I’ve heard Billy Corgan wrote pretty much all the songs and lyrics for the Smashing pumpkins.
Mark Everett is the same with the Eels.
Is this common in music, I thought music was more collaborative. What other bands were pretty much one person doing all the writing (and many times all the musical instruments on the album) but having a few people to help perform the songs live while on tour?
Pete Townshend wrote the overwhelming majority of The Who’s material. He made demo tapes at home and then presented them to the band for consideration. The other members wrote a song here or there and they certainly added their own considerable talents into the mix, but by and large Who music is pretty much Pete Townshend music.
Ray Davies wrote almost all the music for the Kinks. Lennon/McCartney and Jagger/Richards are pretty well known for hogging the songwriter royalties for their groups. Syd Barrett wrote all of Pink Floyd’s first album and then Roger Waters increasingly pushed everyone else out.
It isn’t at all uncommon. I’d say it’s true for half the groups.
Fewer people do all the instrumentation for an album. Paul McCartney. Prince. Stephen Stills did the vast majority for the Crosby, Stills, and Nash album. Lots of individual examples but most groups have the band members work out the instrumentation on top of the basic song one person writes.
The Kinks. Ray Davies wrote everything. OK, he’d let his brother Dave have a song on an album once in a while, but basically it was Ray.
All the Kinks played on the records, though.
ETA: beaten to the punch by Exapno Mapcase.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s original songs (until their final album*) were all written by John Fogerty (they did covers, too).
As far as I know, Captain Beefheart wrote all the songs his group recorded (though he shared songwriting credit on Safe as Milk)
Frank Zappa did the same for the Mothers.
*Sometimes referred to at “Fogerty’s Revenge,” so called because he let the other band members write songs.
I believe Rick Nielsen has written pretty much all of Cheap Trick’s material.
I believe Billy Gibbons writes all of ZZ Top’s material.
Paul Simon wrote all of the material for Simon and Garfunkel.
Ian Anderson wrote most of the Tull stuff. Sometimes there were collaborations, but not much, I think.
Did Andy Partridge write most of the XTC stuff on his own?
Oh, and Stew wrote all the Negro Problem stuff.
LCD Soundsystem
N I N
Oingo Boingo
I’m pretty sure David Gates wrote most of Bread’s songs.
Everyone in that band was a established studio musician. I’m sure they all contributed to the music. Larry Knechtel won an Grammy for his piano work on Bridge Over Troubled Water.
Gates was a songwriter even before forming Bread.
Okay, I got a little distracted here. The first 3 came right-away, low-hanging fruit, as it were.
I’m pretty sure these 4 bands are showcases for the lead man’s songwriting talent, too.
My Morning Jacket
Marshall Tucker Band
E L O
Wilco
He also played all the instruments on some songs, if the stories are true.
I think the posterchild for this is Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. He writes all of the songs and plays all of the instruments (or at least the vast majority). He is the band, he only brings in others to play live concerts, etc.
It makes me wonder what the difference is between a “band” like Nine Inch Nails, which is basically Trent Reznor in studio with a band on tour, and a “solo” act like Lenny Kravitz who also writes and performs all/most parts in studio but uses a band on tour (or at least that was the case on his first two albums). Other than one having a band name and one using the name of the main artist, is there a difference?
Given all that, is Lenny Kravitz actually a band or is Nine Inch Nails actually a solo act?
I think a big issue is who has an ownership stake in the band. That determines whether you’re a member of the band or somebody who works for the band.
Ronnie Wood is an example of this. He began playing guitar for the Rolling Stones in 1975. But it wasn’t until 1990 that he was made a partner in the band and began receiving a percentage of the band’s income. For the first fifteen years, he was just paid a salary.
Prince is the poster child for this.
His eponymous second album is famous for being written, arranged, composed, produced and performed entirely by Prince (with a small amount of vocal harmony from one of his mates).
John Philip Sousa wrote most of the stuff for the The Sousa Band.
Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy is the only constant in the band over the years and, to the best of my knowledge, has written most if not all of its output as well as playing a variety of instruments. He has brought in various others to play and co-produce as desired.
Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys
Ric Ocasek, for the Cars
Mark Knopfler for Dire Straits
Bryan Ferry for Roxy Music
Chrissie Hynde for the Pretenders
Anne Wilson in the early days of Heart
Bob Gaudio for the Four Seasons
Mind you, in some of the bands mentioned, an early leader either left or became less productive, at which point other band members started writing more songs (as with The Beach Boys) or the band started recording more songs written by outsiders (Heart and Pink Floyd started doing that).
You’re talking about two different things here.
As others have mentioned, it’s quite common for one member to write at least most of a band’s material. It may even be the rule rather than the exception. If you insist that one person write all the material (as opposed to one person writing most but another member contributing one or two songs per album, as with the Kinks), it’s a bit less common, but we still shouldn’t have too much trouble coming up with examples.
But if you’re talking about bands where one person wrote and played most of what you hear on their recordings, that’s a lot rarer.
XTC had two songwriters, Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding, though Andy was the more prolific of the two.