Bands that started out writing collaboratively and then became dominated by a single songwriter (or individual songwriters pulling in different directions)...

Mostly Mould in the beginning, ended with Hart writing about half of the material. Wasn't a downward spiral in quality terms at all, IMO, but it did end.

I'm awaiting Kate on this thread.

X-post.

Not quite a correct answer to your question either, possibly. ("started out writing collaboratively"?)

Mid albums, "Strummer/Jones" OR whoever (e.g. "Simonon")

Later albums, "The Clash" (i.e. not "Headon")

All I'm going to say is "Spacemen 3 went from writing collaboratively to writing records where they were split into sides where each songwriter wrote one side. Funnily enough, both principal songwriters seemed to get *better* when they took this approach. It worked for a few years, then both (Jason much more significantly) seemed to degenerate into just doing one thing, over and over."

I could say the same thing about a band like Ride, except their output got poorer as the two songwriters grew apart.

The point that was made was that many bands which seem to start out as Collectives are actually held together/driven by one person who is the focal point. As time goes on, it becomes very apparent that bands cannot function as democracies, and the focal point evolves into the Dictator/Auteur.

No they weren't - the credits for the last few albums, at least, name exactly who wrote them.

Ouch. (apologetically)

Then there's Whiskeytown. Ryan Adams was always the main songwriter, but some one or more specific persons has writing credit on almost every song (different on a song-by-song basis). I tend to think Adams did better with strong collaborators, although that clearly isn't his opinion.

And how about Fleetwood Mac? The band went through five or six different songwriters, none of whom was Fleetwood or "Mac", with some collaboration in different clumps and ultimately, as the band got more successful, not.

It's awfully hard to divorce artistic issues from economic issues here. Songwriting royalties are a significant source of cash for artists that are experiencing some success, and it's not cash that their record companies can recoup against or that requires them to tour. My sense is that a lot of groups starting out agree to share the credit (and the royalties), but when the money doesn't go very far, and one person is doing all of the real writing (especially if he or she is also the most recognizable band member), there is a lot of economic pressure to break up the band so that the writer can get all of that income stream. Or, if there is more than one writer, and royalties aren't being shared, the issue becomes how many of whose songs go on an album, and which is marketed to radio or soundtracks. It's not just greed, purely; lots of reasonably successful bands generate enough income to support a couple people without day jobs, but not four or five.

It was only after the sacking of Brammah and the departure of Friel, Baines and Karl Burns (the first of many times) That Smith, along with new manager Kay Carroll assumed total control of the group.

OMD also fits, I think.

I've actually wondered about the dynamics behind the reverse process (viz. Queen and Genesis as the example coming most quickly to mind). Do we think this means that the bands really did begin to "write together" or in a different way, or is it the result of some kind of perverse economic pressure ("If you want me/us to stay in the band, then you can't be the only one making money.")

I actually find the details of artistic collaboration among the most interesting topics in music.

This is pretty revisionist.

From "Invisible Touch" onwards the songs would be credited to the entire band again. By that time, Phil Collins had surpassed Tony Banks as the main songwriter.