Last Friday, two very popular artists, Beyonce and Drake, released their highly anticipated albums, "Lemonade" and "Views From The 6." There is one more thing in common about these two: other people have written their songs .
Last year, it was revealed that Drake had a ghostwriter writing some of his songs. Less secretively, Beyonce has always had a team writing for her music since the Destiny's Child days. Being that they're Drake and Beyonce, it's clear that not many people have a problem with the fact that they don't write their music, or at least a healthy amount of it. However, I really do.
But as long as the songs are good, it doesn't matter, right? I'm afraid it does. Music is different from any product that you'd get from a store because it's about being personal. Now, I'm not a purist saying that music isn't a product. Even Mozart was paid to do his symphonies. However, music is different because it transcends the product market by being something personal, connecting from the singer to the listener through the music. This is what has made artists like Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and Bright Eyes such cultural icons. Singing, at its core, is someone who wants to express themselves when talking isn't enough. Not to mention, it's really fun seeing an artist progress.
However, when the songs are written by someone else, I just can't believe the artist. It's like that artist cheated on a test and is claiming credit for their own. But that's not the worst part. When a song is being written by someone other than an artist, especially in a grand studio system, it's not just that artist's creative writing major best friend that has known that singer since second grade. It's written by a team of people, and those people are hired by a studio. A studio whose first priority is not to make great art, but to make money. It would be foolish for that studio to not let marketers, people who analyze the trends of listeners and exploit them in order to get their money, into the writing process. If you're not totally sure what I mean, watch this music video for Bo Burnham's "Repeat Stuff."
We'll take Beyonce, for example. She has sporadically had feminist songs throughout her career, most notably "Independent Woman," "Who Run the World" and "Single Ladies." However, her latest effort "Lemonade" is being considered a full-fledged feminist album. As The 2010s, or what I like to call "'60s on the internet," have progressed, so has feminism. Heck, we might even have a woman president by the end of the year, and Beyonce just consequently put out a feminist album at the same time as feminism is so popular and so marketable?
So, consumers, please do America a favor and boycott Beyonce's "Lemonade" and Drake's "Views From The 6" and show the studios that you aren't a statistic but a living, breathing human. If you really want your fill, though, if you really want to listen to a pop album with feminist undertones, listen to Grimes' "Art Angels," and if you really want to listen to a conscious rap album, listen to Kendrick Lamar's "Untitled. Unmastered." Rarely anywhere can you find more high-quality, catchy, original music.
