I see so many songs with 3-5 or more listed in the credits. I always thought sometimes one person wrote music, and another wrote lyrics. Why can it take around 5 people to write a song?
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There’s also been recent court cases regarding copyright in this area looking at both the lyrical side and the music.
If your song has similarities to something previously released, then anoption is to give that artist a credit on your new work to avoid being accused of copyright breaches.
because theyre not artists. theyre a group that was put together because thats what the labels research suggested people liked and wanted. they dont have talent. theyre groups by committee.
It’s also to do with artist royalty payments. Artists get paid little bits of money each time their song is played. Often in a band (everyone in the practice room) or other types of collaboration (original songwriter passing on song, improved or changed by artist and producer) many people have different amounts of input, with the melody and vocal line carrying the most weight. So, there’s usually negotiations around how much is allocated amongst main and supplementary songwriters and all of them will be listed.
A lot of the time it’s because if you sample a song you have to credit all the songwriters of the original sample.
You sample a song that samples another song, you still have to do that. Even if the sample doesn’t contain the original sample.
An example is Drake’s Nice for What, which samples Lauren Hill’s Ex Factor. In a completely different section of that song, that samples Wu Tang Clan – It can All be So Simple. Which itself samples a cover of the Way We Were.
So you end up with every single artist and writer on that chain being credited as songwriters. Including the many members of the Wu Tang Clan. Despite the fact there is not even homeopathic traces of the Way We Were in Nice for What.
Blame, such as it is, rests with the cut-and-paste approach to popular music that has become standard over the past decade.
Back in the day, most songs stuck relatively close to the “song form” that included a chorus, verses, and a bridge, with some sort of overarching structure or motif joining it all together. One person, or a small team, would usually write the entire song.
The new hook-based approach relies more on sonic candy that is 7-10 seconds long. Take eight or so of those hooks, paste them together in various ways, slap some lyrics on top, and you are good to go.
Often those hooks are written by various distinct individuals, then shopped around until somebody decides to use them.
So you end up with eight different hook writers, plus one or more people who try to make sense of the lyrics, plus the main artist who wants a piece of the songwriting pie, plus whatever producers also have the clout to get a slice of that pie, all listed as “songwriters”.
Others have covered most of the modern pop aspect well (maybe missing a few details on the usual workflow, but you get the gist), but there’s also a few important details in retrospect: going by modern industry (nominal) standards, a whole lot of people in many decades’ worth of recorded music *should* have songwriting credits but don’t.
First there’s the more obvious thing which is ghostwriters. Their existence is an open secret, and incidentally enough they’re the reason certain film composers are seemingly so prolific (but that’s a topic for another day). And while there’s a whole can of worms as to how much you can “own” a certain bunch of notes or chord progression, deliberate interpolation/adaptation of other people’s music (and also accidental occurrences of such) is the “secret technique” many songwriters use to quickly come up with new music.
Then there’s the role of producers, hired musicians, and even fellow bandmembers. The line may get blurry as to how much is just (usually uncrefited) arrangement and how much is new composition, but that doesn’t change the fact a whole lot of music (including many parts which are subsequently treated as essential to the song, at least in the public consciousness) gets created on top of the (many times barebones) original compositions. We can get into a discussion of to whether or to what degree these rise to the legal/industry standards for “songwriting”, but most people would agree at least some do, and in fact some have successfully sued for retroactive credits.
Sometimes song writing credit is given to an inspiration for a song as well. The Olivia Rodrigo song “Good 4 u” has credit given to the lead singer of Paramore.
A lot interesting responses here. Some good, but I haven’t seen anyone suggest what I think is really going on. More people are being credited, correctly, for their work. All those old records you have with one or two songwriters listed are deceptive. Most music is a collaborative process. Sting is listed as the sole songwriter on “I’ll Be Watching You,” but Andy Summers wrote the guitar lick that Puffy sampled for “I’ll Be Missing You.” Sting gets all the money. Andy Summers get none. Producers never used to get songwriting credit, even if their contributions made songs hits. Arrangers never used to get writing credits, even if they transformed three dinky chords into a masterpiece. Drummers and bass players write parts that become major hooks and never see a penny for it. Pop music artists work with different teams when making their records. Those teams work with different artists. This has lead to a more professional attitude toward songwriting credits. If your work contributes to the songs, you get a piece. You don’t let yourself become Sting’s Andy Summers.
Even for “indie” bands it’s not uncommon to see all the band members get credited on a song.
If you borrow part of another song, whether using the beat or just repeating lyrics, the writer(s) of that song receive credit too. For example, the members of the band Right Said Fred are listed as songwriters for the song “Way 2 Sexy” by Drake, Future, and Young Thug because it references their song “I’m Too Sexy.”
Songwriters can also work in larger groups, but credits going to artists who are sampled or interpolated (especially when you can form a chain where the song being used samples from a still older song) is a common way for a bunch of names to end up on one song.
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