Adele's one of the luckiest people in the world
Her success is literally down to the Semisonic singer writing a good song for her to sing
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i didn't know that
what song is that? isn't that the case with just loads of people though
Someone Like You
``"We didn't try to make it open-ended so it could apply to 'anybody.' We tried to make it as personal as possible. She may not have had a melodic hook or a specific lyrical idea, but she always knew what she wanted to say. She definitely had a master plan."``
vom
music's dead
NOT LIKE THE OLD DAYS WHEN PROPER BANDS WROTE THEIR OWN TUNES IS IT M8
good one
She got an Ivor Novello award for Songwriter of The Year
Fuck off
She had a few hits/few million album sales by then
Hadn't she?
Middling
It's a bit of a stretch to say that one song is behing all her fame now.
goes for pretty much any pop star...
Not just popstars
Except Robyn
Robyn has a creative team
she doesn't write all of her own stuff. She sings with a backing track an all.
same with rihanna and beyonce
the-dream wrote and produced 'umbrella' and 'single ladies' i think this is why he's so bitter about not being more famous.
RADIO KILLAAAAAAA
The Dream is an absolute hero
Pretty sure the millions of dollars he's made from it probably makes him feel a little better.
he must be fucking rich...
his list of writing credits is staggering, he pretty much is R&B.
He also gives no fucks enough to turn up to the grammys like this:
http://www.trbimg.com/img-511879c5/turbine/la-et-ms-grammys-2013-the-dream-boys-n-the-hoo-001/600
money isn't everything
he does seem to be the most cynical man in RnB though
This is why I can't really understand why people go so wild over Rihanna and Beyonce, tbh
Could be anyone singing those songs, they just got lucky.
Plus
If The-Dream did those singles and those videos he'd prob be some kind of Psy-esq Gangnam Style phenomenon thrughout the world.
nah
if the-dream did those singles no one would pay attention and they'd be doomed to being posted on obscure tumblrs.
very true
just made me lol thinking about it.
ugh
not really.
Well I'm obviously being a bit facetious
I just think it's insane the way that people go totally batshit crazy over Beyonce - what is it they find so special about her? I mean, look how many people it took to write this mess of a song:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(Beyonc%C3%A9_Knowles_song)
I don't mind Beyonce's music, but I can see the logic behind the praise someone like Lady Gaga gets a lot more, despite not enjoying her music *at all*.
what she does with the songs
'cause of her voice, style and so on. Different people would perform them differently and they'd probably be worse songs for it. That's part of what being a 'popstar' is about.
also Countdown is really good
have you never wondered how a track would sound with a different rapper over the same beat?
same thing really.
Well no because they wouldn't have had the actual song written for them
There's a difference between having a song produced for you and one written for you (Beyonce's seem to be both).
but beyonce's voice is horrible
she's gorgeous though and i like her attitude but her music suuuuuucks
it's called charisma
lady gaga is a tryhard
also probably best not to say bad things about countdown if you want to be taken seriously
*look how many people it took to write this mess of a song*
That's nothing. It took eleven people to write this one! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Just_Wanna_Love_U_%28Give_It_2_Me%29
It's called sampling, you buffoon.
As far as I can work out Countdown samples one song
Other than that it just sounds like 4 different songs stuck together.
that's just one of the things that makes it brilliant
Just sounds like a case of 'too many cooks' imo
Meh.
Wasn't Rolling in the Deep already a massive hit anyway?
so "Her success is literally down to the Semisonic singer writing a good song for her to sing" actually means "her success after her already pretty massive success is literally down to..."
Which is still wrong.
As far as I can see he co-wrote it.
She's probably just a lot more talented than you'd like to admit.
``She may not have had a melodic hook or a specific lyrical idea, but she always knew what she wanted to say.``
And yet she's monstrously successful.
So I say again, she's probably just a lot more talented than you'd like to admit.
Regarding that song: it's not particularly great. Rolling in the Deep is far better. Her fame on the back of that song was about her performance of it at The Brits or wherever. So it's very much about her making it the event it was.
yes, that's how pop works.
ta-ta now.
youre so unbelievably awful
at least I don't do things like this, mate
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4318007
cheers
??????????????????????????
that's literally the bizarrest, creepiest thing i've ever seen on here that wasn't posted by daddyorchips.
the fact that you even found that thread ffs...
great contribution from myself
http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/social/4318007#r6508605
She's marketed as a songwriter but it's bollocks
It's annoying
Nah she's incredibly talented and richly deserves her success.
Stop being a flange.
One Direction would probably have split up by now if their first single wasn't amazing
Preston from THE ORDINARY BOYZ
writes songs for Oli Murs
THIS EXPLAINS IT ALL.
jealous much?
Yeah
SNOREONE LIKE YOU
there's nothing wrong with writing with co-writers and producers
bit of a shame he never wrote a good one for himself to sing then eh
Without making any judgement on her talent whatsoever,
I'm pretty sure she has worked very hard and continues to work very hard to make the most of every opportunity that has been presented to her.
Having good fortune is one thing. Being prepared to take advantage of it when it arrives is another thing entirely.
plus she's funny in interviews on the telly
i want to go drinking with her
If you do can you try to make her understand how she does need to pay for public transport still?
Almost might be worth mentioning that being 'a Labour girl through and through'
means you should probably stop publicly complaining about paying tax on your massive income.
ok
i'll do my best.
Cheers.
lol
Alright Des Lynam
most over-earnest thissing i've ever seen
Person A says she's lucky.
Person B says no, she's talented.
That makes sense.
She's quite annoying though, sure we can agree on that.
There's a Didier Drogba compilation on YouTube set to Someone Like You.
It broke me. Adele can stay.
she's pretty lucky that she's talented
Well yeah.
The odds of being such a gifted singer are small.
The odds of being such a gifted singer who gets noticed by labels and people powerful enough to give her a chance to work at huge success are smaller.
The odds of being such a gifted singer who gets noticed by labels and people powerful enough to give her a chance to work at huge success and of that work paying off to such a massive degree are smaller still.
It's daft to accuse her of being lucky pejoratively. It's probably even weirder to leap to her defence on that level.
you forgot the odds of the existence of a life sustaining planet x the odds of human evolution
we're all pretty unfathomably lucky really
Speak for yourself, mate.
I worked really fucking hard at existing and evolving.
but you make it look so effortless
I'm not sure the odds are small about being a gifted singer.
I'm not sure she is a gifted singer. Her talent is one of performance.
Look almost EVERYONE can sing. Almost EVERYONE can play guitar like a guitar god. Most people don't put the hours in, that's all.
I don't think charisma is really something you learn but maybe I'm wrong on that score, but it's pretty much the only thing you can class as a talent. For most people talent is their way of not feeling guilty about wasting their lives watching TV/on the internet/etc. when they could have spent that time learning stuff. (10,000 hours and all that.)
Obviously all of use who have time to spout bullshit on this message board are lucky in the same way Adele is lucky. As in, we weren't born in some third world warzone where we had to fight just to keep alive and everything here would seem like trivial nonsense.
No.
Yeah.
(Come at me, etc.)
well this thread broke
just like adele's heart in the hit single 'someone like you'
borked
Any excuse to post the best Oscars photo
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/23389_156440407847269_1777534048_n.jpg
incredible
Has she lost weight?
Her hair has got bigger so I guess proportionally...
looks buff though
Ooh! Ooh!
It's time to post my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE NPR story ever. I post this EVERYWHERE since I first heard the story on Planet Money:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/05/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song
Wow.
Okay, that's a seriously disturbing read.
really?
Yeah.
It just seems weird that vocal coach / producer is there to tell her how to sing the song so exactly? I guess the wording isn't so clear but it sounds like she doesn't even get to try sing it the way she wants, but it's entirely directed.
And also just the sheer money involved. I'd always thought a lot of the songs were commissioned based on songwriters sending stuff in, I suppose more like people writing stories to send into magazines. The amount everyone has to spend on something that feels like it really shouldn't be that hard.
Doesn't seem that weird to me.
This is what producers do - try it like this, try it like that etc.
I'm maybe putting more on it than is said, but it seems written from one of those "pwoper moosic for pwoper bands" angles.
I don't remember if they cover it in the article itself
But in the episode related to it, they point out one very interesting thing: how many people think of "Man Down" when they think of Rihanna? Not very many, because - at least stateside - that song was a flop. All of that money, all of that manpower, all that hard work... for a hill of beans.
That's the gamble, and the amount of hard cash involved is a little disheartening. There's nothing technically wrong with it; I consider myself to be a lover of pop music, and as such, I understand that pop music is just made a different way. It just feels a bit... homogenized?
They make the point it flopped
then say the other singles made back the money.
In a 2012 music roundup podcast by the NYTimes they were saying how apparently Kendrick Lamar's album sold as much as Rihanna's but obviously cost a fraction of the outlay and how that might be scaring the labels.
I wonder if they are re-assessing this sort of expenditure.
Wouldn't it be lovely if the success story that comes out of Good Kid, m.A.A.d. city is that it made executives realize that the money they throw at pop music isn't worth it sometimes, and maybe they should start trying to hone the talents of the artist, rather than have them be little more than a marionette made flesh?
But it's only homogenised if all the writers, producers etc are coming up with the same stuff
Bringing a bunch of people to the table can have the opposite effect – everyone pulls in different influences and ideas.
Perhaps that wasn't the word I wanted
What I meant to say, it takes the music and hollows it out. It makes it feel overly processed in the worst ways.
One can only hope that having all of those different minds in the same room would broaden the horizons of the music. Even if the song they analyzed for the story turned out like crap.
Well I read around a bit more and that looks to be the album where she has fewest/zero writing credits on so I presume the others could have been done differently.
It wouldn't seem so weird if that was her first album, but it's her fourth. She was already popular, wasn't she? I just don't really get the point of spending so much to control such a degree to a singer's performance. By that time in her career I'd have thought she'd already know how to approach a song.
I don't know about "pwoper moosic for pwoper bands" hyperbole, though. It's not like there's only ridiculously processed highly controlled music and four lads in matching clothes banging stuff out in a studio.
Dunno, I can't comment much more as, Umbrella aside, I've never heard anything by Rihanna that I found remotely appealing, unlike, say, Adele or Beyoncé. I'm sure it's the same process for everyone but it just seems like it can't be squeezing out $15,000 of extra profit per song to have that person telling her exactly how to sing it like a director at a musical. I'm probably being naive though.
I don't know how common it is
But the fact that they use the term "songwriting camps" seems incredibly deliberate, meaning that it's a regular occurrence.
I'm sure it is.
I imagine they do the same for big label acts in all kinds of genres out there. I thought Xenomania was essentially the same sort of thing but was a company in its own rights.
I don't find the idea too surprising, although the costs and scale does seem quite nuts. But by the time you're through with the article you just feel like you've just seen Michael Bay make a film adaptation of your favourite book.
That thought is terrifying.
House Of Leaves does not need anything blowing up.
But seriously -
I definitely understand what you mean. It feels kinda dirty.
not 100% that this is the usual routine
ie hiring 'teams' to go to a camp, i think, though i could be wrong, that it's more common for a producer to write a song and then sell it to a label, or in some cases a specific producer will just have a personal relationship with the pop star and they'll go to the label with it together.
my guess would be that it's cheaper to hire groups of people like this who will get paid once and not again, whereas if you get the-dream to write your song you'll probably have to give him a cut of the profits. but doing it that way is like security in case the album turns out to be incredibly lucrative for the label, with the offset being the dip in quality.
I'd like to bring this thread to a close
Thanks for participating
I personally think it's a great thread.
And I opened it up again
Soz and all that.
But doesn't mean that she didn't come up with both eventually
She may have not walked into the studio with either a hook or a specific idea, but that's not to say the other guy came up with both either. Could be a co-write, collaborative song, as the credit suggests.
It's not particularly unique in "serious" music either. Bat For Lashes co-wrote Laura in pretty much similar circumstances. You can also be sure that a fair amount of producers have similar uncredited roles - Chris Thomas was interviewed in something or other recently and his apparent input into some pretty classic albums seem to consist of similar methods, i.e. a band can walk into a studio with an ok song or a crumb of an idea and are pushed and cajoled into writing a better one.
Semisonic?! Bloody hell, never thought we'd hear them discussed in the public domain again
I liked them, weirdly.
All About Chemistry is like a great 80s pop record that's too naff to constantly admit to liking, but it has a certain something in a Hall and Oates kind of way.
Not really interested in the songwriting debate and so on
but her voice goes right through me. I don't like it.
But then I don't really like any overblown female vocalists. I don't think I do anyway.
what about shirley bassey?
surely no one doesn't like shirley.
So many mainstream vocalists seem to rely on simply 'belting it out' these days
she complains about paying tax
she can seriously fucking cunt off
I complain about paying taxes =/
I just think she (or whoever writes the songs) are good at thinking of hook-y phrases that sound cool and meaningful
While meaning precisely fuck all
Chasing Pavements
Rolling In The Deep
Set Fire To The Rain
It's just like my life!
who cares?
sick of her ass
I think we're all missing the most important point
which is that the really high bit in the chorus is likes nails down a fucking blackboard