Seriously, it's overkill. Features in songs could once be considered something special especially when you had the right combination of artists. Now? Features (like genre blending) are yet another ex-interesting thing that has been watered down to a crutch for artists and it really begs the question. Can artists make an album on their own anymore? Features can still be great when called for but more often than not, they aren't and it shows how uncreative and desperate many of today's acts are. Remember last year after the VMAs almost every rapper wanted to do a song with Miley? Or Juicy J?

Pathetic.
[Edited 7/11/14 7:50am]

MotownSubdivision said:

Seriously, it's overkill. Features in song could once be considered something special especially when you had the right combination of artists. Now? Features (like genre blending) are yet another ex-interesting thing that has been watered down to a crutch for artists and it really begs the question. Can artists make an album on their own anymore? Features can still be great when called for but more often than not, they aren't and it shows how uncreative and desperate many of today's acts are. Remember last year after the VMAs almost every rapper wanted to do a song with Miles? Or Juicy J? Pathetic.

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Pathetic is right. I'm sure SOME of the acts out there can muster up enough material for their own album. Look no further than the labels. They're usually the ones pushing these people to record with whomever's "hot" at the time.

Musicslave said:

Pretty much and it shows how low labels will stoop. It's a marketing strategy that has been around for a long time now but today it's absolutely ridiculous. It's features for the sake of features and overall it's helping to homogenized mainstream music as we know it. And these guest verses really have no bearing on the song anyway since the original artist could have laid it all down him/ herself.

I long for the days when I bought an album by a particular artist and got to enjoy it instead of and album featuring whoever.

Collaborations can still produce interesting results!

The music industry is a small world of musicians, writers, and vocal talent. There are a lot of uncredited collaborations on albums before features became commonly listed.

Ykno? Back in the day, the record didn't list The Beatles featuring Billy Preston, or Chic featuring Luther Vandross. They just got the work done and got paid. It never said Michael Jackson featuring Toto.

But those collaborations still happened. Here are the last ones that captured my love and attention: