Your Take: A Line Of Impropriety?

if you put yourself in that situation it shows your weak unless the rest of your career you try to pull yourself away from that control. if you continue to put your career in that direction you will be nothing but average with producers taking advantage of you. they need to be more business minded in thier career not just country music stars.

i would rather listen to constant good music each time from an artist that stands up for what they know is good, not be under control of a producers will or opinion, that sounds like total greed me.

So much of what happens in Top 40 Mainstream Nashville music production these days reminds me of David Bowie’s lyric “incestuous and vain” from his song “Time”. Those little “insider’s clubs” cliques tend to be very short sighted and insular and don’t benefit anyone in the long run as objective outside opinions aren’t likely to break through the mental walls these folks build around themselves.

If the songs are consistently top notch that result from such collaborations, then it wouldn’t be an issue, but how often is that the case? The artists don’t want to offend their producers and the producer-songwriters can’t be objective about their own creations, so its a real crap shoot.

The vast majority of my country CD purchases are from singer-songwriters on the fringe of the mainstream, so this is mostly an academic issue for me. I don’t really care what the big name Top 40 artists do as I rarely if ever buy their music, but this issue could be a contributing factor to Airhead Country’s decline in quality. I have no personal interest in Will and Caitlin either, but The Coppola Twins are another matter entirely even if their new YouTube video is pretty weak……..

I think the artist should have final say on all songs but shouldn’t be pressured into a song because somebody has a better connection in the industry. I like the idea of blindly listening to demos without knowing who’s pitching it. Take the labels off, mix them up, and let them play.

If your producer is a horrible songwriter, no thanks. If your producer is a good songwriter and wrote a song specifically for you, that could be a good thing.

Rick, just when I start to take you serious again, you stand up for The Coppolas again when compared to Caitlin and Will. I have no idea whether Caitlin and Will will make it but I do know that The Coppolas are the kind of act that is currently succeeding in Top 40 Country music. To be specific, if they can’t find a way into country music, they’ll go the rock route, or whatever route gets them there. They come across as just another couple of pretty faces and bodies to match, and they can sing a little.

This isn’t an attack on them, but I would love to hear what a guy who claims to be such a country purist sees in their act. Given that this thread is about producing, between the two acts, The Coppolas seem to be the kind of act that would gladly give up control if the producer can produce what matters to them: record sales success.

While the producer-written song may be ‘good’, aren’t the artist and producer limiting themselves if they aren’t looking at every possible song? They could very well miss an opportunity for a ‘great’ song that could really break an artist or revive a slumping career. So if producer-written songs or songs from only a handful of publishing companies are considered, then the producer and the artists are seriously handicapping the project.

And with all the great tunesmiths in Nashville and beyond, isn’t it a little arrogant and/or self-indulgent to automatically decide other songs are sub-par. Simply because someone else owns the copyrights? It’s also interesting that so many artists fought for years to record original material while producer-written tunes have appeared as album filler for decades …

Poor example - I don’t think Fred Rose did any harm to Hank Williams career at all. Fred was a top flight songwriter (often writing under the name Floyd Jenkin) and often assisted on Hank’s compositions without taking a co-writing credit, in addition to the ones where he did take a co-writing credit

Do you really think that the writer of such classics as “Be Honest With Me”, “It’s A Sin”, “Pins and Needles (in My Heart)”, “No One Will Ever Know”, “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”, “Take These Chains From My Heart”, “Setting The Woods on Fire” , “Hank Your Head in Shame” and “Faded Love and Winter Roses” was a hack writer foisting off inferior material on his artist?

Paul, I don’t think that at all. I offered the Fred Rose/Hank Williams partnership up as a counterexample and chose it because I figured it would be universally recognized as an instance of a situation where the relationship was mutually beneficial.

i think you do have a stronger bond if the writer/producer is a friend with the artist. that should make for a stronger and longer career.

I understand what you’re saying “HAIRANDTOENAILS,” but at the same time - but I still believe artists should have final say. At the same time, if the artist isn’t smart enough to take some direction from the label they wouldn’t have a record deal in the first place.