Song writing credits - an attempt to quantify

[ksks12]

7 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

They never wrote a good song without Izzy.

Agreed 

[SoulMonster]

3 minutes ago, ksks12 said:

A few things. First of all good effort and great topic.

 I Just want to make some observations. Just giving someone 25% by default by writing a solo is way way too much. Axl 'cowrote' by putting one verse in even though the song was written completely by someone else (for most parts Izzy).

Contributing on a song by someone else is something, coming up with a song is something else. And here is why Izzy was the main force. All of them were great together on making things work songs wise, but you still needed that first riff and chorus. 

Btw I'm not denying Axls talent, he wrote Estranged wich says a lot, but to put him on the front in songwriting process in gnr is just not right.

Please all jmho.

I hear you. Some comments, the default score for adding lead guitar, with solos, is 20, not 25. And it is lead guitar throughout the song. And it is Slash's lead guitar, which is prominent in the mix and typically very distinctive.

It could very well be that I should skew the scores a little bit in favour of whoever came up with the general song in the beginning. Typically, with my system, whoever brings in the song (and it is never complete and it is destined to be altered by the rest of the guys) gets 60-40 % for that. There are very few examples (besides My World) where a song can in its entirity be attributed to a single band member. They might bring it is as a whole, like a piano song with lyrics, a guitar song with lyrics, but it will inevitably change as the other band members out their stamps on it. And inevitably, codas are added, arrangements are changed, lyrical melody is adjusted to Axl's delivery and phrasings, Slash will speed or rock it up, add new riffs and solos, etc. For the most part, GN'R song creation was a concerted effort by them all. That is why you rarely get more than 60 %. But yeah, maybe I should skew it more in favour of who original had the song idea.

You mention Estranged. Again, Matt gets his typical 7 % for drums, Izzy and Duff gets their 10 % for rhythm and bass (although, quite possibly Izzy should get less and Slash mroe since Slash claims he wrote all guitar parts of the songs, which Izzy might just be playing on the recoding). This leaves 73 % between Axl and Slash. Axl had the piano song first, he "wrote" it, Slash came up with the guitar melodies and solos, and presumably fitted the guitar chords to go with Axl's piano chords, too. In my opinion Axl should get more credit, but Slash's involvement goes beyond his customary 20 % because the guitar parts in Estranged are so distinctive to the mood, feel and sound of that song. As Slash himself said, "are pretty important to the song now, I would say. 'Cause you recognize 'em, you know." I have given Axl 43 % and Slash 30 %. Cue outraged protests

[wasted]

I would say certain songs on afd wouldn't exist without Izzy

nightrain

out ta get me

brownstone

think about you

scom

anything goes

i'd give Duff easy

Slash - Jungle, PC, RQ

Crazy - not sure

patience and used to love her

on UYI Izzy was instrumental in

RNDTH

DNB

Dont Cry

Perfect crime

Bad obsessiom

double talkin jive

Bad apples

14 years

Pretty tied up

YCBM

not entirely sure but that's how I see it

 

izzy is a creative force but Slash and Axl really produce the product we listen to. I feel like Izzy would present the above songs much differently to as we see them in Guns. Like his solo records theres a lot great songs and ideas but they aren't really stadium ready. 

[Bobbo]

21 minutes ago, ksks12 said:

A few things. First of all good effort and great topic.

 I Just want to make some observations. Just giving someone 25% by default by writing a solo is way way too much. Axl 'cowrote' by putting one verse in even though the song was written completely by someone else (for most parts Izzy).

Contributing on a song by someone else is something, coming up with a song is something else. And here is why Izzy was the main force. All of them were great together on making things work songs wise, but you still needed that first riff and chorus. 

Btw I'm not denying Axls talent, he wrote Estranged wich says a lot, but to put him on the front in songwriting process in gnr is just not right.

Please all jmho.

I will go to my grave believing Slash was dicked out of that writing credit for Estranged. Those guitar melodies pretty much drive that entire song.

[SoulMonster]

7 minutes ago, ksks12 said:

Agreed 

Civil War? Izzy has no song writing credits, is not featured on the recording, and according to interviews it was finished in Chicago without him present. This might be unfair to izzy, maybe he did add to it during early rehearsals, but if so, it has left no evidence anywhere as far as I know.

Other songs people think are good but where Izzy had an insignificant contribution are: Shotgun Blues, The Garden and Coma.

Again, my main "finding" here, if you will, is how important Izzy was. Most people don't recognize this. What I am saying is that he is on par with Axl and Slash, and should be credited as such. These three are the main force in GN'R when it comes to how the songs sound on record (producer and mixer not included. Hah! That would be a lot of extra work!).

[DieselDaisy]

In normal songwriting parlance, drum tracks are not credited as songwriting; neither are bass lines and (perhaps most controversially) guitar solos.

I'm not saying it is correct, it just is.

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

In normal songwriting parlance, drum tracks are not credited as songwriting; neither are bass lines and (perhaps most controversially) guitar solos.

I'm not saying it is correct, it just is.

Yeah, and that's why I repeatedly point out that I am not adhering to normal songswriting parlance, in fact, I make a point of trying to figure out the each band member's importance for how the song sounds on the record, not whoever came up with original chord progressions and lyrics, and hence focus on song "creation" rather than song "writing", which is a pretty vague and misleading term anyway.

To my mind, and most people I assume, solos are important when it comes to songs. We hum them, we try to play them, and we get goosebumps form hearing them. They can be just as signaturic (is that even a word?) as the vocals. Just think about Slash's intro to Sweet Child O' Mine, or his hauting solos in the beginning of Estranged. Take these away and the song is qualitativelly altered, regardles of whether you like them or not. The same goes, to some extent, to stuff like bass lines, although most people dont' pay as much attention to them and they are more buried in the overal soundscape of the song. Again think of the bass riff intro to SCOM. Surely we love Duff for coming up with that, and if we don't surely we realize that he put his mark on the song with that bass melody? Only focussing on whoever originally came up with the overall song structure and chord progression and the lyrics and vocal melodies, is grossly unfair to the other musicians who, through their own art, has affected the song by creating their own instrumental parts and how these are played. Well, you may disagree or not, but that is the premise for what I have been trying to do. Whether it is in conflict with standard songwriting credit system, is irrelevant to me, really. In fact, it is the unfairness of the booklets credits that prompted me to do this.

[Original GNR]

9 hours ago, Len B'stard said:

They never wrote a good song without Izzy.

Whilst that is true, it's also true that they never actually wrote a song at all (that we have heard) without Izzy. The Illusions were the last albums with any of the original members, bar Axl. We don't actually know what a GNR song with just Axl, Slash and Duff would sound like because we've never heard one. 

EDIT: Let me rephrase that slightly. We've never heard an album where Izzy wasn't involved. There may be individual songs on AfD or UYI where Izzy had minimal input, but we've never heard a full release with just Axl, Slash and Duff. 

Edited March 4, 2016 by Original GNR

[SoulMonster]

Just now, Original GNR said:

Whilst that is true, it's also true that they never actually wrote a song at all (that we have heard) without Izzy. The Illusions were the last albums with any of the original members, bar Axl. We don't actually know what a GNR song with just Axl, Slash and Duff would sound like because we've never heard one. 

Again, maybe Civil War is one such song? Shotgun Blues may be another (Izzy doesn't play guitar on it, only adds background vocals) - but he may have helped shaped the song nonetheless. The Garden is also devoid of Izzy, both on recodring and as far as we know, as having helped create the song. And although he plays rhythm on Coma, everything points to the guitars for this being mainly Slash's doing. Even It's So Easy could largely have been made without Izzy's contributions (it was a Duff/West song that Slash GN'R-ed up). But yeah, Izzy is pretty ubiquitous throughout GN'R's catalogue.

[sonofnazareth]

10 minutes ago, Original GNR said:

Whilst that is true, it's also true that they never actually wrote a song at all (that we have heard) without Izzy. The Illusions were the last albums with any of the original members, bar Axl. We don't actually know what a GNR song with just Axl, Slash and Duff would sound like because we've never heard one. 

The first Snakepit album showed a lack of songwriting abilities (I can understand why Axl thought these songs were not up to GNR standards). Ain't Life Grand was miles better due to a solid band writing the songs. 

[Babooshka]

3 hours ago, Bobbo said:

I will go to my grave believing Slash was dicked out of that writing credit for Estranged. Those guitar melodies pretty much drive that entire song.

He was royally stiffed.

And if that's happening to Slash in such a blatant manner, imagine what Duff was experiencing.

It's an example of the politics behind who gets credited.

[SoulMonster]

7 hours ago, GNRmello77 said:

Very interesting read @SoulMonster thank you i can get to this yeah, now try to calculate CD

Thanks!

Hah! I considered doing that, but after looking at Chinese Democracy and seeing everybody who played on that song, and the mess it is, I don't know if I am capable. I mean, Josh and Axl did the main writing of the song, that's fine, but how much score should be given to Bumble's fretless playing, Bucket's solos, or Chris' 12 string guitar? There are 11 friggin musicians playing on that songs, I would spend hours figuring our how much they did and how prominent those parts are in the recorded result. If I ever managed to do it. I don't have time right now, probably never

[Sprite]

10 hours ago, Bobbo said:

I will go to my grave believing Slash was dicked out of that writing credit for Estranged. Those guitar melodies pretty much drive that entire song.

There is a message from Axl in the UYI2 booklet under Estranged that says "Slash, thanks for the killer guitar melodies!" or something similar to that. 

[James Bond]

8 hours ago, Sprite said:

There is a message from Axl in the UYI2 booklet under Estranged that says "Slash, thanks for the killer guitar melodies!" or something similar to that. 

If I remember correctly, Slash said that that was a compromise of sorts. Basically an acknowledgement without actually getting credited.

[sanity_lost]

Does it really matter? The only people who know who wrote what are the ones who wrote it and I am sure even they don't know for sure in all cases- such as in many songs on AFD since they were in such tight quarters and jammed together constantly.

Everyone is just going to say their their own favorite band member was the most important one and meant the most to GNR. GNR would not be GNR except for all the people who were part of it.

[SoulMonster]

40 minutes ago, sanity_lost said:

Does it really matter? The only people who know who wrote what are the ones who wrote it and I am sure even they don't know for sure in all cases- such as in many songs on AFD since they were in such tight quarters and jammed together constantly.

Everyone is just going to say their their own favorite band member was the most important one and meant the most to GNR. GNR would not be GNR except for all the people who were part of it.

Everybody is of course free to have whoever as their favourite band member, and some like GN'R because of Axl, some because of Slash, some because of Izzy, and so on. Again, no right or wrong answer there.

BUT, it does matter to the fan base how important each of the band members were for the music that was made, what contributions they each made to the music as it is heard on record. It does matter to us that hugely contributing musicians left (like Izzy with his song writing and Slash with his lead guitar and solos). And we constantly argue over who contributed the most. Right now the impact of Izzy has been discussed in more than one thread. What I have done was to try to quantify this, and although this can't be done completely objecivelly, some subjective decisions must be made, I have tried my best, been consistent, and transparent on how I have done it. I don't think we should bury us in the numbers, but if you agree with my method then some conclusions we can take away from this is that Izzy was about as important as Axl and Slash, and that Duff was significantly less, and that the contributions from Dizzy was rather small (pre-CD), and so on. And I think these conclusions would stand even if someone with slight differences in subjective preferences did the work.

[DR DOOM]

On 3/3/2016 at 6:34 AM, 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

Drums and percussion are shortchanged in the way songwriting credits are allocated, and that is why drummers usually don't get credited.

That does not mean they "wrote zero thing" or rather they didn't write anything, it just means that their instrument duds them out of a credit by default.

[Babooshka]

Isn't that about to change? I'm sure I read something about drums/percussion finally getting credited.

[Philipm787]

On 3/4/2016 at 9:17 AM, sonofnazareth said:

The first Snakepit album showed a lack of songwriting abilities (I can understand why Axl thought these songs were not up to GNR standards). Ain't Life Grand was miles better due to a solid band writing the songs. 

There's only 3 or 4, maybe 5 GNR songs better than Beggars, in my opinion

[DR DOOM]

3 minutes ago, Babooshka said:

Isn't that about to change? I'm sure I read something about drums/percussion finally getting credited.

I have no idea, but there's never been anything to stop people just allocating them as seen fit.

An example that comes to mind is Black Sabbath (original) who split it all 4 ways as to avoid infighting- there's a lot of sense in that.

Sort of a different topic perhaps but look at the Lennon/McCartney partnership, where songs were credited as such even when one of them was in no way involved.

I guess Strange Broue is just trying to be "that guy" here and I'm taking the bait but yeah SB your statement is really misinformed.

[DieselDaisy]

Songwriting accreditation is often the most contentious issue of bands, case in point Mick Taylor and The Rolling Stones.

[dalsh327]

I agree that drummers get screwed on songwriting because they're not seen as writing melodies, unless you're talking about "singing drummers" or Neil Peart. 

There have been magazine articles about the making of the albums where who wrote what has been discussed, but you'd have to sift through hundreds of articles to find them and get into the making of each and every song. It would be a good pinned thread, but it would take a long time to dig the stuff up with all the quotes. 

 

[SoulMonster]

32 minutes ago, dalsh327 said:

I agree that drummers get screwed on songwriting because they're not seen as writing melodies, unless you're talking about "singing drummers" or Neil Peart. 

There have been magazine articles about the making of the albums where who wrote what has been discussed, but you'd have to sift through hundreds of articles to find them and get into the making of each and every song. It would be a good pinned thread, but it would take a long time to dig the stuff up with all the quotes. 

What I have done is based on all the interviews I have access to. References to unknown interviews would be greatly appreciated.

[dalsh327]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

What I have done is based on all the interviews I have access to. References to unknown interviews would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 5, 2016 by dalsh327

[dalsh327]

I can't delete the quotes for some reason... 

Factoring in magazines not online (although with GNR a lot of fans transcribed over the years), interviews never transcribed, anything said at concerts you'd have to go through all the bootlegs? The only reason to research that deep is because someone's writing a book or a dissertation, not a forum. There's been a lot said over the years about who wrote what on AFD but I don't think I've ever seen it where it was narrowed down to Cliff Notes "who wrote what".