I agree. Many a “genius” songwriter has made a living because other artists recorded his songs. Artist who looked better, had more conventional voices–or weren’t famous for falling off the stool during gigs.
Lyle Lovett has always written most of his own material. But he released Step Inside This House, containing material written by the (mostly) Texas songwriters who inspired him. It was a double CD set, worth buying for the quality of the music. But it was also a good way for Lyle to see that some of his heroes (or their survivors) got royalties. (Most of these guys are still alive & well. And worth a listen.)
Rather than expecting The Record Companies to pick all your music–drop by that local folky dive occasionally.
Case in point: Lieber and Stoller, the two most famous guys you never heard of. From the 40s thru the late 60s they wrote a bunch of hits recorded by other folk. Just to sample a few: Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock (plus 18 others) by Elvis Searchin’ and Yakety Yak (plus most all of their other hits) by the Coasters Stand by Me and Spanish Harlem by The Drifters and/or Ben E King
This is just a bit of elitist BS. By your standards Actors, Directors, Symphony Orchestras, Conductors, Opera Singers, Your Backup Singers, etc, etc, etc,… all have “nothing of their own to say.” Crazy sung by Patsy Cline and by Willie Nelson are two different songs. Are you so conceited that you believe that there is NO one in the world who could bring a fresh perspective and perform one of your songs better than you?
Some people are better writers than singers. And some are better singers than writers. An extremely select few are a perfect meld of both.
The “elitist” charge is hackneyed and untrue. I don’t deny that many non-writing performers are talented, nor do I suggest that no one can do a song better than the writer. I hold no standard. I just don’t care to see someone standing there emoting someone else’s words. And no, I’m not fond of acting or movies. It’s a matter of taste. You’ve built a fatuous strawman. Brilliant job.
What about “writing artists” who often perform “covers”? Townes van Zandt was a fairly skilled songwriter. But he played songs by Lightnin’ Hopkins–a big influence. And “Fraulein”–an oldie he’d learned for his father. Not to mention songs written by his contemporaries.
Yep, that’s OK. I guess I was just trying to say that I’m generally not fond of performers who have nothing of their own to offer. Yes, they may be fabulously talented performers and all, and I do appreciate that, but it just seems kind of superficial to me, and I don’t care for it. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I don’t like covers at all. YMMV and all that.
An Arky, you accuse other posters here of strawmanning, but the greatest strawmanning is right here in these three quotes from you:
Not only are these strawmen, but they are patently ridiculous and reflect a rather uninformed and immature view of music, composition, performance, and artistic expression in general.
Kiri Te Kanawa has nothing of her own to say or offer because she emotes using only the words of Puccini and Verdi?
John Barrymore had nothing of his own to say or offer because he emoted using only the words of Shakespeare?
Aretha Franklin has nothing of her own to say or offer because she emotes using only the words of Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, etc.?
I don’t get this statement. If, by your own admission, a cover artist can do a better job than the person who wrote it, why wouldn’t you prefer to see that person perform it over the person who wrote it?
ascenray, what are you talking about? Do you know what a strawman is? None of the statements of mine you quoted are strawmen. Stating my personal taste is my perogative, just as it is yours.
And again, Kalhoun, it’s a matter of my own personal preference. It’s not about whether I think one performer or other can do a better job. Eddie Van Halen can play circles around Dave Davies, but I like the Kinks version of You Really Got Me better.
The statement “An artist who performs compositions written by someone else has nothing to say and nothing to offer” is not a statement of preference. It’s an unsupported claim of fact.
Hm. So you’ve apparently never had the chance to listen to and have an opinion on a performance without looking up the songwriting credits first? Or is it that you delay forming an opinion until after you’ve checked the credits?
This statement makes no sense without the underlying assumption that “An artist who does not write and perform his own songs has nothing of his own to say.”
The same is true of the three quotes from you in my earlier post. You are clearly implying exactly that. Your preference as you set it forth is explicitly based on that presumption.
Oh, and just saying “it’s just my preference” doesn’t get you out of defending it with a cogent, informed, and logical rationale. Your “tad disdain” is clear evidence of uninformed elitism and just saying “strawman” doesn’t get you of the box you’ve put yourself in.
Jesus H. Christ! Read the effing post. I DID NOT post “An artist who performs compositions written by someone else has nothing to say and nothing to offer”
I posted “I’m a tad disdainful of this, because as a person who writes and performs his own songs (admitting bias here), I don’t have a lot of respect for performers who have nothing of their own to say, mimes excepted.”
Please tell me you can’t see the difference. And straight down the line, I made these statements as opinions, and music is clearly a matter of taste. As far as I know, matters of taste do not require cogent, informed, and logical rationale. Every one of my statements is a matter of opinion, which you, I and everyone else is entitled to. You’re also entitled to say my opinion sucks… ::shrugs::
In some ways, Eddie Van Halen IS doing a better job…for instance, he plays an incredible solo, and Dave Davies playing was (at the time of the recording of YRGM) fairly rudimentary. However, Van Halen’s version was recorded in '78, and by that time, a crunching hard rock riff was fairly the norm in rock music; when the Kinks version came out in 1964, there were very few, if any, songs that had that kind of guitar distortion and visceral feel. Dave Davies actually slit the speaker cones in his amp to get that distorted sound. Pretty innovative, IMHO. So the Kinks get the nod because they were very innovative for the time, Van Halen gets the nod for having a better musicianship and production, etc… It really depends on how you look at it, and there are many ways to look at it. It’s nigh on impossible to quantify this sort of thing.
And ascenray, after having lunch and thinking about it, I just want to say sorry; I don’t want to get in an argument about this, it’s just not worth the angst. I respect your opinion that preferring that artists write that their own material is elitist and ill-informed, even if I don’t agree with it. I hope you can understand that when I posted what I posted, it was in in the context of talking about songwriters…I didn’t intend for it to be a songwriter vs. performer thing. Yes, there are performers I enjoy that can’t write a lick; Aretha Franklin can sing the phone book and make it sound like the greatest soul song ever. Of course, she’s an incredibly exceptional talent. I was thinking more of less-than-incredibly-exceptional singers who don’t really take command of a song like Aretha did.