itt we make fun of rick beato

inspired by my browsing youtube in private mode so as not to fuck up my sidebar recs and getting a rick beato video titled "Today's Lyrics Are Pathetically Bad" recommended on the sidebar

for the record the video it's recommending me this on is a live version of "dazed and confused"

helpfully genius has transcribed complete lyrics for the live version of "dazed" on "the song remains the same":

[Instrumental Intro 00:00-01:40]

[Verse 1]
I've been dazed an' confused
So long it's not true
I wanted a woman, never bargained for you
Now lots of people talkin', pretty few of them a-know
Soul of a woman was created below, that's right
You're the one, you're the one

[Verse 2]
Oh, everybody's been talkin', Lord
I swear they been talkin' trash (trash)
The way that ya push, push, push, push, push, push me darlin'
I can't take too much of that
So c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon whoah darlin' show me the way
I wanna make love to ya, little girl, twenty five
Twenty five
Twenty five
Twenty five
Ohhhhhhh

[Verse 3]
Said you hurt an' abuse, tellin' all of your lies
I try to quit you, baby, but ya keep me
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mesmerized
So c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, say what you will
I wanna make love to ya again, darlin', twenty five
Twenty five
Twenty five
Twenty five
Ahhhh
Ma-ma-ma-ma
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma
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Led Zeppelin
[Instrumental Break/Guitar Solo 04:10-06:37]
Oh, yeah

[Verse 4]
If you're goin' to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
If you're goin' into San Francisco
You're gonna meet a lotta gentle people there ohhh
Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, oh ho
Everywhere

[Instrumental Break 07:15-07:50]

[Vocal Interlude]
I know, I know, I know, I know, I knoow
Whooooooooooaah, whooooooooooaah
Ahh, ahhh, ahhh
Ahhh, ooh
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ah ah, ah ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ahh

[Instrumental Break 08:34-13:46]

[Vocal Interlude]
Ahhhhhh
Ah ah, aah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Dun dun dun [repeated call-and-respond between Page and Plant]
Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahh, ahhh, ahhh
Ah, ah ah ah ah ahhh ah ah
Push, push, push, push, push, push
Push, push, push, push, ah, ah
Ahh
Ah
Uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, uhh, ahh, ahhh
Oh
[Instrumental Break/Guitar Solo/Vocal Improvisation 14:59-25:12]

[Verse 5]
Oh everybody's been talkin', Lord
I swear they been talkin' trash
The way that ya push me darlin'
Ya know I couldn't take too much of that
So c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, show me the way
I wanna make love to ya little girl twenty five
A-twenty five
Twenty five
Twenty five
Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ahh

[Instrumental Outro/Guitar Solo/Vocal Improvisation/Drum Solo 25:52-29:18]
Ohhh, suck it
Yeah
Ohh

[Spoken]
Jimmy Page, electric guitar

and yes, definitely the best lyrics out of that set are:

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Led Zeppelin
Whole Lotta Love (Live)
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i like his classic song breakdowns but his comments on contemporary music are infuriating. he either hates or does not understand hip-hop, electronic, reggaeton, etc. and makes the same tired criticisms of the genres whenever they pop up. oh a hip-hop song uses a repetitive loop throughout, you say? a reggaeton song uses the reggaeton riddim? my stars!

yeah he's honestly pretty knowledgeable about stuff within a certain genre but at this point his constant old-white-guy-isms...

all i can say to that is "ok boomer", even knowing that doing so makes me the middle aged white lady in 2003 talking about "bling bling".

this man came of age in the "yummy yummy yummy i got love in my tummy" era, idk if lyrics today are much worse than that

Earlier today I enjoyed his video about the James Bond theme. My knowledge of music theory is rudimentary at best, but I was mostly able to follow his analysis and it sort of made me want to learn more. He's a good teacher.

His tastes seem to be about what I'd expect from a guy his age, so yeah, not the first person I'd consult about new music. I get it, I'm old too.

Mostly I'm annoyed when yt recommends his videos to me, but he's good when worshipping (white) jazz legends like Keith Jarrett, Mehldau, and Metheny.

I like his analysis just fine, I came across him at first because of those amazing videos of his son's perfect pitch. I started to really go off him when he went down the path of bitching on and fucking on about being demonitized or record companies/management blocking his shit, nobody cares.

I love when http://www.youtube.com/@pat_finnerty rips on him

even his classic rock breakdowns aren't all that interesting though. he has a great ear and an obviously deep well of musical knowledge but he rarely has anything to actually *say* about songwriting, which seems to be his greatest passion.

as youtube music geeks go, i much prefer adam neely, who's a deeper thinker, knows how to tell a story, understands other people's stories, and actually likes pop music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAyxatBvKfg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebwjOEqxYd8

sorry, right, rick beato. he's annoying! not as annoying as the fantano guy but he's annoying for sure.

I’ve been enjoying his recent interview series tbh. Nowhere near as annoying as his other material

even his classic rock breakdowns aren't all that interesting though. he has a great ear and an obviously deep well of musical knowledge but he rarely has anything to actually *say* about songwriting, which seems to be his greatest passion.

it's cool to hear the stems and individual parts on all those songs, and his breakdowns of the chord progressions are enlightening, if not insightful. he never engages with the substance of the song, that's true

this man came of age in the "yummy yummy yummy i got love in my tummy" era, idk if lyrics today are much worse than that

I bet you he hates "Yummy Yummy Yummy' though.

His dissections of contemporary music can be annoying, but not nearly as annoying as the video thumbnails for his dissections of contemporary music.

Like I feel like his videos are at least a little more nuanced and insightful than the titles and thumbnails have you lead to believe.

a lot of the titles of his videos are clickbait, though sometimes he does make interesting points. like there was one about how all 90s rock sounds alike, yeah okay sure it does blah blah blah but if you watch it it breaks down the various producers who were involved and the samples that wind up in a bunch of different recordings, which of course was not how things were done beforehand. it's kind of interesting. i'm lukewarm on him overall, but he's a pretty decent interviewer, one of the few who actually knows the subjects' records well

another goofy looking guy makin faces for those youtube videos looking straight into my eyes, this is so up my alley

I kind of thought his resume would be much more impressive based on his YT clout but nope, his discogs looks like any other mid-90s indie obscurity... his band that had the most exposure has never been mentioned on this board that claims to LOVE music.

https://i.imgur.com/JCHdVE5.jpeg

This sounds like a demo that our station would have received and get quickly tossed in the pile without making it to the airwaves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBDrUqJhMQ4

He's rockist in predictable and boring ways, but I like his enthusiasm for stuff he likes. I've found some of his videos interesting, made me more aware of the architecture of a song. Also I thought his tribute to Mimi Parker was totally unexpected and really nice.

He surprises me sometimes. He once listed Curve as one of the best bass sounds of all time or something.

Yeah those are the times you remember he was in a '90s band.

He also reminds me of the Italian guys I grew up around in the Rochester suburbs (where he's from too). In good ways, mostly, the gregariousness and excitability.

this man came of age in the "yummy yummy yummy i got love in my tummy" era, idk if lyrics today are much worse than that

― the defenestration of prog (voodoo chili)

I bet you he hates "Yummy Yummy Yummy' though.

― Tom D (the first British Asian ILXor) (Tom D.)

dave barry declared it to be the second worst song ever... i do think of dave barry as sort of the canonical white male boomer in terms of musical taste

i looked up the song to see if anybody has confirmed or denied the allegations that it's about swallowing cum. wikipedia was silent on the fact but provides an all-time disambiguation page:

For the Julie London album, see Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (album). For the national anthem of Vanuatu, see Yumi, Yumi, Yumi.

anyway, what i did find is that "yummy yummy yummy" is a kasenetz-katz joint (unsurprisingly), written by artie resnick and joey levine. i don't know what exactly resnick's contributions as a songwriter are, since all of his songs are co-writes. joey levine i can get a better bead on, since he went on to be a jingle guy. i mean kind of a natural career path once you've done "yummy yummy yummy", the song's basically a jingle. i mean look at this guy's career, absolute fuckin' legend:

Starting in the early 1970s, Levine began working on jingles for television commercials, as well as singing on them, with one of his most well-remembered jingles being "Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut" for Mounds and Almond Joy chocolate bars.[4]

just for that alone levine's in my good book. one of my go-to orchiectomy jokes is based on that jingle.

Popular campaigns from the past include: “Pepsi – The Joy of Cola", "Gentlemen Prefer Hanes", "Just For the Taste of It – Diet Coke", "Orange you smart, (for drinking Orange Juice)", "Come See the Softer Side of Sears", "Heartbeat of America – Chevrolet", "Dr Pepper – You Make the World Taste Better", "You Asked For It, You Got It, Toyota," "Who's that Kid With the Oreo Cookie," and "This Bud's For You" for Anheuser-Busch, and also the infamous "Proud as a Peacock" image campaign for NBC used from May 1979 to Summer 1981

just wall to wall bangers here. (if anyone here hasn't seen the "WE'RE LOUD!" parody, please do - peak "dunking on fred silverman" shit. i'll always love fred silverman for orchestrating the rural purge, but his nbc was fuckin' _dire_.) i'm sure dave barry would make fun of someone who made his career writing ad jingles, except, well. if you look at the career of jake holmes, the folkie who wrote the original "dazed and confused", then he went on to write the "be all that you can be" jingle for the us army. to me, hating on someone who can write jingles like that, one's just showing one's ignorance. i didn't hear the "valumarket" jingle for 30 years, and the second somebody brought it up again, bam! right back in my head. i don't know who wrote that one, that one's a classic tho.

the point is even if the song's _not_ actually about fellatio, it can reasonably be interpreted to be about fellatio, and that makes it an all-timer in my book. even if the residents' version is probably technically better.

oh, also, i was once again reminded that the ohio express and the ohio players were two different bands.

basically what i'm saying is that rick beato, if you do a video talking about the genius of joey levine's jingle writing, all will be forgiven

There were also (at least) three versions of Ohio Express: the original band which recorded their first single, the band hired to promote the single after the original band fell out with their record company and all their subsequent releases, the studio band who actually recorded all of their material (with Joey Levine on vocals). Oh and 10cc were Ohio Express for one single. I don't know who Dave Barry is but he's completely wrong about 'Yummy Yummy Yummy".

Oh no, Kate, you can't defend the Rural Purge!

"Yummy Yummy Yummy" is definitely about swallowing cum. I think it is firmly in the tradition of Serge Gainsbourg's "Les Sucettes" and Annie's "Chewing Gum."

I don't know who Dave Barry is but he's completely wrong about 'Yummy Yummy Yummy".

― Tom D (the first British Asian ILXor) (Tom D.)

dave barry is some american guy

named "dave"

i thought he was really funny when i was 12. he had a syndicated newspaper column. i remember his headshot in the newspaper column looking sort of like one of the wilson brothers, somewhere between brian and carl.

he had a sitcom too. like one that was supposedly "about" him. it ran for like three or four seasons. he was played by harry anderson from "night court". i don't think it had very much to do with dave barry's actual life.

Oh no, Kate, you can't defend the Rural Purge!

― Josefa

well, maybe i won't, critique it and i'll listen :)

btw while we're talking kasenetz-katz joints, i fucking love "1, 2, 3, red light" by the 1910 fruitgum company... talking heads' cover of that one is sooooo good

idk how i feel about how many of those bubblegum pop songs were kind of gainsbourgian. gainsbourg was a creep, and i don't like the idea of pressuring young women to put out that way. it's a good song, though.

Green Acres was still a viable show when cancelled - its reruns ran for YEARS - as was Hee Haw, as proven by its long afterlife in syndication. We did need more urban shows, but not at the expense of the classic rural shows.

Dave Barry played in a rock group with Stephen King and Amy Tan. I think he said "MacArthur Park" was the worst song ever, which is extremely wrong.

Rick Beatoff

One of his videos was about why quantization makes modern music suck, contrasting Nickelback and Zep.

I really don’t think some natural swing was the missing piece to Nickelback.

He dislikes a lot of the same music I do, and for more or less the same reasons, but at least I try not to be a scold about it.

"Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut" for Mounds and Almond Joy chocolate bars."

i STILL sing this to this day. like, i was singing it two days ago. that's how genius it is. that's seriously like 50 years of me singing that jingle. peterpaulsalmondjoysgotnuts...mounds don't.

xps I used to find great joy in Dave Barry's columns in the Miami Herald back in the day, and he seems like a good guy, but he's the kind of Boomer who thinks the lyrics of "Hang On, Sloopy" are superior to the lyrics of "MacArthur Park."

Calvin K. Kazanjian was the founder and president of Peter Paul Inc., the maker of the Mounds and Almond Joy candy bars, located in Naugatuck, Connecticut. For 30 years, he met and solved the problems of an ever-growing business.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a6c0f4_ef69d9a633994e54b32ca482643ff6fa~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_238,h_298,al_c,lg_1,q_80,enc_auto/a6c0f4_ef69d9a633994e54b32ca482643ff6fa~mv2.jpg

Just watched the Beato video where he takes down Jack Harlow and "Texas Hold 'Em," and have to say, at least he's punching upwards.

I think what's happening here is you have a guy who's only kinda annoying being forced into being really annoying by the YouTube algorithm

i STILL sing this to this day. like, i was singing it two days ago. that's how genius it is. that's seriously like 50 years of me singing that jingle. peterpaulsalmondjoysgotnuts...mounds don't.

― scott seward

mounds: yes
nuts: no

i mean, batting two for two here

Green Acres was still a viable show when cancelled - its reruns ran for YEARS - as was Hee Haw, as proven by its long afterlife in syndication. We did need more urban shows, but not at the expense of the classic rural shows.

― Josefa

mmmm i just don't know that commercial viability... i don't think of it as the be-all and end-all

like, for me, there's cultural impact to both the westerns and the rural sitcoms that followed them. bonanza? yes, great, classic all-time show, cancelling it for "being a western", that would be silly. the andy griffith show? same, fucking all-time. if the rural purge had cancelled the andy griffith show instead of, like, "mayberry rfd", i might have a problem with that.

i guess what i'd say is that i'd frame it more in terms of... like, the doctor shows. like, to me the problem with "the other martin loring" wasn't just that it was broadcast, it was that THIS FUCKING DR. KILDARE-ASS SHOW WAS STILL ON THE AIR IN 1973. Like WHAT THE FUCK. CBS had Mannix. NBC had the NBC Mystery Movie. ABC is showing fucking MARCUS WELBY, M.D.? That's pathetic. Completely pathetic. I'd rather watch "The Girl With Something Extra", even after learning that the "something extra" was ESP and not, like, a penis.

I think what's happening here is you have a guy who's only kinda annoying being forced into being really annoying by the YouTube algorithm

― frogbs

forced "well, actually" is my least favorite sexual fetish

I didn't know he was in a band I sorta like that YouTube song you posted lol

xp i raced my bike in naugatuck once it was kinda terrifying. the town seemed kinda post-industrial-washout consistent tho

yeah, that's a hell of a jingle. "you asked for it-- YOU GOT IT, TOYOTA!" was WAY more immense. it owned all media. everywhere. all the time. it owns me. now.

he should go full inverse maron and do a tight 5 after each interview

there was that time he spent years practicing chord identification with his son who later turned out to not really be interested in music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Cb1qwCUvI

the YouTube ecosystem needs Beato to feel like the teacher so people like Neely and Finnerty can feel like your peers

i basically know this guy only from pat finnerty videos but his signature lp special is rad imo

https://images.ctfassets.net/m8onsx4mm13s/3l9hCDnmmlh9da4eD9kf3K/6169e1577647e4b25be663352bd3732a/LPSDB21BMNH1_front__1_.png

i think i also have a bias against someone like rick beato because of my occupation. 9 out of 10 times people similar to him (dude dad musos) will come in and grill me about my receiver and my speakers - things i have no interest in other than i know what sounds good to me - and then they will leave. without ever buying anything.

I think I'm right in saying that for a lot of music tuition youtubers - and especially in the guitar world - the real money they're making is not from adverts or patreon or sponsored videos or paid promo or whatever but from selling courses off the back of their channel. Rick's approach to this has long been something called the Beato Book which he sells at fifty bucks a pop, and if you've ever wondered whats actually in it, here's a review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EfLcFImdg8

conclusion: lol, no thanks pal

Has it not been alleged that Rubin doesn't particularly do anything when he produced, like show up at the sessions

I'm not sure he's wildly different from Eno in that regard, tbh. He's a sounding board who delegates the more technical stuff to more qualified folks. But Eno is prone to prompts like "play like you floating in outer space and running out of oxygen" and Rubin seems to be stuck in "play like you are just four guys in a room again" mode.

Rubin has you do alternating ice bath and sauna sessions until your third eye opens and you can channel the Buckcherry that you used to be.

I do think that the old-school producer role has value and gets underrated these days - provide the right people and environment, be available to confidently provide opinions when asked in order to keep things moving, keep artists out of their own way.

The whole right wing thing is fucked up if true, all the more so because it's so not evident when you hear him talking about music and creativity and meditation or whatever on podcasts.

it's so not evident when you hear him talking about music and creativity and meditation or whatever on podcasts

i have no idea what rr's actual political proclivities are, but to me, the potential for batshittiness is very very evident when i hear him talk. he reeks of the left coast hippie wellness community, which is full of anti-vaxxers and related conspiracy theorists.

as a producer, it's pretty clear that whatever he does or doesn't do, it has worked for a whole lot of artists over the course of his career, so i give him full props for that.

S

Johnny cash’s American recordings is a particular bit of magic. Name another cash album you can sit through all in one sitting and come back to do all over again the next day. And it’s hardly “produced” at all!

I do t know shit about his production resume but I do get that creepy vibe from Rubin. Have a major soft spot for Beato and his goofy enthusiasm and I can almost follow most of his theory lessons.

[

Has it not been alleged that Rubin doesn't particularly do anything when he produced, like show up at the sessions

I'm not sure he's wildly different from Eno in that regard, tbh. He's a sounding board who delegates the more technical stuff to more qualified folks.

the impression i've always had is that eno is a lot more musically hands on though

There is a making of Death Magnetic documentary where you can really see how little Rick Rubin can be involved with a record while still getting a producer credit. Especially considering how much Bob Rock is involved in other Metallica recording session docs.

i have no idea what rr's actual political proclivities are, but to me, the potential for batshittiness is very very evident when i hear him talk. he reeks of the left coast hippie wellness community, which is full of anti-vaxxers and related conspiracy theorists.

as a producer, it's pretty clear that whatever he does or doesn't do, it has worked for a whole lot of artists over the course of his career, so i give him full props for that.

― fact checking cuz, viernes 28 de febrero de 2025 12:34 AM (six hours ago)

I don’t know much about him as a person tbh but his overall persona does remind me a lot to couple of pothead friends (who are Metallica and RHCP fans btw) who are generally very chill but have the worst takes ever. One of them is even a flat-earther. They seem to be really into conspiracy bullshit and are constantly fed right wing proganda without realizing the hipocrisy of some of the shit they parrot e.g. Epstein Files.

Not saying Rick Rubin is that kind of loonie but he fits the part.

Not true, she started doing that from the start (Our Song, Love Story etc) and then ended up releasing an album without co-writers (Speak Now) .

By hits I mean if you look at her most popular, say, 30-40 songs, none of those she wrote herself.

not the thread for this anymore but love story is one of her five biggest his, or so

(xp) In fact, she's had 32 Top 10 singles in the US, 7 of which are solo compositions.

I appreciate the confidence in stating something so easily proven wrong twice, with no reservations, but going forward I'd still recommend a different posting strategy.

I can’t believe it’s 2025 and “they don’t even write their own songs” is still a line of criticism someone’s trying to pull on this messageboard

OTM

Billy Strings interview was very cool. Such a humble open honest guy. Talked so much of his father's instilling the love of music and playing in him. Never seen a guitar picked like that. Genius.

the impression i've always had is that eno is a lot more musically hands on though

Eno's thing is weird to me, it's not so much that he produces as it is he just becomes part of the band, similar to what he did in Roxy Music where he wasn't really playing all the time but he'd do his thing here and there. but yes on some albums he produces I dont think he does much of anything, that first Devo album for instance, though weirdly he is credited with "vocals", anyone know what he actually sings on ?

probably backing vocals somewhere, he famously loves to do those. he apparently tried his usual thing and came up with a ton of keyboard parts but the band rejected most of his ideas

way off on a tangent: i often think about the various recollections of eno's collaboration with neil halstead for souvlaki. nobody can really agree on what his actual input on "sing" was besides engineering the recording lol.

AC/DC was not impressed with Rubin. I guess he was never around.

Devo famously said that Eno did next to nothing on that one album. In terms of actual contributions to other projects, yeah, he sings, co-writes and arranges, but he also messes with recordings and mixes in the studio, plus adds effects and keyboards, etc. For instance, "With or Without You" has a little repeating Eno keyboard part that runs throughout the song. I always thought was a guitar, but it's pretty much unplayable on guitar, or at least wildly impractical.

Eno said Devo wouldn't let him do anything and wanted the record to be as close to their demoes as possible. He said Jerry Casale was constantly hovering over his shoulder saying, "What are you doing there?"

I think he very quickly went off Devo after that.

nobody can really agree on what his actual input on "sing" was besides engineering the recording lol.

the version i'm familiar with is the one where he went into a studio with halstead and recorded a lot of halstead's guitar playing which he heavily processed to produce some ambience which the band used as the basis for "sing".

idk if he plays the keyboard line in the foreground though, it sounds like the sort of thing he might play and he's credited with "keyboards and treatments" on both "sing" and "here she comes now" but i have no idea what he did on "here she comes now"

For some reason* I watched an Avett Brothers documentary where Rubin sits in a lotus pose and talks one of the brothers through a divorce.

* = the reason being that I almost always consume music documentaries, even if I have no interest in the music or musicians involved. I could not possibly care less about Rick Rubin or Sad Scruffy Avett Brother #1 or Sad Scruffy Avett Brother #2. There are two of them, right? I also watched a documentary about the Sad Scruffy Kings of Leon brothers and I give even less of a shit about them, because they don't also have banjos.

Eno said Devo wouldn't let him do anything and wanted the record to be as close to their demoes as possible. He said Jerry Casale was constantly hovering over his shoulder saying, "What are you doing there?"

I think he very quickly went off Devo after that.

― Please play Lou Reed's irritating guitar sounds (Tom D.)

i wouldn't say he went _off_ DEVO, i'd say they just didn't click. devo were doing their first album and they had a very specific idea of how they wanted to sound, and eno actually did a really good job producing that record. to me that's what makes him a great producer, there was a lot of cool stuff he _wanted_ to do and the band were just like, no, this is how we want it to sound, and he helped them sound that way. and after that he didn't work with him again because that wasn't what he was interested in. what he was interested in was more the stuff that he wound up doing with talking heads. someone from devo, i think it might be jerry, has said yeah, i wish we could have done more with him, he had some really cool and interesting ideas but they had a pretty good idea, having been around for like five or six years at that point, of what they wanted to sound like. if you compare the eno-produced songs to "come back jonee", "come back jonee" doesn't sound _bad_ but it just doesn't represent devo's sound as well, to me, as eno's stuff does. same way, if you hear talking heads 77, they're great songs, but the production doesn't do them any favors. so having had that experience with their first album, when eno came in for "more songs about buildings and food", talking heads were more receptive to the ideas he had. that's my take.

also god rick rubin's vibe is totally fucking creepy. when it comes to the "old white dudes with beards" thing, he gives way more of a charles manson vibe than a robert wyatt vibe. plus he thought raging slab's _black belt in boogie_ was crap and wouldn't release it, so obviously his taste is shit.

I appreciate the confidence in stating something so easily proven wrong twice, with no reservations, but going forward I'd still recommend a different posting strategy.

I'm going by play counts on Spotify to determine her most popular songs:

https://kworb.net/spotify/artist/06HL4z0CvFAxyc27GXpf02_songs.html

You know what? Sorry. I did exaggerate when I said her 30/40 most popular songs are written with others. So here's a different strategy: I looked at a Spotify playlist that has 40 songs that were top 10s at least in the hot 100, and I checked the writing credits for each, which gave me a list of 11 solo compositions.

Correct me if I'm wrong: of the 15 most-streamed songs in the above list, her only solo composition is Lover (#5)? Love Story is #16 on this list. Vigilante Shit and Back to December are #56 and #60 respectively. The rest are #111 and down. So two of her top 50 songs, when ranked in popularity via Spotify, are solo compositions. So as far as I can tell, she had co-writers on her 15 most popular songs, and she had co-writers on 48 of her 50 most popular songs?

BTW, I never expressed a view that an artist is less-than because they don't write their own songs.

** her 15 most popular songs, aside from Lover.

Well we've certainly come a long way from 'she has not written any of her hits herself' - not true, many of her hits are written by herself, to 'none of her 30-40 most popular songs' - not true either - to 'only one of her top 15 on spotify is a solo composition'. So whatever your original point is, it's pretty watered out. She's a songwriter in the traditional sense who started out writing songs by herself on a guitar and releasing them as singles and album tracks, paired with other songs with usually only one co-writer.

If the point is that the modern producer of highly produced pop songs is almost by default credited as a co-songwriter, then that's true enough, which is why you something like Taylor's Speak Now, an album without any co-writing credits, is so rare in mainstream pop, and which she probably won't repeat while travelling in synth or electro pop sounds, because those are inevitably tied to a strong producer voice. But it's pretty easy to identify a pop singer-songwriter, like Taylor or Olivia Rodrigo, from songwriting credits alone, even with a producer who gets credit - because the producer will be the only credited co-writer, unlike a pop singer who's not primarily a songwriter, and may be credited here and there, but together with songwriting teams, topline writers, etc.

https://i.imgur.com/EWDK6GY.png

a secondary point (maybe worth raising but extremely hard to dig into within any certainity) is that song-writing and album-making credits are less far from the hollywood system of agreed recompense as signalled on-screen than they are an index of "authentic proportion of creative input" (which will anyway always be highly contested post-release, hence the need for a very off-page pre-work contractual discussion). credits are a delivery system for who is will be paid what and how (above the line, below the line, other), emerging from engagement between hired artisans often manifesting as brands (term not derogatory: swift very clearly "thinks like brand" and e.g. antonoff functions as a brand within this particular ecology)

(scott walker bringing evan parker into climate of hunter had a branding function: scott decoupling himself from his past, parker signalling that yes he *would* play on the vic reeves alb)

way back in the mists of ilx time i used to whang on a bit abt the "julia lennon theory of who's in the band": if george martin is the fifth beatle, lennon's late mom is like the seventh or whatever -- bcz her contant presence in his mind at all stages of composition and performance is a key element in how the music emerged. absent consideration of such elements (non-fanciful but unlikely to be raised in the credit negotiations except by weirdos) (me) -- our model for the geometries of creative input is always just simplified conventions designed to produce a working agreement going forward

creative input is never not collective but it also always passes through an intricate and generally invisible machinery, practical but also financial and legal -- the credits are a palimpsest of the design of this machinery

(yes i shd go on rick beato's youtube and set this out, he would straight away see what i mean and start to think more clearly abt music old and new) (i must watch the rick wakeman interview to see how much of this angle gets discussed)

post probably easier to follow if you substitute "closer to" for "less far from", my mind is drawn towards double negatives, yes i am the hegel of ilx (this is derogatory)

not true, many of her hits are written by herself

I guess I disagree with "many"

and we're back

Is 4 out of 100 many? I'm seriously asking.

Depends how you define "hits" perhaps.

ALmost all her album tracks hit the top 15 of Spotify on release. Even back in the Speak Now days, with less streaming '11 of the standard edition's 14 tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100' - these are all hits.

So your position is that Taylor Swift has hundreds of hit songs?

Yes

But also 32 top 10 singles, 7 of which are solo compositions, that also counts as 'many'. 7 top 10 hits written by herself.

Let's move on.

Look I might not be a fan but I hope she wins a Grammy someday

to be fair to wakeman (and i guess beato) his tales abt life as a very busy very young session musician were p interesting, including the digression via harpichord lief into owning horses and the queen mum lol, he always gave excellent anecdote, which is why rock hacks loved him

as for discussion of music? well he played instead. his chops are in p good form considering a life well-oiled (audibly better than they sometimes were on tour in much of the late 70s). beato stood open-mouthed with startled joyful amazement as RW whirled thru his usual narrow shtick: he is of course at his best when very tightly directed and produced = steered away from his little bag of fleet-fingered devices

when he wasn't insisting none of the others in yes (bruford possibly excepted) ever listened to anyone but themselves he was enthusing abt the yes process -- beato shd have stopped him here and said "well which is it?" -- but tbh RW was visibly tiring by this point, not explaining this process well anyway except by launching into fragmentary playback. a bit sad to see 😔 im a hater but this is evidently an amiable, biddable, talented guy (whose ideas about music suck)

so the jimmy thomas session RW discusses at such entertaining length did not (as far as i can tell) ever emerge as an actual release? in another version of the anecdote — yes he’s of course told it before, that’s the rick wakeman guarantee! — he says that he will “never forget” that it was called “the running kind”. assuming he HASN’T got the title wrong, this track is not to be found under jimmy’s name on discogs. he had mid-60s releases on Mirkwood (an LA label) but released no solo LP before 1973's ABYSS, while his minor northern soul classic “the beautiful night” (1969) is parlophone, which seems to fit, except it’s self-produced by thomas not denny cordell (i believe — meaning i read on wikipedia — that thomas was actually on p good terms w/cordell and tony visconti bcz they were happy to teach him the wiles of the producer?)

nor is it listed on among the sessions acknowledged on rick’s own website — almost none of the 60s sides at issue are in fact (though of course the research and fact-checking are tough as he wouldn’t have been credited for most of them — teenage session musician! — and he admits to poor memory in this area (a lot of sessions a long time ago)

which is not to say the session never happened! tbh this isn’t the kind of imagination rick has: he’s a workhorse of a tale-spinner, which is to say a tale simplifier, but most of the detail here is surely solid (plus visconti’s still around to back it up if someone wants to ask him lol)

in conclusion: the story is good at setting up rick’s own trajectory (from know-nothing doofus at his first session to unstoppable whizzkid veteran of 2000 sessions), and to humblebrag abt cordell exclaiming how RW's unorthodox (presumably quasi-classical?) style will get him lots of session work! a more spiteful reader than me might imagine jimmy thomas listening back and saying “wait this white-boy piano fkn sucks” and refused to release the cut despite the sunk cost — but it’s annoying we can’t play the song to check what was going on back then

lol MIRWOOD not mirkwood

as a producer, it's pretty clear that whatever he does or doesn't do, it has worked for a whole lot of artists over the course of his career, so i give him full props for that.

There are external factors to consider, like the fact that (for the last 30 years or so) Rubin working on your record has meant the entire industry is gonna fall all over itself to get behind that record and push the fuck out of it to press, radio, etc. His involvement is a major biz-side co-sign.

Especially if he sits in a lotus position with bare feet and says "I hear you, man."

a meeting of the minds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ2O_LPcPu8