Song writing credits - an attempt to quantify

[SoulMonster]

The question about how important each band member has been in the song writing process came up in another thread. I tried to calculate this some time before, but spent some more time now trying to do it better. My sources are the listed song credits in the albums sleeves and any interviews where band members have talked about the song writing process. There is often a difference between these two things, the song credits may state something but statements from band members at a later date may contradict these. Who to trust? This is a hard one. There will always be a subjective part to this, and this is undeniable. One must assume Steven came up with all the drum parts to AFD, this should certainly be given some weight, his drumming is unique and adds a lot to the songs, even if he is never listed as a song writer. But how many percent should he get? And what about Duff's bass parts? He probably came up with all of them, but how important are they? I have decided to add more weight to the vocal melodies and the lead guitar, simply because in my opinion they are more dominate in the song than rhythm and drum and bass. But again, this is subjective, other people may but more emphasis on bass than solos. So no right answer. My general method has been to assign 20 % to Axl for lyrics and vocal melodies, 20 % to Slash (or whoever did lead guitar), and 10 % each to the remaining guys, UNLESS it is stated they added more than just coming up with their instrumental parts. So for instance when Axl did the vocals to Think About You, he got less than 20 % because Izzy wrote most of the lyrics and the vocal melodies, and more for Sweet Child O' Mine where Axl was more involved in shaping the song structure. For songs where I have no info I assign the default 20 or 10 % score.

APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION

Anyway, I am not going to bore you with all the data, but here are the end percenages for Appetite for Destruction, in order of who were most responsible for creating the music on that record:

Slash: 26 %, Izzy: 24 %, Axl: 20 %, Duff 16 % and Steven 10 %.

Yes, these numbers don't add up, that is because of credits to West Arkeen and Chris Weber.

So, in terms of who was the most important musician for this fantastic record, according to my system it was Slash marginally before Izzy.

I will continue with the rest of the albums and then make a summary...if I don't get bored or drunk.

 

Edited March 3, 2016 by SoulMonster

[SoulMonster]

LIES

Fewer songs, some older songs. This means that Axl and Izzy gets higher song writing credits, athough like AFD this record is still very much a band effort where all members add their signature touch to each song.

Axl 28 %, Izzy 25 %, Slash 20, Duff 14 %, Steven 8 %.

Edited March 3, 2016 by SoulMonster

[Chuzeville]

Didn't Axl do that himself regarding Appetite? I'm pretty sure I once read an interview where he said he wrote 41 % of it.

[sonofnazareth]

the egos in this band...

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, Chuzeville said:

Didn't Axl do that himself regarding Appetite? I'm pretty sure I once read an interview where he said he wrote 41 % of it.

Heh, could be. I honestly can't remember. I am pretty sure he has some strong opinions on who did what, though . In fact, I don't think they would agree on something like this, any of them, they already disagree on some songs like WTTJ, and naturally they would think their contributions are more important than other's contributions.

Edited March 3, 2016 by SoulMonster

[Theseeker123]

Chuzeville is correct, Axl himself said he took 41 % adler took 15% and the other 3 guys split up the rest. This was done according to who came up with what parts including lyrics. This might have been noted with the 1994 court case with Axl, when Adler took GNR to court. 

[auad]

cool topic bro

[SoulMonster]

Use Your Illusion I.

It's getting more complicated now. The band didn't write as a team to the same extent as before and weren't all as involved as before. Steen is out, replaced with Matt. I have chosen to give Matt a score of 7 % due to his drumming being more "generic" than Steevn's who I feel put more of a signature on the sings through his playing. Again, subjective and other people will fiercely disagree. Dizzy is also inn and adds organ parts here and there. I have added Paul Huge. He wasn't a band member at this time, but he will become later and he's got song writing credits for UYI1.

Anyway, here are the scores:

Axl 28 %, Slash 24 %, Izzy 21 %, Duff 11 %, Matt 7 %, Dizzy 3 %, Paul Huge 2 %.

Edited March 3, 2016 by SoulMonster

[SoulMonster]

5 minutes ago, Theseeker123 said:

Chuzeville is correct, Axl himself said he took 41 % adler took 15% and the other 3 guys split up the rest. This was done according to who came up with what parts including lyrics. This might have been noted with the 1994 court case with Axl, when Adler took GNR to court. 

I remember it now. Wasn't it something about them all having equal scores in the beginning (20 %), but then Axl thought Steven shouldn't have as much since he was just a drummer, so he transferred score form Steven to himself? Anyway, that doesn't explain the whole 41 %...

[Theseeker123]

Well diff guys in the band wrote diff parts. Adler didnt write much on that album, so he didnt get as much of the share. Dont know what went on behind the scenes; sweet child for example axl may have came up with part of the melody for part of the song. They weighed all this out and came up with who got what percent

[Theseeker123]

Good work with the use your illusions calculations id say they were probably fairly accurate

[Strange Broue]

Steven wrote zero thing

He was bitching about the royalties therefoore Axl had to share hiis own percentage with him, just for the sake of continutiy

 

Quote

Anyway, I am not going to bore you with all the data,

i'm not trying to be a dick, but it seems this thread purposedly created becase of the data...

Then you don't share it with us...

Like i said Steven wrote zero songs

 

[Strange Broue]

14 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

Use Your Illusion I.

It's getting more complicated now. The band didn't write as a team to the same extent as before and weren't all as involved as before. Steen is out, replaced with Matt. I have chosen to give Matt a score of 7 % due to his drumming being more "generic" than Steevn's who I feel put more of a signature on the sings through his playing. Again, subjective and other people will fiercely disagree. Dizzy is also inn and adds organ parts here and there. I have added Paul Huge. He wasn't a band member at this time, but he will become later and he's got song writing credits for UYI1.

Anyway, here are the scores:

Axl 28 %, Slash 24 %, Izzy 21 %, Duff 11 %, Matt 7 %, Dizzy 3 %, Paul Huge 2 %.

The fuck man?

You just pull out this from your ass

Then what's the point?

Btw Duff wrote some of the drum parts (for example YCBM intro etc.)...

[tsinindy]

Yah how are you coming up with these scores.  When I look at AFD, it looks to me Axl gets credit for 41% of the songs.   I would go over the rest but it's fairly easily to do.  I don't think trying to figure who wrote what percentage of an album is as arbitrary as to who was credited with writing what percentage of songs on a record.

Edited March 3, 2016 by tsinindy

[Theseeker123]

You're right he didnt, Adlers argument was he came up with some of the music, not lyrics. Axl actually said it was one of the biggest mistakes of his life to give into Adler on this issue. It ended up costing him millions of dollars in the end

[SoulMonster]

3 minutes ago, Strange Broue said:

Steven wrote zero thing

He was bitching about the royalties therefoore Axl had to share hiis own percentage with him, just for the sake of continutiy

 

i'm not trying to be a dick, but it seems this thread purposedly created becase of the data...

Then you don't share it with us...

Like i said Steven wrote zero songs

 

He added instrumental parts, hence he helped create some of the songs. He didn't necesarrily come up with the words or chord progressions, but whenever he sat down and came up with the drum patterns and beat, that was a contribution to that songs. Undeniably. Then comes the question how much drums contribute to a song, which is more of a subjective thing, but that it does add to the song really is undeniable.

5 minutes ago, Strange Broue said:

The fuck man?

You just pull out this from your ass

Then what's the point?

Btw Duff wrote some of the drum parts (for example YCBM intro etc.)...

No, I don't pull this out of my ass. Why would I bother?

If you read my first post you'd understand that I do adjust for different band members helping out with other parts.

5 minutes ago, tsinindy said:

Yah how are you coming up with these scores.

Check the first post where I explained the method. If you have any specific questions, please ask.

[Strange Broue]

eh fuck it, all of the forums are shit

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Strange Broue said:

eh fuck it, all of the forums are shit

Well, no one can blame you for not trying to raise the standard.

[tsinindy]

Yah I got to the "any interviews about the band part" and realized the flaw in the system.  Interesting though, but reliable, not sure.

[dalsh327]

If you know someone who has an account with Harry Fox, it tells you the publishing split. 

[Strange Broue]

Just now, SoulMonster said:

Well, no one can blame you for not trying to raise the standard.

There was a thread on M's asylum and WC made some good copy paste job about this issue with lots of quotes from band members

Unfortunately, he/she changed the forum persona again, and the topic was deleted since then so i can't find it anywhere (not even on google cache)

 

Shit happens

[SoulMonster]

1 minute ago, tsinindy said:

Yah I got to the "any interviews about the band part" and realized the flaw in the system.  Interesting though, but reliable, not sure.

We know that the song credits reported in databases by the band and in album sleeves are inaccurate. Very much so. Relying on them won't do. And this is partly why we keep arguin about these things -- there is contradtictions between what is stated in the public records and what band members reveal from the song writing/recording process. I am trying to merge these things to give us the most accurate picture of the actual song writing credits as we can hope to get. The premise here are some assumptions i have to make (like how much weight I put on drums contra bass, etc), but hopefully I have made this clear in the first post. You might disagree with these weightings, which is fine, but I try to my best abiloty to be consistent.

4 minutes ago, Strange Broue said:

There was a thread on M's asylum and WC made some good copy paste job about this issue with lots of quotes from band members

Unfortunately, he/she changed the forum persona again, and the topic was deleted since then so i can't find it anywhere (not even on google cache)

 

Shit happens

Okay, it would have been interesting to see. Oh well.

[SoulMonster]

Use Your Illusion II.

Same as for UYI1.

The scores:

Axl 35 %, Slash 21 %, Izzy 16 %, Duff 15 %, Matt 6%, Dizzy 3%, Steven 1 %.

[JeanGenie]

I think that axls song are rubbish without Slash's monster guitar parts. Especially on UYI II. Songs like estranged, breakdown, locomotive are for me more Slash's songs than anybody elses imho.

[SoulMonster]

Combined scores for AFD, LIES, UYI1 and UYI2.

Tada.

Axl 28 %.

Slash 23 %.

Izzy 21 %.

Duff 14 %.

Steven & Matt 4 %.

Dizzy 2 %.

Paul Huge 1 %.

I don't think this is very off from what I hear people say. The three most important song writers/contributors in the "old guns" period was Axl, Slash and Izzy. They are usually mentioned as the three most important guys when it came to writing the songs, so I believe this correlates pretty well with what most people feel. I probably would have put Izzy somewhat higher, and Axl a little lower, if I were to guess, but these are details. Steven and Matt both got about 4  % score. This reflects the fact that I don't put a lot of weight on drumming. Hah. They got the same score due to me being partial to Steven's drumming which despite him playing on fewer songs, which is definitely subjective, I believe had more impact on the music than Matt who was a bit less unique. It was a bit surprising to me that Dizzy didn't get higher score, I always subconsciously assumed he did more when writing the music, but a lot of what he plays in concert today was written and/or played by Axl on the records.