Immoral to buy/sell track and put your own name on it?

[Sendy]

No prizes for guessing that 99.9% of celebrity books and 'auto'biographies are written by a ghost writer as well. Let's face it, todays celebrities can barely master an engaging tweet, let alone an entire book filled with coherent thoughts

[Tricky-Loops]

For example, for a song of Michael Jackson, there were at least 10 people involved in songwriting, and everyone made another part, one for the bass, the beat, the guitar, the saxophone, the lead line, the vocals etc.!

That's a bit a problem nowadays, that artists want to do everything themselves, I'm not so happy with this kind of one-man-shows...

[SODDI]

A certain highly litigious thriller writer who never, ever went bankrupt has a reputation for being unable to string two coherent sentences together.

And V.C. Andrews has been dead for almost 30 years and still manages to get a book out every year.

And who really wrote "Contact"?

There are only a few artists who compose their songs themselves - for example McCartney...

I completely disagree. Any artist I listen to writes their own stuff, unless they are specifically doing covers. Artists DO work hard at their craft. They may barely make enough to make ends meet, like the Legendary Pink Dots, people may never know who they are and what they've done, but they have that ethic.

[Tricky-Loops]

There are only a few artists who compose their songs themselves - for example McCartney...

I completely disagree. Any artist I listen to writes their own stuff, unless they are specifically doing covers. Artists DO work hard at their craft. They may barely make enough to make ends meet, like the Legendary Pink Dots, people may never know who they are and what they've done, but they have that ethic.

"Only a few artists" was a bit exaggerated, I admit. I should have written: "Most of the famous mainstream artists (like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus etc.) don't write (i. e. compose & produce) their songs themselves"! Same thing applies to most rappers.

[meriter]

not immoral but it is weak and sad.

[VitaminD]

Well that is one way to get them a lot of hits... make a thread at a large music software/production forums and post the soundcloud tracks for them.

[funky lime]

immoral?

it's like investing in a business. you don't have to be the one to START the business to the the one to make money off of it.

some people are good at making music, and some people are good at marketing music.

some people sell songs, and some people sell hype.

this world presents so many opportunities to so many different types of people this way.

what if you are someone who makes truly amazing songs but you are so socially terrified that you are afraid or unable to market them? what do you do? sell them to someone who IS able to market them.

i have next to ZERO ability to reach audiences myself. i lack stage presence and am very socially inept, but i have sold a couple songs to people who are really awesome at networking and whatnot, even if their own actual songwriting abilities aren't exactly notable. i think this aspect of music-making is more common than some people might realize.


the grateful dead didn't write a lot of their songs, but they sure as hell could put on a show!
or look at stevie ray vaughan, who tried to be a soulless, white jimi hendrix. he couldn't really write songs but he knew how to handle a guitar.


so you could write a song as a nobody and have it fade away into obscurity. or you could sell that song to someone who already has an established presence and then your song will live on for a much longer span of time; even if it's got someone else's name on it, you know you are still the one who wrote it, even if the rest of the world doesn't.

it's quite a bit of work to compose a song, record it and mix it all alone. but then to be expected to market it and hype it too? where do you find the time to do all that, and to do ALL of it extremely well?

[ATS]

I think for those who want to learn more it would be a good idea to look at a whole project in your DAW of choice. It would be no fun at all to not make your own music though. I guess some people are good at marketing and can make a profit selling others songs?

[BertKoor]

Somehow people have forgotten what the abbreviation "D.J." stand for.

[ATS]

Somehow people have forgotten what the abbreviation "D.J." stand for.

I always thought it was Disc Jockey?

[risome]

why is this even being discussed without production you are nothing

[macmurphy]

There are only a few artists who compose their songs themselves - for example McCartney...

what planet are you on?

[vurt]

I think for those who want to learn more it would be a good idea to look at a whole project in your DAW of choice. It would be no fun at all to not make your own music though. I guess some people are good at marketing and can make a profit selling others songs?

thats pop music in general no?
ladies and gentlemen i give you stock aitken and waterman...

spice girls never wrote a word or a note themselves, britney singing debbie gibson songs, atomic kitten songs written by members of omd and so on...

[robogone]

I should have written: "Most of the famous mainstream artists (like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus etc.) don't write (i. e. compose & produce) their songs themselves"! Same thing applies to most rappers.

I think that's untrue - Lady Gaga certainly writes her own material, and Madonna has been at least a co-writer on almost all of her material. The Biebers and Cyruses of the world will probably never write a song though as they are given no motivation to do so.

[Mushy Mushy]

I should have written: "Most of the famous mainstream artists (like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus etc.) don't write (i. e. compose & produce) their songs themselves"! Same thing applies to most rappers.

I think that's untrue - Lady Gaga certainly writes her own material, and Madonna has been at least a co-writer on almost all of her material. The Biebers and Cyruses of the world will probably never write a song though as they are given no motivation to do so.

Lady Gaga does all the music too? She program's all the timbres and puts it all down?
I find that very hard to believe...