Why Artists Who Don't Write Their Stuff Are Not Really Artists

[inuborg 4,135]

why do you keep saying vessel? that implies ANYONE could do what actors or singers do, and do it well with emotion and while being believable. 

A recorded piece of music IS a piece of art, regardless wether the singer wrote it or not.

I'm sorry, but handing someone a completed song, and having to notion of, exchanging the demo vocals with their own is not an artistic movement in any way. 

[lego 44,165]

You can't compare them to actors, cause it's not common for 1 person to write a script/scenario and act by himself every single person in a movie.

 

Although there are actors who later in their career want to direct or produce by themselves.

 

Being singer/songwriter is more common in music. 

[Shadow 6,039]

How insanely funny... Did you write the rules on what art can be compared to? And music can be a huge production as well when you factor all the set up and preparation for a performance.

You can't compare them to actors, cause it's not common for 1 person to write a script/scenario and act by himself every single person in a movie.

 

Although there are actors who later in their career want to direct or produce by themselves.

 

Being singer/songwriter is more common in music. 

[lego 44,165]

How insanely funny... Did you write the rules on what art can be compared to? And music can be a huge production as well when you factor all the set up and preparation for a performance.

 

I wasn't commenting your post, someone else mentioned actors before you.

And theater or movie business is not exactly the same as music business.

Pop singers who don't write their own songs rarely have anything to do with setup or production of performance. They are more like manufactured acts.

Why is there need to consider them artists and not just singers/entertainers?

Is it an insult? 

[Jjang 2,262]

I wasn't commenting your post, someone else mentioned actors before you.

And theater or movie business is not exactly the same as music business.

Pop singers who don't write their own songs rarely have anything to do with setup or production of performance. They are more like manufactured acts.

Why is there need to consider them artists and not just singers/entertainers?

Is it an insult? 

Art is not defined. It's a form of expression. Period.

Why the need to consider them artists and not singer/songwriters? works both ways.

 

[Shadow 6,039]

I wasn't commenting your post, someone else mentioned actors before you.

And theater or movie business is not exactly the same as music business.

Pop singers who don't write their own songs rarely have anything to do with setup or production of performance. They are more like manufactured acts.

Why is there need to consider them artists and not just singers/entertainers?

Is it an insult? 

Could you give me specific examples of how different two businesses of entertainment? The reason the production was brought up is because producing, writing, and singing is part of the production, hence a team effort. If that's the case, why was this thread brought up in the first place if this wasn't some kind of knock against artists who aren't singer songwriters? Hmm, if art entertains people and entertainment is considered an art, sounds like interchangeable terms to make distinctions of talent. If you see someone who is 45% talented and someone else 87% talented, is the latter person considered talented only or aren't they both talented with different degrees of it?

[DemeLarell 931]

Well I see Jazz like this, you get handed a road map where you need to go to place D but you need to pass place A,B,C as well. How you do it is up to you, walk, bike, train, they all get your there at different speeds, do you go in the dark or light, alone or with more then one people, to me that is a bit different then a sort of one dimensional pop song if that makes any sense.

That makes sense lol but that's just like any other genre. Like how Whitney Houston took "I Will Always Love You" and brought a different approach to it than the way Dolly Parton performed it. She had a vision for the song and her artistry drives that vision even though she did not write it. 

[StrawberryBlond 13,282]

I completely agree. Singing and writing are two completely different things and should be treated as such. "The art of singing" is more of an expression than reality. Even speaking as someone who loves to sing, I couldn't call myself an artist as that is all I can do. I decided not to pursue it as a career as I would be unable to write my own work, therefore, I would just be a covers act and I wanted to be a true artist. Singing is a talent but it's not an art in the way that writing and producing is. There's no creation in the process. No, adding harmonies and high notes are not creating, they're just add-ons that anyone with a brain could embellish a song with. If someone turns an uptempo song slow or a slow song up-tempo, that shows creativity, sure, but creativity isn't quite the same as creation. Creation is making something new, not taking a completed product and changing it slightly. Calling someone a singer as opposed to an artist is not an insult - it's the truth if they don't create. There's nothing wrong with being a singer or an entertainer. Just be honest about it and don't label yourself as something you're not to give yourself credibility. It makes me sick to see manufactured pop puppets be called artists or refer to themselves as such when they can't sing, can't write, can't produce, can't even put on a good show. Being famous doesn't mean you are talented or have mastered an art.

That makes sense lol but that's just like any other genre. Like how Whitney Houston took "I Will Always Love You" and brought a different approach to it than the way Dolly Parton performed it. She had a vision for the song and her artistry drives that vision even though she did not write it. 

I don't see how Whitney's was dramatically different. She just made the notes higher. Anyone could have suggested that. It's the most popular change people make when covering a song, closely followed by riffing. Therefore, it's the least creative way of covering a song. Might be a good rendition, but not an original one and certainly not a creation. Personally, I prefer Dolly's version - it had heart and you can hear the wavering in her voice. But for Whitney, it was all about showing off. Her rendition makes so many people cry, but I don't see it. The only bit that gets me emotional is that gorgeous saxophone solo. The first and only time I nearly cried to that song was watching it as the background music for the story of Christian The Lion because there was real emotion to put to that music. Listening to Dolly's version, I'm weeping buckets. And the fact that she wrote it probably helps somewhat. Whitney could sing great at her peak but that's exactly it - she was a singer, not an artist. i don't say that to be disrespectful to her memory, just stating the facts. There's a tendency for people to think "great singer = artist" but the two really couldn't be more different.

[Versace 7,409]

I agree and i don't at the same time , i'm a songwriter and have been writing for the past 5 years , i know how hard it is and how much soul digging you have to do for it. Singers should be appreciated just as much as the song writers but sadly the writers are not as appreciated as the singers and producers of a song. In regards to singers their task is not easy regardless of them writing or not, their execution and connection to a song makes it their own if not take the song to heights the writer did not expect and you never know the singer might feel more connected to it than the writer. As a writer i don't always write songs from experience but also inspiration. Singing is a talent but i don't know if we can say it's an art form as art requires creating i guess art can be interpreting as well then only can we say that singers are artist but that would mean those who cover songs are artist as well. If we speak in terms of creation the singer is not an artist but simply an interpreter of what the songwriter and producer have to offer. 

[DemeLarell 931]

I completely agree. Singing and writing are two completely different things and should be treated as such. "The art of singing" is more of an expression than reality. Even speaking as someone who loves to sing, I couldn't call myself an artist as that is all I can do. I decided not to pursue it as a career as I would be unable to write my own work, therefore, I would just be a covers act and I wanted to be a true artist. Singing is a talent but it's not an art in the way that writing and producing is. There's no creation in the process. No, adding harmonies and high notes are not creating, they're just add-ons that anyone with a brain could embellish a song with. If someone turns an uptempo song slow or a slow song up-tempo, that shows creativity, sure, but creativity isn't quite the same as creation. Creation is making something new, not taking a completed product and changing it slightly. Calling someone a singer as opposed to an artist is not an insult - it's the truth if they don't create. There's nothing wrong with being a singer or an entertainer. Just be honest about it and don't label yourself as something you're not to give yourself credibility. It makes me sick to see manufactured pop puppets be called artists or refer to themselves as such when they can't sing, can't write, can't produce, can't even put on a good show. Being famous doesn't mean you are talented or have mastered an art.

I don't see how Whitney's was dramatically different. She just made the notes higher. Anyone could have suggested that. It's the most popular change people make when covering a song, closely followed by riffing. Therefore, it's the least creative way of covering a song. Might be a good rendition, but not an original one and certainly not a creation. Personally, I prefer Dolly's version - it had heart and you can hear the wavering in her voice. But for Whitney, it was all about showing off. Her rendition makes so many people cry, but I don't see it. The only bit that gets me emotional is that gorgeous saxophone solo. The first and only time I nearly cried to that song was watching it as the background music for the story of Christian The Lion because there was real emotion to put to that music. Listening to Dolly's version, I'm weeping buckets. And the fact that she wrote it probably helps somewhat. Whitney could sing great at her peak but that's exactly it - she was a singer, not an artist. i don't say that to be disrespectful to her memory, just stating the facts. There's a tendency for people to think "great singer = artist" but the two really couldn't be more different.

lol creativity is subjective. But the point I was making was that it is that it was the same song with different artistic visions for it. 

[Better Day 5,766]

This. In fact didnt gaga say that art isn't just a creation? It's a moment of feeling a connection. Dolly Parton wrote "I Will ALways Love You" for whitney houston and whitney applied her emotions to that song and PERFORMED it for millions of people across the world and that is art. Gaga herself even called whitney an artist  

Dolly never wrote it for Whitney. It was originally Dolly's song she recorded but gave whitney the chance to record it almost 20 years after Dolly's original.