how modern pop songwriters work

The way that music gets written is part of what it means to us, I think.

It means something that Frank Sinatra, a great singer, took the compositions of Cole Porter and Jerome Kern, great writers, and had Nelson Riddle and Axel Stordahl, great arrangers, put together big-band accompaniments for them, played by great musicians and recorded by great engineers, to create products that seem like a pinnacle of 20th-century civilization: teamwork, expertise, each person doing what that person does best.

Then again, it also means something that Dar Williams forges lyrics from her own personal experience, applies them to melodies that she comes up with, and sings them herself while accompanying herself on guitar — these complete gemlike works of art all arising from the same heart and put forth with a sincerity that can't be duplicated. People who grew up listening to the Beatles and James Taylor and Fleetwood Mac can't imagine that a song could be real if it didn't come from the soul of the person who performed it for the world. (Elvis Presley's producer went so far as to make sure that he got listed as an author for most of his songs even though he didn't write them: the illusion of authority [whose root word is, after all, "author"] is that powerful.)

And I think it means something that we're now in an era in which it's expected that the best artists will choose to sing the best songs written by the best songwriting teams: people with names like Dr. Luke, or teams with team names like Stargate. Both Dr. Luke and Stargate are responsible for zillions of dollars' worth of pop songs in the past several years.

It occurs to me, though, that the process by which these songs come to the market isn't really known by most people. It's a story worth knowing, especially because of the way that its practitioners have navigated the waters of American copyright law. As you know, a chord structure can't really be copyrighted, but a melody can, and lyrics can. An arrangement can, but it's not considered part of the composition. So, for instance, the Police's hit "Every Breath You Take" is credited to Sting, because Sting wrote the lyrics and the melody. But the creamy arpeggiating guitar part, the thing that immediately triggers our reaction to this song, was done by the guitarist Andy Summers, and he gets no songwriting credit (or royalties) for it. So, when Puff Daddy used the melody and a sample from the recording as the basis of a song in the late 90s, the resulting song is still animated by Summers's beautiful arpeggiating riff, but all the royalties go to Puff Daddy and Sting. Yuch!

In an age in which a song is known not only by its melody and lyric but by its distinct sound, maybe a prominent riff or the presence of a unique texture, this is madness. But there are ways around it.

One of the best is to agree on a credit structure that gives credit to the arranger as well as the lyric writer and melody composer. Just think: if everyone did this, then Nelson Riddle would get royalties for that infectious "Ba-dump! Ba-dump!" at the end of each section of "The Way You Look Tonight"; Dave Davies would get royalties for his catchy guitar riff on "You Really Got Me," one of the great guitar roles in rock music; Andy Summers would get royalties for his beautiful guitar texture in "Every Breath You Take."

But that's hard to do. When you're Andy Summers or Dave Davies, you've got to convince Sting or Ray Davies to share royalties. When you're Nelson Riddle, you've got an even more impossible task, because Jerome Kern isn't going to suddenly start sharing royalties 20 years later.

Here's one solution: for the arranger to come up with the arrangement, and then get the melodist and lyricist on board, having already agreed to an even split. This means that the one person who isn't protected by copyright law gets protection by initiating the process. Dicey, but if you have the clout it's fantastic.

That's exactly what these people do. Realizing that what makes a pop song a hit might be the snaky bass line or the unusual drum beat or the guitar riff, many modern pop arrangers record the backing tracks first, then send them to their favorite "top line writers" — that is, those who compose the melodies and lyrics and hooks, the top line as it would be notated on a page — to play with and write a song over.

Much of what you hear on the pop music station is done exactly that way. Singers like Rihanna or Kesha or Kelly Clarkson or Beyoncé (this method of compiling songs seems to preference showy female voices as much as the typical rock-n-roll method preferences gritty male ones) now do lots of their recording on the road, in rented studios or hotel rooms or even touring buses during off-hours, following a demo that's been sent to them by the arrangers (with the top line often recorded by its writer, doing a decent imitation of the targeted star) and then it's all put together later on by the producers and engineers.

It all sounds terribly artificial (especially because most of the instruments are computer-generated), but it's no more artificial than the Frank Sinatra method of a few generations ago. And the results are gobbled up by a hungry public, at least for now. (Another swing of the pendulum might bring on another singer-songwriter era.)


So. Take a few minutes here and listen to a couple of songs. Try to hear the separate elements: the vocal performance by a dazzling vocalist, the lyrics and melody written by a top line writer, the underlying tracks by what used to be called the arranger — but now, of course, that person or team isn't arranging a pre-existing song at all but rather putting forth a bedrock of sound on which the composition is written. The elastic term "producer" is what we now call that person.

First up is Beyoncé's "Halo," released in January 2009.



Lovely performance — an affirmation of this way of doing things, bringing together people of disparate strengths to create a product that has real emotional punch.

Next is Kelly Clarkson's "Already Gone," released in August 2009.



Whew! Another affirmation of the collaborative process of modern pop. In each case, the singer herself is listed as a co-writer, and in each case the producer, who wrote and recorded the backing track, is Ryan Tedder.

So we can see where one person's work leaves off and another's begins: Tedder's two tracks have the same tempo and are in the same key, but these are two very different songs, songs that showcase the emotional and vocal characteristics of two very different singers.

In fact — did you listen closely to both? Go back and do it again, completely blotting out the melodies and lyrics, and correcting for different mixes: in one, the strings may be more prominent, in another the piano more prominent. ... but ... folks, the two tracks are very similar. Different chord structures, but it should be no surprise that the same mind is behind both, at the same stage in his career.

Tedder sent out this track to two different artists, something that producers sometimes do, knowing that not everyone will bite on every song. These two artists then went their different ways with it. Clarkson, when she noticed the similarity, was horrified, thinking people would think she was just ripping off Beyoncé, a performer she has great respect for, and tried to get it removed from her album (which came out months after Beyoncé's). Nope, the bigwigs kept it on. She tried to keep it from being released as a single. Nope, the bigwigs insisted, and it was released. And, nothing. No one cared that these two works of art had very similar chord structures, tempo, instrumentation, riffs, the same sweeping crescendos, even the same distinct beat.

"Halo" reached number 5 in the Billboard Hot 100, and number 2 in the Mainstream Top 40; "Already Gone" reached number 13 in the Hot 100, and number 5 in the Top 40. Among other things, we can say confidently that Ryan Tedder is doing something right. (We can also say he'll probably never do that particular thing again anytime soon, given the bruised egos and flurry of accusations behind the scenes.)

And, among other things, we can also say that the public gets something that the law doesn't get and that sometimes the artists don't get: these really are two different pieces of music, and they really did each speak to the public in a powerful way, and they independently reached the top of the charts, and, though Tedder gets two separate sets of co-writing royalties for two efforts that didn't diverge that much, that's entirely fair because they're two well-painted backgrounds used in two different ways. That doesn't take away from the power of that background at all, nor does it take away from the necessity of it — would either set of melody and words have been as big a hit without Tedder's beats and claps and busy string parts and agile piano?

Interesting times we live in, and an interesting form of economic justice we've arrived at, for a part of the music industry that often operates without recognition.

It all serves as an interesting window into the processes of our modern-day Gershwins and Porters, who provide the soundtrack to our lives.

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