seriously guys,maybe we should wrap this thread up We already knew that Beyonce doesn't really write most of her songs.She's not really as talented as they make her out to be? What else is new?

novabrkr said:

Finally this thread got turned into an MJ thread too! What took you guys so long.

midnightmover said:

Arnotts said:

In a way I understand why they do it. People dont respect singers who don't have a hand in writing. Britney absolutely proves that point. Shes probably the least respected mega pop star out of all of them simply because she doesnt pretend. Alot of people on here keep saying "back in the day when singers were singers and writers were writers" but then go on to say certain entertainers are talentless because they dont write their music. Singers these days really cant win either way.

Although this is not really relevant to Beyonce (for reasons I'll explain later) it's nonetheless an interesting point. In the 60s, Dylan and The Beatles paved the way for a generation of giants who made it a point to write their own material. It seemed like a good thing at the time when there were so many great writers around, but in the long run it's been harmful. There is such a stigma to not writing your own stuff that talented singers and musicians who could be doing great things are instead perpetuating mediocrity by trying to be songwriters too. Standards are so low nowadays that they get away with it.

There are even artists I like who have occasionally written great songs, but have made patchy albums due to their insistence on writing all the material. This is because they want to be respected as "artists", which nowadays is hard to achieve if you're not seen as a songwriter. It's a far cry from the days when the likes of Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone would pride themselves on being finders and interpreters of great material just as much as writers. In that sense they were almost the last of a dying breed.

Of course none of this really applies to Beyonce though, since she is not looking for credibility. She's looking for money, money, money and she's taken that quest to new levels of shamelessness. You get the impression if this chick was walking down the street and saw a penny on the other side of the road that was half covered in dog shit, she'd run through the traffic just to pick it up.

Awesome post!

PurpleRain2010 said:

She has never pretended to write whole songs. She always says that she co-writes with others or gets songs sent to her and she changes aspects of it. Songwriting isn't just writing the lyrics. It's about the melody and the instruments as well. For example, Ne-Yo's version of Irreplaceable is completely different to Beyonce's because she added drums and the vocal arrangement is different.

You may want to look at this website - http://www.allshadezone.c...chives/872 and this video - http://www.youtube.com/wa...LxR1vxYyqg

Although, I suspect most of you won't

[Edited 7/14/10 8:32am]

[Edited 7/14/10 8:33am]

----------

You cannot write anything if you are not even in the room with the writers. The only reason she gets away with this is because she plays the no-talent bimbo role the industry always seems to need.

Free2BMe said:

Timmy84 said:

Unless Beyonce's a member of the Jackson family, why is the name "Janet" brought up?

Back on topic.

Because Janet fans have always felt threatened by Beyonce. Sad, but true.

Why?

These women have about as much talent as a goldfish.

Wait, my late goldfish Alex ( ) would bump up against his fish bowel if I turned my stereo up. Nope, some goldfish have more talent than those two.

sosgemini said:

midnightmover said:

Although this is not really relevant to Beyonce (for reasons I'll explain later) it's nonetheless an interesting point. In the 60s, Dylan and The Beatles paved the way for a generation of giants who made it a point to write their own material. It seemed like a good thing at the time when there were so many great writers around, but in the long run it's been harmful. There is such a stigma to not writing your own stuff that talented singers and musicians who could be doing great things are instead perpetuating mediocrity by trying to be songwriters too. Standards are so low nowadays that they get away with it.

There are even artists I like who have occasionally written great songs, but have made patchy albums due to their insistence on writing all the material. This is because they want to be respected as "artists", which nowadays is hard to achieve if you're not seen as a songwriter. It's a far cry from the days when the likes of Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone would pride themselves on being finders and interpreters of great material just as much as writers. In that sense they were almost the last of a dying breed.

Of course none of this really applies to Beyonce though, since she is not looking for credibility. She's looking for money, money, money and she's taken that quest to new levels of shamelessness. You get the impression if this chick was walking down the street and saw a penny on the other side of the road that was half covered in dog shit, she'd run through the traffic just to pick it up.

Awesome post!

Thanks sos, and congratulations on your loyalty. From what I can see you're now the only intelligent orger who is still here. Every one else has deserted!

midnightmover said:

sosgemini said:

Awesome post!

Thanks sos, and congratulations on your loyalty. From what I can see you're now the only intelligent orger who is still here. Every one else has deserted!

Why is everyone abandoning ship?

This is DUMB. Even IF that was what he said (and he DIDN'T), Bangladesh has been a part of a grand total of two songs in Beyoncé's 13-year career. Ooh. He has all the basis to make a revelation on her artistry.

Anyway, what he said and what he MEANT was that she's on the level where she gets full songs sent to her. Which she is.

purplesweat said:

That's another good point - how much of this is Matthew's influence and how influenced IS Beyonce by her father? Is she afraid to go against him? She recorded B'Day in secret, and turned her phone off so he couldn't find her - that's really not a healthy relationship. The B'Day era had a noticeably low budget, maybe Matthew wouldn't give her more funding because he wasn't in total control? Is Beyonce in control of her finances or does her dad "handle" them?

I've heard rumours lately that she won't talk to him any more, hopefully it's true!

He's not controlling, he's just overbearing. She didn't want B'Day to have deadlines and press conferences and shit - therefore, she did it without telling him. He didn't support B'Day, and Columbia apparently thought it wasn't pop enough - it still came out. So much for that.

Post "Listen" (and its THREE versions ) Beyoncé paid for B'Day's videos herself. Yes that means every new video for the anthology. This was because Columbia basically said "Fuck you, fuck you for this "Ring the Alarm" shit, fuck you for this urban-ass album in the Timbaland BOOM of 2006, fuck your black ass for not giving us another Safely in Love with another barrage of easy Top Fives."

Columbia is the one that gives her funding and stuff BTW, and they gave her the same amount of videos as before (four). She CHOSE to make new videos, and therefore paid for every single one of them herself - and killed any impact her singles could have, but hey, that was what she wanted to do.

Mathew barely serves a purpose anyway. "Manager"... please. "Executive Producer"... after Beyoncé's done, that's not a damn thing. He doesn't even own Music World - Beyoncé does She just pays that man cause that's her daddy.

ViintageJunkiie said:

midiscover said:

Wow.

RIGHT! These songs are already created, she just comes in and changes a LINE in a verse and BAM! Co-written by Beyonce

ANOTHER EXAMPLE! BC Jean, the ORIGINAL writer to the track "If I Were A Boy"

Changed ONE LINE at 0:35 from "I'd make out with who I wanted, and I'd never get confronted for it" to "I'D KICK IT WITH WHO I WANTED, and I'd never get confronted for it"

BAM! Co-written by Beyonce

This little theory might have held water if Beyoncé even HAD a songwriting credit on "If I Were a Boy"!

Ottensen said:

PurpleRain2010 said:

She has never pretended to write whole songs. She always says that she co-writes with others or gets songs sent to her and she changes aspects of it. Songwriting isn't just writing the lyrics. It's about the melody and the instruments as well. For example, Ne-Yo's version of Irreplaceable is completely different to Beyonce's because she added drums and the vocal arrangement is different.

You may want to look at this website - http://www.allshadezone.c...chives/872 and this video - http://www.youtube.com/wa...LxR1vxYyqg

Although, I suspect most of you won't

[Edited 7/14/10 8:32am]

[Edited 7/14/10 8:33am]

Oh my Lord, this chile just said songwriting isn't just in the lyrics. Ummm, okay..." />

That being said, Beyonce doesn't play any instruments, and any changes in the musical arrangements would have been instituted by whomever was at the board acting as the producer on that project. The fact of the matter is, since Beyonce first hit mega mainstream status with Survivor, she (or rather, her representation) have always jockeyed and bullied the other members of the songwriting teams for credits and production points. It happened to several friends of mine who work on that level (NARAS award winning), including an ex of mine. In the end it all becomes bloodsport with a lot of threats thrown back and forth and as a member of the team, you really have to sit and weigh the pros and cons of going against the Knowles machine. Since the music business is in fact, more business than anything else, most are smart enough to let the Knowles tactics slide & dump off the credits and points on her, because the payoff in the end is that you get attached to a grammy award winning artist with mass commercial appeal, and it allows you a better angling position when you negotiate on future projects for diff. artists, it it gives you a wider range for your agent to cast your net, and etc.

Songwriting isn't just in the lyrics. There's also a couple of concepts called "melody" and "chords". In pop music arrangement might become a factor as well.

As for Beyoncé specifically, Beyoncé does have an instrument - another foreign thing called a "voice" - as well as an amazing ear and knowledge of musical theory. It's not like it'd be hard for her to have an idea.

"whomever was at the board acting as the producer on that project" That would be Beyoncé who co-produced every single track. You'll notice that there are no additional producers on "Resentment" and "Still in Love (Kissing You)" other than those on the original tracks... yet both of them were changed. Alrighty then.

The rest of that mess is hearsay.

ratchetchan said:

ViintageJunkiie said:

RIGHT! These songs are already created, she just comes in and changes a LINE in a verse and BAM! Co-written by Beyonce

ANOTHER EXAMPLE! BC Jean, the ORIGINAL writer to the track "If I Were A Boy"

Changed ONE LINE at 0:35 from "I'd make out with who I wanted, and I'd never get confronted for it" to "I'D KICK IT WITH WHO I WANTED, and I'd never get confronted for it"

BAM! Co-written by Beyonce

This little theory might have held water if Beyoncé even HAD a songwriting credit on "If I Were a Boy"!

I was hoping someone would point that out!

MidniteMagnet said:

ratchetchan said:

This little theory might have held water if Beyoncé even HAD a songwriting credit on "If I Were a Boy"!

I was hoping someone would point that out!

Her name isn't in the credit's list, but it doesn't stop her from saying "i wrote this song so men out there can get an idea of how we (as women) feel when they do these things"

http://www.youtube.com/wa...LxR1vxYyqg

Here is a nice little video that was very well done to show that Bey gives credit, it also shows the things she does in the studio and how she adds to the composition of her songs. Even in the video, you will see her saying that prefer arrangements over lyric writing. So I hope this all of the debate about her writing.

sosgemini said:

shorttrini said:

I am not sure if I agree with that. Let's take MJ's song, "2,000 Watts" for example. That song was written by Tyreese for his album of the same name, it just had not gone to press yet. When Michael heard it, he changed the vocal arrangement of the song. To me, that is not covering a song, that is adding to it and making it our own. When Beyonce, recieved "Irreplaceble", from Neyo, she also changed the vocal arrangement, Does that mean that neither she nor MJ, should have gotten credit, for their contribution?

Yes, as arrangers but not songwriters.

But arrangement IS part of songwriting or rather composition, especially in this case, you're talking about on one hand, getting DEMOS given to you which Beyoncé freely admits being given demos. Most demos aren't the same as the finished project. That means the product that we hear on the radio.

Not to mention, with Irreplaceable Bey also added drums, and change the key. It becomes almost a different song in that case. Even producers get demos given to them and they change the production and get credit for it. Or they re-create a sample like Rob Fusari wanted to do with Stevie Nicks' Sweet Seventeen sampe. It happens more than people think. This is only an issue because as this thread has shown, people want to view Beyoncé as this idiot who knows nothing about her craft and is given the credit that she gets because of her looks, and marketability.

trueiopian said:

shorttrini said:

I am not sure if I agree with that. Let's take MJ's song, "2,000 Watts" for example. That song was written by Tyreese for his album of the same name, it just had not gone to press yet. When Michael heard it, he changed the vocal arrangement of the song. To me, that is not covering a song, that is adding to it and making it our own. When Beyonce, recieved "Irreplaceble", from Neyo, she also changed the vocal arrangement, Does that mean that neither she nor MJ, should have gotten credit, for their contribution?

[Edited 7/17/10 10:38am]

Co-writing credit, yes. But that doesn't mean he or she wrote the song. Beyonce claimed to have written 'Irreplaceable'. When it was NeYo who penned the whole thing and even offered the song to Fantasia first.

[Edited 7/17/10 22:34pm]

She said it ONE TIME in the heat of the performance and people run with this. She always gave him credit as the lyric writer and Neyo himself gave her credit as a writer. Most Beyoncé fans KNOWS that she's not a big lyric writer, that's why she works with other writers or she gets demos. She don't have that kind of time to create demos, not when producers are composing demos for artists all the time. People have no idea how the industry works.

Her lane is arrangments. She actually has a great ear for melodies, harmonies and music overall. She has a great ear as her husband and Big Jon Platt have confirmed: http://www.omgmusic.com/n...a-great-ar and http://community.livejour...16440.html

Kelly R. herself in Beyoncé revealed said the same thing, that her ear is incredible. Music is more than lyric-writing, you don't need lyrics to compose music. And no one is saying the woman is Mozart or Bach or Prince or Duke. She has her lane and she does it well but people are going to believe what they want anyway.

ViintageJunkiie said:

The thing is, Beyonce rarely says she "co-wrote" with others. She always say "I wrote this song for...". Prime example of how she changes a line in a song and gets credit

ORIGINAL VERSION of her song "Smash Into You" originally called "SMACK Into You" and this was for John McLaughlin's album "OK Now"

All they did was change ONE word (From SMACK to SMASH)...LITERALLY

ORIGINAL VERSION of "Halo" sung by Ryan Tedder

ONLY difference is, she omitted the bridge that was originally in the song.

Do you NOT hear key changes? Even Ryan said that he didn't know she was going to change the key. Not to mention, there are harmonic changes in both songs. For example, Bey's upper voice(her first soprano voice in the background harmonies) goes up to a C#6 at the end, John McLaughlin is not going that high. Besides the song came from Tricky and the Dream and then they gave it to her and probably redid the composition of it.

Ottensen said:

PurpleRain2010 said:

She has never pretended to write whole songs. She always says that she co-writes with others or gets songs sent to her and she changes aspects of it. Songwriting isn't just writing the lyrics. It's about the melody and the instruments as well. For example, Ne-Yo's version of Irreplaceable is completely different to Beyonce's because she added drums and the vocal arrangement is different.

You may want to look at this website - http://www.allshadezone.c...chives/872 and this video - http://www.youtube.com/wa...LxR1vxYyqg

Although, I suspect most of you won't

[Edited 7/14/10 8:32am]

[Edited 7/14/10 8:33am]

Oh my Lord, this chile just said songwriting isn't just in the lyrics. Ummm, okay..." />

That being said, Beyonce doesn't play any instruments, and any changes in the musical arrangements would have been instituted by whomever was at the board acting as the producer on that project. The fact of the matter is, since Beyonce first hit mega mainstream status with Survivor, she (or rather, her representation) have always jockeyed and bullied the other members of the songwriting teams for credits and production points. It happened to several friends of mine who work on that level (NARAS award winning), including an ex of mine. In the end it all becomes bloodsport with a lot of threats thrown back and forth and as a member of the team, you really have to sit and weigh the pros and cons of going against the Knowles machine. Since the music business is in fact, more business than anything else, most are smart enough to let the Knowles tactics slide & dump off the credits and points on her, because the payoff in the end is that you get attached to a grammy award winning artist with mass commercial appeal, and it allows you a better angling position when you negotiate on future projects for diff. artists, it it gives you a wider range for your agent to cast your net, and etc.

But what you aren't seeing and others are seeing what that video that was posted by Purple Rain shows is Bey will suggest things(when work with producers on a song from scratch), and they go into the composition of the song through the producer. It could be chord changes, or more instrumentation, for example. Bey said that with Deja Vu in this video(http://www.youtube.com/wa...IMgVaPp8Lk), that with Darkchild, she loved the 808s and horns and she suggested more of them because it would make it more Urban or "Ghetto" in her words. Which agrees with Jason Goldstein's(a mix engineer on B'day) comments about the song:

"Basically, this song is a take on what Quincy Jones did with pre-Thriller Michael Jackson. Beyoncé really wanted it to have a street feel to it. On top of the kick pattern there's an 808 and a really busy live bass, which is great. The horns are also live. The potential problem with a record like this is that the drum and bass patterns are very busy, and there is a lot of frequency information that can cause a loss of dynamics and clarity. This was the real challenge for me. I was very concerned, and voiced this to Rodney and Beyoncé, that when the mastering engineer slapped his limiter on the mix to bring up the volume, all the low end would come up as well and you would lose all the bounce, which is the great thing about this record. So I ended up printing a couple of versions with the 808 pulled back, which is what they went with."

http://www.soundonsound.c...k_0407.htm

So Bey DON'T need to play an instrument, or go behind the boards to make a contribution to the composition of her songs. That's the problem, people love controversy and theories and even if there is proof in front of them, they don't want to admit. Any and everyone who talks about Bey's music, whether it is critics and peers talks about her arrangments, how good her ear is for that and especially harmonic arrangments. They don't talk about her lyric writing. Why? Because that's not really her lane. She said it herself. Why do people dismiss that?

ratchetchan said:

Ottensen said:

Oh my Lord, this chile just said songwriting isn't just in the lyrics. Ummm, okay..." />

That being said, Beyonce doesn't play any instruments, and any changes in the musical arrangements would have been instituted by whomever was at the board acting as the producer on that project. The fact of the matter is, since Beyonce first hit mega mainstream status with Survivor, she (or rather, her representation) have always jockeyed and bullied the other members of the songwriting teams for credits and production points. It happened to several friends of mine who work on that level (NARAS award winning), including an ex of mine. In the end it all becomes bloodsport with a lot of threats thrown back and forth and as a member of the team, you really have to sit and weigh the pros and cons of going against the Knowles machine. Since the music business is in fact, more business than anything else, most are smart enough to let the Knowles tactics slide & dump off the credits and points on her, because the payoff in the end is that you get attached to a grammy award winning artist with mass commercial appeal, and it allows you a better angling position when you negotiate on future projects for diff. artists, it it gives you a wider range for your agent to cast your net, and etc.

Songwriting isn't just in the lyrics. There's also a couple of concepts called "melody" and "chords". In pop music arrangement might become a factor as well.

As for Beyoncé specifically, Beyoncé does have an instrument - another foreign thing called a "voice" - as well as an amazing ear and knowledge of musical theory. It's not like it'd be hard for her to have an idea.

"whomever was at the board acting as the producer on that project" That would be Beyoncé who co-produced every single track. You'll notice that there are no additional producers on "Resentment" and "Still in Love (Kissing You)" other than those on the original tracks... yet both of them were changed. Alrighty then.

The rest of that mess is hearsay.

^5....And that's all they have. A video was posted on what Beyoncé does and everything and they still listen to hearsay, rumors and gossip. And then they post Jay helping Bey in her rap on Kitty Kat, like the girl is a true rapper or something. No one is saying she is this great lyricist. It's like this article said: It has caught my attention that most of the people who attack Beyoncé’s songwriting credits tend to linger on whether or not she wrote the lyrics. That is plain foolish because it takes more than words to compose a song; unless I’m mistaken and Beyoncé is presenting herself as a poet and releasing spoken words CD’s.

When will people learn? *sigh*

Curt, your cute.

sosgemini said:

Curt, your cute.

[Beyoncé]You got me SPEEEECHLESS.[Beyoncé]

Curtwill1975 said:

sosgemini said:

Yes, as arrangers but not songwriters.

But arrangement IS part of songwriting or rather composition, especially in this case, you're talking about on one hand, getting DEMOS given to you which Beyoncé freely admits being given demos. Most demos aren't the same as the finished project. That means the product that we hear on the radio.

Not to mention, with Irreplaceable Bey also added drums, and change the key. It becomes almost a different song in that case. Even producers get demos given to them and they change the production and get credit for it. Or they re-create a sample like Rob Fusari wanted to do with Stevie Nicks' Sweet Seventeen sampe. It happens more than people think. This is only an issue because as this thread has shown, people want to view Beyoncé as this idiot who knows nothing about her craft and is given the credit that she gets because of her looks, and marketability.

Thank you! You had better watch out because you are making too much sense and the Beyonce haters won't like that.

[Edited 7/28/10 21:03pm]

Curtwill1975 said:

sosgemini said:

Yes, as arrangers but not songwriters.

But arrangement IS part of songwriting or rather composition, especially in this case, you're talking about on one hand, getting DEMOS given to you which Beyoncé freely admits being given demos. Most demos aren't the same as the finished project. That means the product that we hear on the radio.

Not to mention, with Irreplaceable Bey also added drums, and change the key. It becomes almost a different song in that case. Even producers get demos given to them and they change the production and get credit for it. Or they re-create a sample like Rob Fusari wanted to do with Stevie Nicks' Sweet Seventeen sampe. It happens more than people think. This is only an issue because as this thread has shown, people want to view Beyoncé as this idiot who knows nothing about her craft and is given the credit that she gets because of her looks, and marketability.

What a bunch of crap. I can can play a truckload of songs on the guitar. I can change the key of any of them on the fly to suit my vocal range better. I could add a garbage programmed drum beat to that in literally five minutes. It ain't songwriting, period. It's just my interpretation of the song.

The root of the song is the chord progression, melody and lyrics. There's nothing confusing about that. You can produce the hell out of it however you like after that.

I do think Beyonce is talented and I'm sure she has alot of creative ideas when producing these songs that people have written for her. But, your statement I highlighted has nada to do with songwriting and the song at the core. It might be that she has added important chord changes or melodies on certain songs but that is not what my point is here, nor do we know that for sure.

Chur!