# Movies: Music Credits

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 17, 2012, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509 "2012-07-17T11:14:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/1 "2012-07-17T11:14:55Z")

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Why is it that very often movies’ ending credits list all the songs in the movie followed by the name of who wrote the song, but rarely who actually sings the song so one can find it to purchase???

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/2 "2012-07-17T11:33:38Z")

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Not sure what you mean. The music credits almost always have a “performed by” line for each song.

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**Author:** ![Monkey\_Chews](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@Monkey\_Chews](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkey_Chews)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/3 "2012-07-17T14:42:57Z")

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Agree with **freido**. I don’t think I’ve ever seen song credits without the “Performed by” line. I often stay to the music credits to see who performed what, and it’s always right there, as far as I can remember. Got any examples?

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**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/4 "2012-07-17T14:47:58Z")

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Ditto…frequently the performer credit is pretty large, relative to the rest of the song credits, too.

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**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/5 "2012-07-17T14:53:07Z")

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It is hit or miss. I recently watched a movie\* where there were no performer credits for songs that were covers. The originals had the artists listed.

Usually this means that the music producer for the movie supervised the new versions, but not in this case. I checked and they were already existing covers.

Weird. I thought the record companies were very insistent on full credits for any song they allowed in a movie.

(Strangely, most TV shows don’t do any credits for songs they use, on matter how well known. So I guess there’s a lot of flexibility on credits.)

\*I watch a lot of movies, including the credits, so it’s all a blur as to which one.

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**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-music-credits/628509/6 "2012-07-17T20:11:27Z")

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Priorities are different on TV, where the amount of time for credits is very limited. The licensing for a TV episode will also be a lot cheaper than for a feature (usually.)