Inspired by a comment by Britney Spears

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Poll #1936465]

Comments

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Six people are credited on a lyric sheet posted by Spears today, and people have been laughing about it, but (IMHO) only because they don't realize how many musicians are usually involved in writing a song but don't get credited. A producer makes a suggestion here, studio musician there, and they're often left out of the credits altogether. In fact, Sebastian Ingrosso, one of the credited people, said "I just helped put together beats, I didn't write it."

Having spent a lot of time researching a 70s pop star who never credited people -- he was one of the "I'm the boss, you're my employee and I pay you, therefore what you create musically is under my name" types -- it's actually kind of refreshing to see credits like the ones Spears instagrammed.

But (a) I'm in the minority and (b) you weren't looking for an answer like this, anyway.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, a co-writing credit can mean anything from "wrote the song" to "the producer liked some of their suggestions for the second verse" to "it's in the performer's contract that they get a cut of the publishing rights." And ghostwriting, or ghostcontributing, abounds.

In a not-very-related example, one of the differences between Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton is that when Chaplin instructed other people to fulfill his general vision on an aspect of the filmmaking, and they went ahead and did the work, Chaplin gave himself the credit; whereas Keaton would hire a buddy to just stand behind the camera and tell Keaton if the shot went like Keaton wanted it, and then give the buddy directing credit because he thought hogging the credit was pompous.