In breaking news this week, documents filed during Pharrell Williams‘ trial for plagiarism revealed a SHOCKING TRUTH about the popular music industry today. Wikileaks has now revealed the truth, previously under publication ban, to us. What it reveals is shocking: not only do people plagiarize, but some very popular songwriters have, in fact, been writing their music based on very simple algorithms. So simple, in fact, that a first-year SE student on the Tin Soldier staff has just dropped out of school to begin a startup, writing an app to auto-write hit songs.
This recording was the smoking gun that did Pharrell in:
“I swear the following account to be true on the sacred honour of Elvis Presley, who is not dead.
I entered the music industry in order to accomplish my devious plans with all stealth and [inaudible]. My career took a turn after writing ‘Hollaback Girl’, a piece of music which contains more screamed lyrics than sung, when I realized I was more incompetent than Il Duce. So I decided to violate Policy 71 and steal the intellectual property of the estate of peace-loving Marvin Gaye, who was so cruelly murdered by fascist imperialist bourgeois reactionary pigs. I even briefly walked into the home of the peace-loving sons of Marvin Gaye in order to look at the original manuscript of ‘Got to Give it Up’ and copy its [inaudible]. It was only a brief entry, but penetration, no matter how slight, is sufficient to complete the action. For this I most profusely apologize and I plan to beg forgiveness. I hereby express my heart-felt desire to paean the most august, honourable, and peace-loving estate of Marvin Gaye for showing me the error of my ways.”
There’s also juicy content from other songwriters who were called to testify as witnesses:
Ryan Tedder, best known as the lead singer of OneRepublic, has also penned hit songs for other artists. Apparently, his method can be summarized thus:
1) Pick any four chords which form a suitable chord progression, and use them as the basis of the track.
2) Pick a slow tempo, so the singer has time to demonstrate their skills (or rather, annoy the world) for as long a duration as possible.
3) Set lyrics to the song with a soaring melody.
4) If short on time, repeat step 3 with the same music and give to a new artist.
This would go a long way to explaining the similarities between Tedder’s songs such as “Halo” for Beyoncé, “Already Gone” for Kelly Clarkson, and “Secrets”, which he performed as part of his own band OneRepublic. Kelly Clarkson is reportedly filing a suit because she thought she had an implied exclusivity contract.
This set of instructions comes from Max Martin, a guitarist in a failed metal band from Sweden who somehow ended up writing a whole bunch of teenage love songs for the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears, and has also worked with Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, and Taylor Swift:
“I just have confidence, and I go write good music. Thank you to all you artists I work with.”
Beyoncé Knowles‘s strategy for writing a song is surprisingly simple. It has enabled her to write songs including “Silent Night” and “Halo”, despite the fact that the former was written 200 years ago and the latter was written by Ryan Tedder. This quote from her testifying under oath is revealing, although the court clerk has apparently redacted the obscenities:
“All I do is ask someone else to write it for me. Then I change a note here, a word there, and claim a co-writing credit. If they don’t agree, well [procreate] them, I just won’t sing it. Daddy’s the big boss, so everyone’s his [female dog].”
An anonymous source overheard her lawyer telling her to cry racism should anyone attempt to discredit her pristine, astonishing songwriting abilities which rival Schubert’s.
In other news, the Tin Soldier has learned that the University of Waterloo will begin a course in Fall 2015 of which Beyoncé will be the topic. So there you go, that’s all there is to having a Waterloo prof lecture about you. Or, perhaps, a successful song-factory startup.
(The Tin Soldier takes no responsibility for any troubles, legal, emotional, or otherwise, which may result from following the songwriting advice given above)
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