For instance nowadays you have people like Jay-z & R.Kelly doing tours and albums together, people like beyonce making records with htimberlake & what not. It seems collaboration didn't get really big until the 80's. Why?

They have always happened... what era/musicians are you suggesting never collaborating with anybody?

Sandino said:

Because back then, it was more about the music and the song. Now it is more about who is hot at the moment and pairing them together.

shorttrini said:

also the producer often gets to shine in the video( i hate the word producer cause all they do is make beats)

Because EVERYBODY back then was concerned to sound different than the next artists,,,,,as far as producers, there wasn't much emphasis on producers as there was on the artists.

Guys like Arif Mardin, Jerry Wexler, Quincy Jones, Charles Stepney, Maurice White, Leon Huff & Kenny Gamble and the like were considered more as "arrangers" as opposed to producers.

You need to do your homework. Collaborations were always out there. You had artists always adding something to someone else's record.

Stuff like Billy Preston playing organ on the Beatles "Let It Be", or Michael McDonald singing background harmonies on Steely Dan's "Aja" (which was just brought up here recently), Stevie Wonder writing and singing on Jermaine Jackson's "Let's Get Serious", are just a few quick examples a constant string of
collaborations in the past in music.

Go back further to famous singers singing with famous band leaders like Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Gershwin, etc etc etc. ALL collaborations.

You also had people that were truly bands, and gangs, together. Earth Wind & Fire didn't NEED anyone else singing with them. They had their own thing going, producing great music by themselves. Same goes for Chicago, Parlaiment (who ended up expanding into other groups, like Prince did with his protege type bands). No extra star power or cross promotion needed. You didn't have people needing a rapper on every other song (attention Mariah) just to appeal to a wider audience.

I think a lot of these collaborations are just for the sake of it. It's not like when Quincy Jones has 30 people on his album. He's a producer, and writer, and can do that. But why does Mariah need 4 different rappers on one record? It's ridiculous, and really....it's very boring these days. I couldn't care less if Jay fucking Z and R. Smelly do a tour together. Big deal, that's not some hot ticket I'd want to see anyway.

There are some collaborations that are more low key, and still effective. David Crosby singing background on Phil Collin's "Another Day In Paradise", or Sting on Dire Straits "Money For Nothing". Hell, if Rockwell had found someone else to sing one line over and over on "Somebody's Watching Me", it still would have been a hit. Yes, it was fun that MJ sang those same 7 words over and over, but the song was more about Rockwell's delivery of the lyric, not MJ's chorus.

Put two established and awesome acts together like Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire, and THAT is a show I'd want to see (and they've been touring together for the past few years).

Harlepolis said:

And there you have it.

Harlepolis said:

I have to take some semantic issue with that. You have to remember that a lot of bands produced themselves. They had that one guy, or maybe two, that stepped forward and produced the sound of the record, and the band as a whole as they grew. That was just as much of an influence as the main writer of the group (like Maurice White or Verdeen White of Earth Wind Fire - Maurice was arguably THE driving force behind EWF's sound, as was Huff/Gamble for other people, same for Quincy Jones. Q didn't just "arrange" Off The Wall or Thriller or BAD, he produced the fuck out of it and made it what it was). George Martin was never considered just an arranger for The Beatles.

It seems it was more about the title, than the act itself. Arranger, Producer...same thing, especially back then. Today, everyone wants a title, and a job, and that's why there are a hundred different things listed in the credits of some people's albums. Everyone wants that higher credit to make themselves appear to be bigger than they are, when in fact ProTools and AutoTune should be getting Executive Producer status on most albums.

You're right though when you said everyone was more concerned about sounding different or unique or being real about it, opposed to wanting a credit on the album. Look at the whole thing w/ Billy Preston playing organ on "Let It Be". No one ever talked about that back then, or even soon after. It was the song that was important, the feel, the mood, the message, the delivery, even the band's history at that point could be heard in their voices. It was WAY later on that it became a trivia fact or a special note that Billy Preston was there. It wasn't a big secret, but it's more interesting now than it was then.

ernestsewell said:

I loved your quote. I think the collaborations happen much more now because of the way radio has evolved. Radio stations are focusing in a specific genre and generally refuse to play songs by artists which normally sing songs of another genre so if u wanna have multi-radio success u need to collaborate with artists which appeal to other genres than yours. Also the dominance of Hip-Hop in pop culture means that adding a rapper on your pop/rock/whatever record is more important in terms of possible success than the quality of the record itself
[Edited 11/14/09 9:58am]

ernestsewell said:

I never said they weren't I just said it appears to me that artists in the past(I"m thinking 60's-late 70's/early 80's) didn't collaborate as much as they do now. The examples you bring up were a bit one offs weren't they? The Beatles were known for almost never needing outside assistance since they were blessed with a handful of multi-instrumentalists(and...ringo starr lmfao), so when an artist like the one you mentioned or eric clapton sessioned on a beatles song it was something. Also people like Stevie Wonder working with Jermaine Jackson is expected, considering they're labelmates. especially at Motown everyone collaborated with everyone there.

The kind of collaborations I'm speaking of is like that of an artist like Kanye West; a major pop act working with other major acts in their genre or generally in mainstream music. Kanye has worked with everyone from britney to that dude from coldplay, the dude from maroon 5, R&B acts like alicia keys, pop acts like Britney spears & Timberlake, important acts in his genre like lil wayne & Eminem. For example if someone like Stevie Wonder were to have in his prime, worked with Elton JOhn, produced Barbara Streisand, done duets with Donna Summer, canceled tours with Joni Mitchell and had Robert Plant & Mick jagger feature on back ground vocals or do harmony parts on his album, CONSISTENTLY, then I"d agree with you. But to my knowledge SW didn't work with any of these people in the 70's. Do you see what I'm saying?

Today it isn't uncommon for big acts like Jonas Brothers and Lil Wayne from entirely different genres and fanbases to make songs together but in the past, it would've been unheard of for The Beatles & The Supremes to make music together.

But you're probably right I'm wrong since you lived it and I just listen to this music.

ernestsewell said:

Sandino said:

I know what you're saying, but I'm adding that I do believe that collaborations 30 years ago were just as common. My point being that back then people didn't NEED to put their "featuring" moniker on everything. They just did it because they loved music and wanted to be part of something new and fresh, not because they wanted to rap and spend the first 20 seconds of a song saying "Uh.....yeah.....uh.....yeah.....Big G Productions.....Dark child.....Uh .....yeah....." The Beatles might have been a one-off thing, but who knows. Look how Bootsy Collins worked w/ James Brown, then evolved to George Clinton, then Funkadelic, then onto his own gig, then came back with DeeeLite (in which he was wanting to just stay a musician and writer, not a 'performer' per se).

I think at least 50% of collaborations today are all about "OH, look who SHE/HE got to rap with them!" Big deal. I couldn't care less to hear fucking Kayne on a Janet Jackson track, anymore than I care about hearing Larry Graham sing on a Prince track. Yet oddly, some of Prince's best work has been in duets, like "A Love Bizarre", "U Got The Look", "The Arms of Orion", "So Far So Pleased", "Baby Knows", "Take Me With U", "U Make My Sun Shine", etc.

jiorjios said:

I think radio has devolved. 30 years ago I remember hearing everything from "The Music Box Dancer" along side "Heaven Knows" from Donna Summer to a KISS song. Today, radio plays the same 20 songs every 45 minutes. It's SO hard to get a song on the radio these days. Thank God for college radio. The Saint (WVCR) here has a slogan of "We'll Play Anything", and they do. It's one of the two stations I'll listen to on regular radio. (We have XM in the car, so it's either the iPod or XM while on the road). You won't hear Jill Scott, or rarely even Prince on the radio these days. You won't hear India.Arie, unless her record company made her do a duet with Akon (which she was against, and later removed that "duet" version from her album, leaving it a solo song with just her). But $10 says you'll hear any of these hoochie wannabes every 25-30 minutes singing about love, or something they have NO idea about. Next year, we'll hear Taylor Swift's new single dissing Kayne every 15 minutes. Radio is very stringent and segregated (in genre) these days. It's the "best mix of the 70's, 80's, and more" type stations that still maintain some sort of diversity, even if it's with older music.

ernestsewell said:

I think the concept of "formatted radio", is what killed radio, as we know it. Once they stations had a certain format, things changed for the worse. I grew up in the 70's and remember listening to WABC here in NY. It was not unusual to here artists like, Roberta Flack and the Doobie Brothers, one after the other. This is not the case today.

Sandino said:

PS Your subject line should be "past", not "pass".

shorttrini said:

exactly. If Prince was just coming up you'd have him with Lil Wayne on the "Purple Rain" remix. This is all market generated too, none of these collabos are for real, its all for the market place. Years back artists wanted to play together, but im glad in fact they didnt. I would never wanna hear Bono on a Duran Duran or a-Ha track, or Dave Gahan on a Wham track, you just did your thing then, and thats why you got artists not HYPE.

because they didn't need to. now one isn't enough to sell a record

What about all the collaborations Marvin Gaye did? What about all the collaborations Diana Ross did? The BeeGees were all over the place producing and performing with others...ditto Burt Bacharach...Sorry folks but I disagree with this assessment.

sosgemini said:

sosgemini said:

Well Marvin and "everyone" was his thing at the time. and the Bee Gees did mostly production and writing, but it wasnt till they were blacklisted for the most part that they did this, to keep money coming in. But look at the whole 90's and 00's, i mean every cd you pick up has something like (featuring) on it. You werent picking up a Richard Marx cd in the 80's and seeing Featuring Taylor Dayne, or Kool and The Gang featuring Jon Bon Jovi. Sure you had an occasional duet, but the last 20 years its almost been the rule of law.

Collaborations been going on since Frank Sinatra and 'em. Only difference is bragging rights lol

Oh and the MG duets weren't particularly "his thing". Motown set them up so he could be the ladies man but Marvin was only half-interested in it. Tammi Terrell was the only one of the partners he felt extremely confident with.

Timmy84 said:

But it was a marketing thing for them. The thing is today you have to have collabos to sell it on everything and every cd that comes out. Everytime i see an interview with a hip hop artist theres like a laundry list that goes "yo i got jeezy and weezy on this, fat joe does his thing, kanye shows love" etc..u get the picture, its everywhere u go now and has been for almost 2 decades.

lastdecember said:

Well ain't that what they do now? "Marketing"? lol I also think it's bragging rights now especially since it's the "hip-hop" generation. But other than that, it's pretty much the same thing, it's just not with other singers like it was in the past or with bandleaders who didn't sing a lick.

It happened, it was more low key... The Beatles keep getting mentioned regarding the 60s so I will pick up on their case.

They collaborated with The Stones (We Love You) and Brian Jones played sax on You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
It was a Clapton solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Nicky Hopkins played piano on Revolution
As previously mentioned, Billy Preston on Get Back etc
Many acts on the Apple label, as well as artists from Brian Epsteins NEMS stable

That's just one of the bands mentioned in this thread. Collaborations have been going on at least since the early blues 78's. Nowadays the marketing departments make a bigger deal of it so a recording will sell to a wider cross section of the music buying public.

ernestsewell said:

Which is exactly what I mean...

lastdecember said:

I still disagree...during the 60's and 70's we also had music specials that forced collaborations down our throat *and* movie musicals and in the 80's you had everyone and their mother working with jam & lewis. don't forget herb albert worked with janet to gain exposure. Babs Streisand made it a fine art working with Bacharach, BeeGees, Donna Summers, Brian Adams and Celine Deon. Heck, Herb Albert (a non-singer) got a hold of Bacharach *and sang* so he could have a hit.

sosgemini said:

Don't forget the Tempts and Smokey Robinson teaming up with Rick James and Diana teaming up with CHIC lol

JAZZ! any era.. and still going.

Timmy84 said:

Temps also teamed with Teena...oh oh oh and Pronce teamed up with uhhh, Sheena Easton, Stevie Nicks, The Bangles, Patti Lulabelle, George Clinton and Mavis Staples..just saying.