Shifting Role of the Songwriter

I've been thinking a lot today about changing structures within the songwriting community. In the 90's and early 00's, writers made strong middle class income on the backs of album cuts on records that sold millions of copies. There was less of an emphasis on "authenticity" and the dominance of the writer/artist had not taken over. Many more major pop acts were divorced from the act of writing itself. That is not so true anymore and a cursory glance at the this year's top albums reveals that most artists have a hand in writing nearly all of their songs.

More interesting to me is how this has changed the way that songwriters interact with artists. We're seeing pitched songs and big songwriting teams less often, both on singles and album cuts. Olivia Rodrigo's Sour is largely a collaboration between the artist herself and Daniel Nigro. The entirety of Billie Eillish's discography is penned by her and her brother, Finneas O'Connell. Taylor Swift's recent effort, Evermore, features the names Taylor Swift and Aaron Dressner as authors on 14 songs of the 19 songs on the album and the sole authors of 13 of those songs.

I think this trend is one that is still emerging and not one that has solidified as the dominant creative process. If you look at the credits for Morgan Wallen's album, Dangerous: The Double Album, you'll see a plethora of names. That record was number 1 for 10 weeks straight this year. The Weeknd's After Hours and Justin Bieber's Justice similarly see a commitment to large writing teams. We can't say the death knell has wrung for the pitched record or large writing teams.

What is becoming clear though is that a more insular way of writing is emerging, both with Gen Z power players and the dominating forces of the millennial zeitgeist. In a decade, we'll look back on writers who focused on developing intimate relationships with artists as prescient. I look at this shifting trend and encourage writers to re-strategize and focus on penning as many songs as possible with the artists they believe in. I believe that teams will continue to be insular as artists look to their heroes and model their writing teams after them.