
yes. just as the MilliVanilli thing was diminished when we knew they didn't even sing the songs. what is art? if you can answer that (i don't believe there's only one answer) it should provide a clear picture of what's an artist. no disgrace in just being an entertainer.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sUzs5dlLrm0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZcXpKiY2MXE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This isn't exactly a new concept. The Monkees were like a "greatest hits" of 60's songwriters. Boyce & Hart, Carole King, Neil Diamond. Being young. sexy and wiggling your ass on stage is a separate skill set from writing a catchy song. Who would turn buy tickets to go see some morbidly obese 50 year old with too many face lifts? Its the same reason the guys on TV news generally look "good" and sound confident, while reading other people's copy.
IMO, good performers are a dime a dozen. Lots of luck involved there. It's the writers who bring the real value. Not just true for music. True for movies, true for TV's, true for everything. For TV & movies, the director does add significant value as well. I have a lot of respect for writers of all types - if I like their stuff.
This is why I consider Gloria Estefan one of the greatest "artists". She wrote and performed all of her hits. "Don't Wanna Lose You" "1-2-3" "Always Tomorrow" "Anything For You" "Can't Stay Away From You" "Coming Out of the Dark" "Here We Are" "Rhythm is Gonna Get You" "Words Get in the Way"
My thing was. . . . . if the music and artist MATTERED why not give the awards to the guys that actually sung it but they didn't because Awards are false crap like everything hollywood Rocket River
