How did Madonna and Michael Jackson write their songs?

[oZZma]

Like in todays music. I believe it to be the Producers! I can see MJ,but not Madonna contributing! not a gender thing, but a musicianship thing. i mean i can barely tolerate her singing, but watching mj he was involved in every little thing! Madonna is mostly about Image.

There are some demos of songs from the first 2 records that have a much different arrangement than the "official" version but the structure is the same. As I said, I think sometimes Madonna actually writes the vocal line. But I doubt she did much more than that. She has always been surrounded by "collaborators", even before she was famous.
100% sure the stuff "co-written" with Patrick Leonard was written by Leonard as for the music, and Madonna only wrote the lyrics.

 

[leegreenman]

I misunderstood the tone of your message.
Yeah that's how it is. But lawsuits for plagiarism on riffs happen on a regular basis, for example. So I wouldn't say lyrics and melody are either enough to define a song, or are the only elements protected by law.

BTW imagine being the one who wrote the Billie Jean bassline and not owning any right on it. Wow

It’s a truly great bass line but I’m not sure that really matters as far as songwriting goes.
That being said if it was my song, and a studio bassist contributed that part, I’m sure I’d give him at least a small percentage of the songwriting credit.

 

[oZZma]

There's the theory that only lyrics and melody make a song, and that's it. And then there's James Brown.

I guess all those James Brown funk recordings aren't actually "songs."

 

[ElectroVibe]

And then there are folks like Elvis, who often didn't write the music or the lyrics.... but still got the songwriting credit.
Even Col. Tom got a few.
Must be nice.

I think it's totally legitimate. The songwriters didn't have to agree to their terms, did they? They could have found another singer who would have given them full credit. So why didn't they?

 

[Altitude]

In other words, you were just making a generalization.

Let's go with "qualified speculation."

Turns out I wasn't in the room when Madonna and Nile Rogers inked their contract to do "Like a Virgin" together. I was probably in class because I was 13 at the time. In the years since, I've been around the industry and people in it enough to understand that Nile Rogers would have had little to gain and much to lose by giving away a writing credit to an artist who at that time was guaranteed to sell millions of copies of anything she released.

So, I'm entirely comfortable saying that I don't know what did happen, but I do know what probably happened.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Just look at "Hound Dog". It sounds nothing like the original. I think that's proof that Elvis deserved songwriting credit at times.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Let's go with "qualified speculation."

Turns out I wasn't in the room when Madonna and Nile Rogers inked their contract to do "Like a Virgin" together. I was probably in class because I was 13 at the time. In the years since, I've been around the industry and people in it enough to understand that Nile Rogers would have had little to gain and much to lose by giving away a writing credit to an artist who at that time was guaranteed to sell millions of copies of anything she released.

So, I'm entirely comfortable saying that I don't know what did happen, but I do know what probably happened.

Fair enough. I read your post again and I agree.

 

[LBS-bass]

Curious here. A lot of head nodding about Michael Jackson and a lot of doubt about Madonna and Taylor Swift. What's the evidence against them being involved in the creative process? Do people think they don't know how to play instruments well enough to convey a musical idea? I'm not understanding the frank dismissal here.

 

[leegreenman]

I think it's totally legitimate. The songwriters didn't have to agree to their terms, did they? They could have found another singer who would have given them full credit. So why didn't they?

Exactly.
It’s an exploitative process, but I’m assuming the “true” writers of these songs were compensated well by the days standards. Would those songs have made any money it Elvis didn’t sing them?
If there was actual theft or coercion with physical or emotional harm of some type, it’s a different story though. This seems unlikely, but who knows.
It’s not entirely inconceivable that minority songwriters were straight up stolen from.

 

[Altitude]

Fair enough. I read your post again and I agree.

An interesting subplot, which I concede I only learned about this morning as I researched this, is that Madonna apparently wanted to self-produce "Like a Virgin." She felt she had all the skills she needed. Sire Records didn't agree and asked her to use Nile Rogers because of the success of Bowie's "Let's Dance" record which they felt targeted the same listener group.

I find this aspect of the business fascinating.

 

[leegreenman]

Curious here. A lot of head nodding about Michael Jackson and a lot of doubt about Madonna and Taylor Swift. What's the evidence against them being involved in the creative process? Do people think they don't know how to play instruments well enough to convey a musical idea? I'm not understanding the frank dismissal here.

This is definitely a fair question to ask.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Curious here. A lot of head nodding about Michael Jackson and a lot of doubt about Madonna and Taylor Swift. What's the evidence against them being involved in the creative process? Do people think they don't know how to play instruments well enough to convey a musical idea? I'm not understanding the frank dismissal here.

They're female.

 

[Altitude]

Curious here. A lot of head nodding about Michael Jackson and a lot of doubt about Madonna and Taylor Swift. What's the evidence against them being involved in the creative process? Do people think they don't know how to play instruments well enough to convey a musical idea? I'm not understanding the frank dismissal here.

If you're getting the "doubt about Taylor Swift" part from anything I wrote above, let me dismiss the notion. Taylor Swift is an adept lyricist and can play guitar and piano more than well enough to write music. She knows as much about brand management as anyone in that business ever has. She also has the co-producer credit on albums as early as "Fearless."

She knows exactly what she is doing, though I'm sure that knowledge extends to her confidence in finding and working with collaborators who knew how to make her product as marketable as it turned out to be.

 

[ElectroVibe]

Exactly.
It’s an exploitative process, but I’m assuming the “true” writers of these songs were compensated well by the days standards. Would those songs have made any money it Elvis didn’t sing them?
If there was actual theft or coercion with physical or emotional harm of some type, it’s a different story though. This seems unlikely, but who knows.
It’s not entirely inconceivable that minority songwriters were straight up stolen from.

Little Richard gave credit to Elvis for bringing his songs to light.

 

[LBS-bass]

If you're getting the "doubt about Taylor Swift" part from anything I wrote above, let me dismiss the notion. Taylor Swift is an adept lyricist and can play guitar and piano more than well enough to write music. She knows as much about brand management as anyone in that business ever has. She also has the co-producer credit on albums as early as "Fearless."

She knows exactly what she is doing, though I'm sure that knowledge extends to her confidence in finding and working with collaborators who knew how to make her product as marketable as it turned out to be.

Which is how almost everyone does it.

 

[dangevans]

Probably alone, in a room, just like John Denver did.

 

[Altitude]

Which is how almost everyone does it.

Truly.

 

[Chrisk-K]

On the other hand, although he did nothing for Yesterday, Lennon got the credit

 

[Chrisk-K]

Michael was stingy with the credits, he even didn't want to give co-producer credit to Quincy Jones for Thriller.

Judging from MJ’s home demo of Billie Jean, I would say he would have been fine without QJ.

 

[LBS-bass]

This is interesting. I could put examples up here of two songs I've written in the "before and after" stages; demos of the original writing that were sent to collaborators for their contributions and the finished songs. One would be a song that I took full credit for and the other would be a song that I ended up giving arrangement credit to because the additions were substantial enough I felt it was fair and the right thing to do.

I bet you would be hard pressed to suggest that I didn't write either one of them if you heard the demos, but one demo would be wildly different from its final form in terms of instrumentation and the other one not so much.

I'm realistic enough to know that when I bring in good talent to do things better than I can do them myself, it creates a better final production, and that is the point. Does that have anything to do with songwriting or is that a production decision? To me, it's the latter.