Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson are widely regarded as two of the greatest artists in the history of music: Presley as the king of rock-n-roll and Jackson the king of pop. Both had amazing voices that compelled you to sing along and get up on your feet to dance. However, there is something significantly different between the two artists, something that has been the topic of debate in the music industry for years: Jackson was known for writing his own songs, while Presley was known for passing other songwriters’ work as his own.
Some may think singing and songwriting should go hand in hand for a musical artist to be considered legitimate or true. Sure, both are very important to the business and one can’t happen without the other. However, an artist writing his or her own music shouldn’t be a standard by which talent is judged or legitimacy based.
An actor doesn’t write his or her own script. The script is written and then an actor is chosen for a part. They are to memorize the lines and deliver them on cue before a camera. The actor can take creative license to make the character they are playing his or her own by tweaking lines here and there or improvising and adding parts of themselves to the character. With each role played, the character may be different, but each will reflect the actor’s unique traits in some way.
Dancers in a company certainly do not all contribute to choreography, but nonetheless, they perform it and are credited for their performance.
Do you question the talent of an actor or dancer because their performance is not a product of their own work? No, so why is there is more artistic pressure on singers to create their own content?
At the root of any good musical artist is the ability to sing and perform well, to have the range, power, presence and ability to connect emotionally with fans. The ability to write songs is a whole other talent.
Nowadays in mainstream music, it is naïve to think that artists write their own content. There is not a demand in the industry for people to learn the skill of songwriting, and there never really was. Those who go to school for the art typically do so for singing and performing. In the business, recording labels have teams and songwriters on payroll to write songs for their signed artists. Pharrell Williams alone has written or co-written and produced Billboards Top 100 charting songs for artists such as Justin Timberlake, Brtiney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris. LL Cool J, Kellis, Nelly ,and of course several of his own. It is not as treasured a skill to have as it was during the era of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.
Now we have artists like Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Drake, Iggy Azalea, Justin Bieber and Rihanna who rank high on the charts.
Although all have written some of their own music, for most, many of their songs are collaborations and their greatest hits written by someone else, and in some cases, for someone else.
Then there are artists like Ke$ha and Taylor Swift, whose songs many think lack originality or substance. Ke$ha writes most of her own songs and before she was a solo artist she wrote for Britney Spears, Miranda Cosgrove and The Veronicas. Even after launching her own career, Ke$ha continues to write songs for other artists, including Miley Cyrus. Swifts’ many break-up, makeup-themed love songs, to no one’s surprise, are all her own. She has made it clear time and time again that those songs are inspired by past romatic relationships.
It’s great when artists can write their own music, when actors can write, direct or star in their own films and when dancers can creates and perform their own choreography, but those are all supplementary skills, ones that are not the basis of talent in these individual crafts, nor required for success. Kudos to any artist that can produce original work of quality and perform it well. They may be held in higher regard, however, they are no more legitimate than someone who doesn’t.
Photo courtesy Creative Commons.
