While there's no doubt she's technically no good singer and that she relies on other people to have hits I thought about Madonna's input on her music today.

Often times she writes the lyrics (obviously, since her style and the themes haven't changed that much over the last 30 years), though on some songs she only changed some words (Ray Of Light, Justify My Love, Don't Tell Me, Nothing Fails). On Heartbeat she mostly took Pharrell's ideas and changed the person from she to I.

But beside the songs that she had little input in, musically, like 4 Minutes, most of her ballads, and the Bray songs, there are many songs said to be written by Madonna.

From my understanding in the 80s she either was provided with songs (Holiday, Virgin, Papa, etc) or mainly wrote lyrics to Bray's or Leonard's music.

But in the 90s that changed and some of her songs had less melodies. That's because she merely wrote with proudcers instead of songwriters.

Think of the Pettibone songs, starting with Vogue.

As far as I know Madonna wrote the melody to SP's music. Madonna's songs rely on rhythms. If you speak the words in time, you realize that her melodies only change little from the spoken words!

I can see that same thing on Music, Hung Up.

This made me think about how much involved she really was on the HC songs? Pharrell wrote Ring My Bell, Heartbeat and Spanish Lesson on his own. He also wrote the chorus of She's Not Me.


But if you think bout the verses of Give It 2 Me or Beat Goes On, they might as well be Madonna. Very rhythmic while PW merely seemed to have provided the choruses.

Other songs I think Madonna wrote almost on her own

Impressive Instant
Mer Girl
Rescue Me
Erotica (most of the Erotica songs)
American Life
Get Together
Future Lovers

among others

How can she be an underrated songwriter if she doesn't write songs on her own?

moussemaker said:

oh man, whatta boring question

graecophilos said:

Nice try, but there's no avoiding it.

I already feared the haters would post, where are the fans?

I don't expect much from the haters anyway.

I agree that Madonna is definitely an underrated songwriter. I don't agree that to be a good songwriter you have to write songs solely by yourself. No one ever says that Bono or Michael Stipe aren't real songwriters, because they write songs in collaboration with the other guys in U2 or REM.
To me, the whole you must do it alone is just a way to undermine female songwriters. When men collaborate in a band, everyone thinks that's great and never says that proves they aren't talented.
To me, music by its nature is a collaborative process and if anything doing it all alone is too insular and self-indulgent and doesn't always lead to the best songs.
I do think that Madonna does have substantial input into her songs because if you listen to all her music there is a certain continuity even though she does experiment with different genres of music. Everyone she's ever worked with says she is very hands on and does contribute significantly to the songwriter. So obviously they know more than people like us who have never worked directly with her.

Yes, I think she's very underrated.

graecophilos said:

This I would disagree with. I think she's now capable of far greater lyrics than she was in her youth.

One thing that surprised me: She is the sole writer credited on "Lucky Star"? I thought she didn't really play an instrument until around the making of Music.

On what other songs does she take the only writing credit?

Ace said:

I also think the range of themes she tackles has expanded greatly.

Glindathegood said:

End of story

Keep Together, What It Feels like for a Biotch (I mean Girl), and Die Another Day. if she wrote those she's aiight.

She's a good pop songwriter. She's not like Leonard Cohen or nothing but her songs were alright in the '80s. Though it's often claimed she just took credit.

she is , yes.

she's underrated as a PRODUCER. IMO. You can't have that many hit records with THAT many different collaborators and not be a talented PRODUCER.

badujunkie said:

As far as writing goes, sometimes I think yes ("What it Feels Like for a Girl", "Nothing Fails", "Drowned World") other times, no ("I Love New York"-the first time I saw those lyrics posted on-line, I thought 4 sure they were fake. Not the case) but mostly, I think she's a gifted pop music writer 4 sure.

graecophilos said:

Madonna is not under-rated at all. Over-rated is more likely. She's the most successful singer in history & the Queen of Pop. She has now even surpassed Michael Jackson in terms of success. Just look her up on Wikipedia. However, think most of her songs were written by/with other writers.
[Edited 4/13/09 12:34pm]

I don't believe she's a songwriter at all.

It is hard to tell. But generally speaking, I have always viewed Madonna as over-rated.

SCORPI09 said:

Madonna is successful, nobody can deny that. But as you see in this thread, most people don't even think she writes her own songs.

I wonder if anyone has written my first post? I was hoping to get more reaction in terms of her style because I think I have a point.

I always thought Madonna would never be taken seriously as a songwriter because 90% of her songs are the 4 bar verse-chorus-verse formula. Even "Like A Prayer" which might be her most acclaimed song, has a simple, but effective melody. That said, I think in the pop genre, she has the best melodies and other female pop artists, who write songs as well, are all behind.

lol.....song writer? lol.....

LiveToTell86 said:

amen! i've always said - Madonna makes the BEST POP MUSIC. BEST. POP. MUSIC. And not 'pop' as in 'popular,' (though she has more top 10s than Elvis), POP as in POP the GENRE. 4 bar verse-chorus-verse-brigde-chorus-chorus is the standard for POP. She ain't Johnny Cash, Trent Reznor, Badu, Radiohead, Tori Amos, Leonard Cohen, Annie Lennox, Courtney Love, Chrissie Hynde, or Beck - she makes straight up POP. POP is by definition formulaic, simple, catchy, often dumb, over simplified, mindless, and fucking fun. I'll say it again - SHE MAKES THE BEST POP SONGS OF ANY ARTIST. Janet and Michael are not strictly pop - they are more greay area with R&B/Soul. Ditto George Michael. There has to be SOMETHING she is talented at in crafting pop songs - be it writing, producting, or just choosing which songs to 'cover' then changing some words for writing credit - or all the above - given that she has worked SO MANY known, unknown, hot, obscure, and successful writers/producers who ARE NOTHIHNG ALIKE. The common thread between Babyface, Mirwais, Nile Rogers, Stuart Price, Timbaland, Pharrell, Stephen Bray, Mark Kamins, Dallas Austin, and Pat Leonard? There's only ONE - Madonna. And she has scored #1 albums, #1 singles, and top ten/top 40 hits with ALL OF THEM.

I love Madonna, but her lyric-writing ability is awful. Just god-awful. She writes at maybe a fourth- or fifth-grade level. But as with everything with Madonna, she is able to take this and spin it into gold quite often. The music she couples the lyrics with is often very interesting and in the moment (and I mean that in a good way).

This is like asking: "Was Thriller slept on?"

She's not under-rated in anything.

Ace said:

I think she's actually regressed as a songwriter. The lyrics on American Life, Confessions and Hard Candy aren't anywhere near the quality of what she was writing on Like A Prayer, Erotica, Ray Of Light... even in some cases, on True Blue.

as for Lucky Star, she and Stephen Bray split up a few of the songwriting credits on that album.

bboy87 said:

Some folks would kill to have written even a "Holiday."

errant said:

I HAVE TO SAY lyrically speaking, agreed. but i still think too record companies were putting up the dough for those awesome ghost writers back then. when A&Ring an album actually meant investing time and money in good songs and writers.

funny too - i think her lowest point as a SONGWRITER was Music. What saves the album is the catchy melodies and Mirwais's incredible production. For those 2 factors, it is so listenable.

In fact, I never count Music as one of my favorite M albums - but every time I listen I seem to love almost every song. then again, the lyrics of the verses are the LAZIEST Madonna has ever been! ESP I deserve it

graecophilos said:

I think you could make an arguement that she used to be a much stronger songwriter. She seems to be lacking great hooks (or just let's others write them) on some of the last few albums. I've become increasingly bored with Madonna as a songwriter lately and while "Hard Candy" showed some improvement from AL and COADF (which was good but could have been better), I think overall she is coasting and has been for a while. Tour, album, children's book, movie stuff....going through the motions. Maybe it's the family or maybe it's that she isn't as hungry as she used to be.