Top songwriters by Hot 100 points

[nickd]

Aug 14, 2019 17:45:43 GMT -5 garrettlen said:

You didn't do Paul McCartney or John Lennon yet, did you?

I haven't posted them yet, no. I've been saving the songwriters with the highest point totals for a little countdown. So far, I have 11 songwriters with more points than Neil Diamond, and I'm pretty there won't be anymore. There's a few others I have to do to be sure but I expect their totals to only be in the 25-40k range.

Anyone want to guess who those 11 are?

[Deleted]

Aug 10, 2019 14:33:53 GMT -5 nickd said:

I wonder how much different the points totals for topline songwriters like Bonnie McKee, Kara DioGuardi and Ester Dean would be if they were writing 20+ years ago. Back then the performers were less likely to demand songwriting credits, and ditto for the producers. Admittedly the producers do have a bigger role these days since the songs often begin with their instrumental rather than beginning with a songwriter(s) that write a song to piano/guitar and then get a band or producer to add the other elements. Maybe the producers today are more involved in giving input in every step of the process whereas in the past their role was closer to that of an engineer?

Late response is late, but yes, if you compose the instrumental, you're a de facto co-writer for the song even if you don't come up with one word. It's very common today for producers to compose their own tracks which they pitch to artists or topliners. Before the '90s the opposite was true; producers could and did provide plenty of creative input in the song-making process, but often were not the ones who composed or wrote any specific part of the songs. E.g. if the demo has a guitar riff in it and you say 'hey, you should play that riff on a saxophone instead,' you aren't going to get a writing credit for the riff.

I might be wrong on this but I think producer-as-composer started happening in hip-hop before it spread to other genres, due to the nature of that genre and how people would break into it. Pop and r&b didn't take long to catch up though.

[nickd]

Aug 15, 2019 9:46:35 GMT -5 rockgolf said:

Yup. One of my favorites too. (Although I think his ratio of new material to compilations is the lowest I ever saw. He seemed to alternate, even in the 60s & 70s between 1 new album and a best of/live/collection re-package.)

A case of missing the obvious child.

Minor question: On other acts that did covers, you listed those tracks but scored zero. Yet the Simon & Garfunkel "Wake Up, Little Suzie" isn't listed, nor the Garfunkel, Simon & Taylor "(What A) Wonderful World". Any reason?

Mostly kind of random. I usually try to include major hits as a performer though even if they didn't write them, just as an FYI, in case some people didn't know they didn't write them.

[nickd]

Elton John

Points: 33694





rockgolf paulhaney thegreatdivine

[paulhaney]

Some guesses on the Top 11....

Paul McCartney
John Lennon
Prince
Diane Warren
Stevie Wonder
Smokey Robinson
Kenny Gamble
Leon Huff
Babyface
Jimmy Jam Harris
Terry Lewis
Max Martin
R. Kelly
Norman Whitfield
Curtis Mayfield (not quite enough points!)
Lionel Richie (EDITED TO ADD)

[nickd]

I guess as a reference point it would be useful to show the points for a major pop star whose contributions to the songwriting of her songs are on the low end of the spectrum.

Britney Spears

Points: 930

[Raccoon]

Could you do Julia Michaels, Selena Gomez, and Justin Tranter? Curious to see where they’re all at

[nickd]

Katy Perry

Points: 13859



@snapculture

[nickd]

Justin Tranter

Points: 6091

Raccoon

[nickd]

Julia Michaels

Points: 4008

Raccoon

[nickd]

Selena Gomez

Points: 3284

Raccoon

[rockgolf]

Aug 15, 2019 11:15:51 GMT -5 nickd said:

So far, I have 11 songwriters with more points than Neil Diamond, and I'm pretty there won't be anymore. There's a few others I have to do to be sure but I expect their totals to only be in the 25-40k range.

Anyone want to guess who those 11 are?

Eleven?!? Wow.

Certainties: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, Max Martin, Diane Warren, Prince

Possibilities: Norman Whitfield, Daryl Hall, Don Henley, Usher, Timbaland and maybe Elvis Presley who always demanded a songwriting credit.

I'd be interested in seeing how Bernie Taupin does. He gets co-credit on the lion's share of Elton John's hits, but he also gets credit on We Built This City (Starship), How Ya Gonna See Me Now (Alice Cooper), & These Dreams (heart) which may more than offset some Elton hits he didn't co-write.

[nickd]

Aug 16, 2019 16:41:50 GMT -5 rockgolf said:

Aug 15, 2019 11:15:51 GMT -5 nickd said:

So far, I have 11 songwriters with more points than Neil Diamond, and I'm pretty there won't be anymore. There's a few others I have to do to be sure but I expect their totals to only be in the 25-40k range.

Anyone want to guess who those 11 are?

Eleven?!? Wow.

Certainties: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, Max Martin, Diane Warren, Prince

Possibilities: Norman Whitfield, Daryl Hall, Don Henley, Usher, Timbaland and maybe Elvis Presley who always demanded a songwriting credit.

I'd be interested in seeing how Bernie Taupin does. He gets co-credit on the lion's share of Elton John's hits, but he also gets credit on We Built This City (Starship), How Ya Gonna See Me Now (Alice Cooper), & These Dreams (heart) which may more than offset some Elton hits he didn't co-write.

I already did Timbaland, he's at 34207 points.

[paulhaney]

Aug 16, 2019 16:41:50 GMT -5 rockgolf said:

Aug 15, 2019 11:15:51 GMT -5 nickd said:

So far, I have 11 songwriters with more points than Neil Diamond, and I'm pretty there won't be anymore. There's a few others I have to do to be sure but I expect their totals to only be in the 25-40k range.

Anyone want to guess who those 11 are?

Eleven?!? Wow.

Certainties: Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, Max Martin, Diane Warren, Prince

Possibilities: Norman Whitfield, Daryl Hall, Don Henley, Usher, Timbaland and maybe Elvis Presley who always demanded a songwriting credit.

I'd be interested in seeing how Bernie Taupin does. He gets co-credit on the lion's share of Elton John's hits, but he also gets credit on We Built This City (Starship), How Ya Gonna See Me Now (Alice Cooper), & These Dreams (heart) which may more than offset some Elton hits he didn't co-write.

Hall and Henley probably won't make it, because they shared too many credits.  Presley doesn't stand a chance.  IIRC, most of his "credits" were pre-Hot 100.

[paulhaney]

Another possibility that just came to mind...Lionel Richie (added him to my "guess" post above).

[nickd]

paulhaney , Curtis Mayfield has a pretty strong point total, but not quite strong enough to top Neil Diamond


Curtis Mayfield

Points: 37896

[paulhaney]

Yeah, I wasn't sure if those Impressions hits were going to be big enough. Guess they weren't!

[rockgolf]

Still, that’s way higher than I thought he’d be.
So his only #1 credit is for Dawn’s retitled cover of He Will Break Your Heart.
(Correction below)

[paulhaney]

Aug 18, 2019 7:28:03 GMT -5 rockgolf said:

Still, that’s way higher than I thought he’d be.
So his only #1 credit is for Dawn’s retitled cover of He Will Break Your Heart.

"Let's Do It Again" by The Staple Singers also hit #1.

[nickd]

Elvis Presley

rockgolf - According to my sources Elvis didn't have writing credits on most of his hits. He did have writing credits on a few big ones, but as paulhaney said, those were during the days of the Top 100 (rather than Hot 100) charts. Still, even with his Top 100 hits (in bold), he would only have 8665 points.

Points: 1621

[thegreatdivine]

It's very interesting how songwriting credits work. I think it's unfair to artists who actually write their songs that there are artists who are widely known for never penning a word who get the same actual writing credits. Selena Gomez is known to not write her own lyrics. Same goes for Beyoncè and Rihanna. Beyoncè especially abuses this, seeing as in recent years, she's taken it a step further and now gives herself production credits when it's known that she couldn't produce a song to save her life.

It just sucks. Artists who don't write get writing credits on songs so they can make money off those songs. It's unfair if you ask me.

[nickd]

Aug 18, 2019 12:28:02 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

It's very interesting how songwriting credits work. I think it's unfair to artists who actually write their songs that there are artists who are widely known for never penning a word who get the same actual writing credits. Selena Gomez is known to not write her own lyrics. Same goes for Beyoncè and Rihanna. Beyoncè especially abuses this, seeing as in recent years, she's taken it a step further and now gives herself production credits when it's known that she couldn't produce a song to save her life.

It just sucks. Artists who don't write get writing credits on songs so they can make money off those songs. It's unfair if you ask me.

I often wonder what some artists' degree of involvement is like for the songs they get co-writing credits on.

Is it completely trivial, like changing a word (if that)? Or is it like, they'll come up with a lose concept and get someone else to figure out how to make a song out of that? Or maybe do a little more and describe a personal experience during a conversation with their co-writers and have them figure out how to make a song from that? Or are they in the room during the whole time that the song is being written, continuously providing ideas? Or do they do a certain component of the songwriting entirely on their own (ex writing to track)?

[nickd]

Terius Nash (The-Dream)

Points: 11973

[thegreatdivine]

Aug 18, 2019 22:47:29 GMT -5 nickd said:

Aug 18, 2019 12:28:02 GMT -5 thegreatdivine said:

It's very interesting how songwriting credits work. I think it's unfair to artists who actually write their songs that there are artists who are widely known for never penning a word who get the same actual writing credits. Selena Gomez is known to not write her own lyrics. Same goes for Beyoncè and Rihanna. Beyoncè especially abuses this, seeing as in recent years, she's taken it a step further and now gives herself production credits when it's known that she couldn't produce a song to save her life.

It just sucks. Artists who don't write get writing credits on songs so they can make money off those songs. It's unfair if you ask me.

I often wonder what some artists' degree of involvement is like for the songs they get co-writing credits on.

Is it completely trivial, like changing a word (if that)? Or is it like, they'll come up with a lose concept and get someone else to figure out how to make a song out of that? Or maybe do a little more and describe a personal experience during a conversation with their co-writers and have them figure out how to make a song from that? Or are they in the room during the whole time that the song is being written, continuously providing ideas? Or do they do a certain component of the songwriting entirely on their own (ex writing to track)?

That's definitely one of the more intriguing parts of the song-making process. I think for the artists who actually write their own songs, inspiration comes whenever and they just build from there.

There are some artists who can write all their songs themselves, but employ songwriters to come and offer more ideas and they take the ones they like and keep it moving.

Artists like Rihanna and Beyoncè are known for having massive songwriting camps setup whenever it's time for them to make an album. They have people who help them choose the best songs out of the (what I imagine would be) hundreds of songs they'll get offered and they pick the ones they like and leave the ones they don't.

There are some artists like Nicki Minaj who writes her rap verses, but employs talented pop songwriters to help out with coming up with big, pop-esque hooks for some of her songs and they get their writing credit.

Several artists like Bruno Mars, Ke$ha, Drake, Lady Gaga, Frank Ocean, Julia Michaels all got into the music industry as songwriters first before their careers as fully-fledged artists took off. They've all either written most of the songs or written songs for other artists.

For acts like Beyoncè or Rihanna who aren't known for possessing and kind of songwriting ability, I can only imagine that their contribution to the song-making process would be telling their songwriters what they want their songs to be about, possibly asking them to change certain lines, picking and choosing what songs end up on the final tracklist of their albums, etc. It's a level of involvement in it's own right, but I believe that if an artist didn't contribute to the LYRICS/PRODUCTION of a song, they deserve no writing credit whatsoever.

[nickd]

Terry Lewis - I haven't done Jimmy Jam's points yet but I'd expect them to be very similar.

Points: 37297




paulhaney

[nickd]

Steve McCutcheon (Steve Mac) - I thought he'd have more points but looks like a lot of his songs were only hits on the other side of the pond.

Points: 9041

[nickd]

Norman Whitfield

Points: 29514






paulhaney rockgolf

[paulhaney]

Well, a few more of my guesses bite the dust! Lewis & Harris got pretty close. Whitfield just didn't have enough HUGE hits to make it, but I did think he would break 30,000.

So, I still have 12 that are possibilities:

Paul McCartney

John Lennon

Prince

Diane Warren

Stevie Wonder

Smokey Robinson

Kenny Gamble (not enough)

Leon Huff (not enough)

Babyface

Max Martin

R. Kelly

Lionel Richie

[nickd]

Usher Raymond IV

Points: 14858



rockgolf

[rockgolf]

Wow! Usher is way below what I expected. Lots of co-writes, and none with less than 2 co-writers'll do that.