I frequent that Billboard #1’s playlist on Spotify and would love to see your data sheet if it’s ever been/will be shared publicly. And thanks for this piece, great work.
I was waiting to see how long it took you to mention Diane Warren. Her collection of hits is massive, and her power and influence in the business was pretty huge for decades.
A rich father (vice president for Merrill Lynch) who owned shares in the label she was on until 2019, who did things like buy tons of copies of her albums to help her chart higher. Her mother's work as marketing manager at an advertising agency probably didn't hurt either.
I've been a female guitar player in four bands, and in every band, sooner or later the men try to diminish you. They tell you how to play your own songs, or they take over your songs and try to do it themselves or they simply make remarks about your looks or figure or tell you how to do your work. Audience members come up after a gig and tell me they admire my playing, but those words would never pass my band members' lips. Like the military, police, fire or any other male-dominated world the music world is very tough on women.
"Primarily, the number of songwriters on hit songs has risen sharply. No, this isn’t because songwriters are less talented. It comes down to sampling, lawsuits, a changing definition of songwriting, and a few other factors."
Well, those amount to the same thing: songwriters being less talented.
I frequent that Billboard #1’s playlist on Spotify and would love to see your data sheet if it’s ever been/will be shared publicly. And thanks for this piece, great work.
Shoot me an email and I’ll send it to you cdallarivamusic [at] gmail. The songwriter data is in the pudding piece
Thanks will do!
Lucinda Williams is also a great songwriter!
She has been around for many years.
Very disturbing data. And brilliantly documented on The Pudding.
I was waiting to see how long it took you to mention Diane Warren. Her collection of hits is massive, and her power and influence in the business was pretty huge for decades.
Yeah she is the clear outlier as both a woman and the fact that she almost always writes completely alone
+1 to the population of female songwriters - I'm co-writing with my wife, it's her first song. She's done a lot of singing but never her own stuff.
https://theproducer.substack.com/p/track-in-progress-2
What is it about Taylor Swift that enables her to break the mold of women who perform their own songs?
A rich father (vice president for Merrill Lynch) who owned shares in the label she was on until 2019, who did things like buy tons of copies of her albums to help her chart higher. Her mother's work as marketing manager at an advertising agency probably didn't hurt either.
I've been a female guitar player in four bands, and in every band, sooner or later the men try to diminish you. They tell you how to play your own songs, or they take over your songs and try to do it themselves or they simply make remarks about your looks or figure or tell you how to do your work. Audience members come up after a gig and tell me they admire my playing, but those words would never pass my band members' lips. Like the military, police, fire or any other male-dominated world the music world is very tough on women.
"Primarily, the number of songwriters on hit songs has risen sharply. No, this isn’t because songwriters are less talented. It comes down to sampling, lawsuits, a changing definition of songwriting, and a few other factors."
Well, those amount to the same thing: songwriters being less talented.