Tilting at Windmills: The Voice and The Songwriters

Early this week, Josh Marshall (‏@joshtpm) Tweeted this: How does @Carole_King only have 19k followers? No respect for great songwriting? Please, people.  I replied: Sadly, in the age of iTunes nobody knows who writes the songs. No liner notes, no credits>musical illiteracy.

For those not familiar with my first blog post on this topic (http://bit.ly/10Blcib), I’m tilting at a few windmills trying to get some acknowledgement of the contribution songwriters make to the success of a show like The Voice. Yes, the talent this year is outstanding. Yes, the coaches are fascinating to observe. And yes, the production level is permanently set to full-on spectacle. But at the heart of the show is the music, and that’s where some acknowledgement is due to the songwriters.

After my initial rant a month ago, I planned on keeping my lip zipped. That was quite hard after the June 3 episode, when the show’s pervasive habit of crediting the song by the artist managed to stomp on a legend. Amber Carrington told her coach Adam Levine that her song choice was Crazy by Patsy Cline. No, actually, Amber. You can’t sing Patsy Cline’s Crazy because Patsy Cline already sang her version.  You can, however, sing Willie Nelson’s Crazy, because that’s the song he wrote. 

There were a few instances that same evening where coaches neglected to mention the fact that artists were co-writers on songs they had introduced. Usher had a particularly odd reference to Taylor Swift, a co-writer of I Knew You Were Trouble, which was about to be performed by his artist Michelle Chamuel. “It’s like the final sign of approval,” he said, “when the artist who actually sang the song gives you the go-ahead.” Actually it’s more Taylor Swift the writer who has an investment in the song being performed (and selling) well. 

But my pique reached a new peak during the June 10 show, when Sasha Allen sang I Will Always Love You, best known from its appearance in the 1992 film The Bodyguard and the best-selling single by Whitney Houston. The song was always and only identified on the show as Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You. But I Will Always Love You is a Dolly Parton original and she first hit No. 1 on the country charts with it in 1974 and then hit No. 1 again in 1982. We’re talking Dolly Parton, folks, another music legend.

While I can excuse the young contestants of thinking the world began when they were born, I am more than a little shocked at the professionals not providing more of a musical context for these young artists, nor for distinguishing between performance of a song and creation of a song. Maybe it’s a language problem. In the age of downloads, when we don’t have an actual thing to hold in our hand, maybe it’s harder for people to say ‘that Carrie Underwood record’ when there’s not a record in sight. 

But without those records or discs and the liner notes and song listings and credits that came with them, there is a kind of musical illiteracy developing, and the producers of shows like this – along with the record companies and music publishers – have an obligation to make the public aware of what goes into the creation of a musical recording. Producers. Arrangers. Songwriters. Artists. And frankly, I’m also a little shocked that ASCAP and BMI, the performing rights societies, haven’t stepped up and tried to get some more recognition for their members. 

My suggestion, just to dip a toe in the water, is that next season The Voice include in their rehearsal segments an on-screen credit to the songwriters, along with the title, just as they currently put up the Twitter name for the artists. Surely a credit is as important as a Tweet?

Years ago, when I worked for the publishing companies at RCA Records, we were in the process of negotiating a blanket license for our catalogues, for which the record company wanted a greatly reduced rate.  I wouldn’t agree. They proposed a slightly higher rate, and I still wouldn’t agree.  One of the business affairs reps on the record company side asked “What’s with you? Were you raised in the Brill Building or something?”  I always took that as a great compliment, since I was standing up for my songwriters.

 

And here I am, a few decades later, standing up for songwriters again. I may be tilting at windmills, but it feels good. 

Jeanne McCafferty is an editor, writer and book designer.  You can see samples of her work and learn how to contact her at www.jeannemccafferty.com. 
She is on Twitter @IrishCabrini.