I honestly have lost a lot of respect for today's music (in all genres). I genuinely feel that the level of musicianship and skill has greatly deteriorated. Partly because of society, for some reason we all support radio stations that only play the same 10 songs over and over and over. I think my (and future) generations don't appreciate true musicianship. Artists who actually write their own lyrics, or are skilled at their instruments. Not just completely altered electronically so that their voices can be made to sound good (example: T-pain, who is completely computer generated, and in concert, he sucks).

 

I'm looking for a list of artists who display true skill today, and in this case, write their own music.

 

I'll start it off with Ne-Yo. I have a lot of respect for him because he is multi-talented. He started out writing songs for other artists, and quickly rose to the top when he started releasing his own songs. He can write, has a great voice, and is an awesome entertainer. A rarity in the industry today.

 

Does anyone out there feel the same way? And if so, can you help me find other artists of similar talent?

well many acts do write their own songs, but it tends to me the more generic acts that dont, forced on by record companies, all your conventional pop and R&B acts really these days.

Alicia Keys, Amerie, Beverley Knight, Jazmine Sullivan, Joss Stone, Kelis, Keri Hilson, Keyshia Cole, Mariah Carey, Mary J Blige and Solange Knowles are all examples of female R&B artists who write or co-write the majority of their own material. Some of them, like Alicia, Keri and Solange also write for other artists...

Alicia Keys, Amerie, Beverley Knight, Jazmine Sullivan, Joss Stone, Kelis, Keri Hilson, Keyshia Cole, Mariah Carey, Mary J Blige and Solange Knowles are all examples of female R&B artists who write or co-write the majority of their own material. Some of them, like Alicia, Keri and Solange also write for other artists...

 

yeah a lot of them "co-write" which is just bollocks really, its more to look like they can write aswell as perform, but really they cant, and quite often (well not those examples as you stated 'majortiy of their material') that claim to have writing talent but their only written tracks are awful album tracks.

yeah a lot of them "co-write" which is just bollocks really, its more to look like they can write aswell as perform, but really they cant, and quite often (well not those examples as you stated 'majortiy of their material') that claim to have writing talent but their only written tracks are awful album tracks.

All of the people I listed are known to have some talent as a writer. Some of those women have been in the industry for 10, 15 or even 20 years. It always gets out if an artist is just claiming credits for songs they didn't write; those sorts of rumours plague Beyonce for example so I didn't mention her.

 

Stealing credits isn't as common as people tend to think though. When a song is written and registered on ASCAP, the writers have to decide how to divide the credits based on who wrote how much. The main/first credit earns that writer the most money, so in cases of credit-pinching the other writers wouldn't exactly be very eager to let somebody earn money for their work.