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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
I didn't specify because that's my whole point, you can't.
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There is a specific difference between a songwriting and a producer credit though.
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
Every artist is going to have different ideas about what constitute getting a writing credit and what doesn't.
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This might be the case for some artists but this is not the case for ALL artists.
Some singers have no control over what constitutes as a songwriting credit or a production credit if they are not writing or producing
majority of the song themselves.
In some cases, that is up to the label or the production/songwriting team. Some singers just go in and sing the song without changing anything and even if they want to change something(for some artists under certain circumstances) they still can't. It depends on how much clout the artist has in the industry and if the other producers or songwriters wants to share their credits with the singer.
It can get pretty political and complicated.
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
If someone comes up with an idea for a song, hums a melody to someone and that person goes off and writes the song, does the original person then deserve a credit? I know of countless times that was the case.
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I think so too.... but we were talking about what constitutes as a songwriting credit versus a production credit.
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
Every Rolling Stones song is credited to Jagger & Richards yet both men have written Rolling Stones songs individually and still given the other man credit for writing it, thats just how they work it in their organisation.
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But the Rolling Stones are a band and they also write their own music whether all the band mates do it together or separately. There are some mates that write portions of the song separately and the other mate completes the song on their own time. You do not necessarily have to sit and write the song together in the same room.
They don't have a songwriting team that writes songs for them so they can do that because they write their own songs.
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
I've also seen some producers get songwriting credits, I've seen producers who are the brains behind a project and who just use a band as a front get no songwriting credit.
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Right, although they might be a producer, a producer can get a songwriting credit because they also did something that falls under the songwriting credit category.
These credits are specified as specific things for a reason.
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
Plus you also have to take into account that some artists just put all the bands names as songwriters regardless of who writes what because it's well known that it's the songwriting that gets you paid from record sales rather than just performing on an album. And some bands just prefer to split it equally.
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That's fine for bands who right their own music
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Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
It's not a black & white issue, there are plenty of shade of grey.
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If it was a grey issue than it would simply say "credits" behind the back of CD covers and not songwriters, producers, arrangers etc.
I understand it is different depending on the artist, singer or band but these are specific specified things/
The skill qualifications for a songwriter is different from a producer. So there titles are not shades of grey because they are specific and they require specific skills.
So what constitute a songwriter credit versus a producer credit is going to be different.