base talk Beyonce and writing credits: Reason why she can’t win AOTY?

[carameldelight]

“[Beyonce’s] success comes from perfecting your craft…when we wanted to go to the movies, she will be in the studio writing a record.”

-Letoya Luckett

 

Back in 2002, the Destiny’s Child singer snagged ASCAP’s coveted songwriter of the year award. The songs she penned that gained her the top honor were “Independent Women Part I,” “Jumpin Jumpin” and “Survivor.” 

 

-ASCAP

 

Beyonce opting to go more the producer route and idiots still arguing that songwriting is only lyrics. 

Edited October 6, 2022 by carameldelight

[Alexz]

9 minutes ago, Ricky Wilson said:

Don't Forget Smash/Smack Into You which she stole, changed one word and took full credit for the song lol

I had forgotten about that shameless robbery.

[family.guy123]

7 hours ago, Mr. Stratus said:

She has a tonne of Grammys, so clearly her output is critically good and they’re willing to reward her. But AOTY is extremely prestigious, and every album cycle this women is plagued with accusations of her having zero involvement, theft, sampling issues where the original artist wasn’t reached out to - and not so long ago - the questioning of fake units being added through a streaming service. It could certainly be a factor 

Can you provide the list of accusations of her having zero involvement for each album ?

[Rotunda]

1 hour ago, Happylittlepunk said:

Yes it’s pretty obvious at this point. She doesn’t get album of the year award because she has 100+ songwriters in her album. The Grammy committee sees that and thinks she didn’t do ****. Meanwhile Taylor, Gaga, Billie, and Adele win because they write the albums themselves and use 5 songwriters at best. When Diane warren said on twitter “how can you have 24 writers in a song” it’s clear reflection how the industry sees Beyoncé.

Can you point me to Gaga’s AOTY Grammy? Or any General Field Grammy?

[Planet Mars]

No, and nobody cares. An AOTY Grammy doesn't make a career, there are plenty of winners who were yesterday's news the next week.

 

I'm not a Beyoncé fan because of awards, I'm a Beyoncé fan because she can outsing and outperform 99.9% of other artists.

 

I'm a fan of talent, not an industry voted award.

[Rotunda]

1 minute ago, Planet Mars said:

No, and nobody cares. An AOTY Grammy doesn't make a career, there are plenty of winners who were yesterday's news the next week.

 

I'm not a Beyoncé fan because of awards, I'm a Beyoncé fan because she can outsing and outperform 99.9% of other artists.

 

I'm a fan of talent, not an industry voted award.

Also it is not hard to only work with a handful of people on a record. A lot of great artists do it, and a lot of mid artists do it. If it was really the one thing stopping Bey from winning AOTY and she really wanted it, she wouldn’t keep doing what she’s doing. She stands by her processs. 

[family.guy123]

I think there’s two different discussions going on in here.

 

Yes, I do think that the amount of credits does hinder her chances of winning AOTY.

 

But coming up with your own definition of songwriting (sitting alone on your bed with a guitar and diary) and then discrediting Bey for not meeting that very narrow view of songwriting is just stupid, wrong, and yes there’s racism in there too. 
 

Has she not always been transparent of how she creates? During B’Day, she put together her list of collaborators and put them all in different studios, going back and forth to check on their progress and input her own ideas. She reiterated the same process during Homecoming documentary (three studios). 
 

Beyoncé has stated that she struggles to put her thoughts into words and that’s why she likes to collaborate; to better convey what she’s trying to say. I relate to her in that way. Yet, when she does speak in her own words (speeches, interviews, handwritten letters etc) she gets attacked for being “dumb”. (This part is very racist imo). She’s stated how she prefers coming up with harmonies and vocal arrangements. God forbid she knows her weaknesses. 
 

Point is, those who have actually worked with her directly have nothing but good things to say about her and how hands on she is. In fact, does anyone have examples to counter this? Someone who has actually worked with her? 

[family.guy123]

I love this interview with her. Early on, she wasn’t getting credit for work she did. God forbid a black woman knows her worth and refuses to be taken advantage of. 
 

And yes, she and anyone deserves credit for “changing” one word. Smack Into You just sounds dumb. And we don’t even know the split, do we? Remember when it was revealed Rihanna had like 1% of Work? 

[LeMésTragique]

She's not seeing that AOTY until she takes a pen into her hands

[magazine]

Why would beyonce win AOTY?

Have you heard her albums? 

[unclefloprry]

Yes. 

[NausAllien]

OF COURSE.

 

The Recording Academy KNOWS they lose all the little respect they have left if they give that award to someone with massive writing camps, who uses dozens of samples, and bullies songwriters into giving her writing credits she's not entitled to.

 

[KevinKDC]

44 minutes ago, family.guy123 said:

I love this interview with her. Early on, she wasn’t getting credit for work she did. God forbid a black woman knows her worth and refuses to be taken advantage of. 
 

And yes, she and anyone deserves credit for “changing” one word. Smack Into You just sounds dumb. And we don’t even know the split, do we? Remember when it was revealed Rihanna had like 1% of Work? 

You do realize that taking songwriting credits also means that you’re taking money away from struggling songwriters right? I can’t understand why or how anyone can defend that.

 

[KevinKDC]

9 hours ago, KingB® said:

It’s getting weird. And it’s neither funny nor witty. You love to discredit her so much. 

 

racist much? 

How do I love discrediting her? Haven’t posted about Bey in years sis. And I also just mentioned that REN is a really good album. It’s AOTY material but the circumstances regarding the writing credits might not work in her favor.

 

Stop crying race, when it’s nothing about race. It’s because of people like you that people don’t take racism seriously anymore.

[NausAllien]

49 minutes ago, family.guy123 said:

But coming up with your own definition of songwriting (sitting alone on your bed with a guitar and diary) and then discrediting Bey for not meeting that very narrow view of songwriting is just stupid, wrong, and yes there’s racism in there too. 

LMAO! No one has to come with a definition of songwriting. It's pretty clear under the letter of the law.

 

The authors of a musical work are the lyricists and composers of it.

 

The "production" of a musical work is NOT considered songwriting under the law. It's referred as "musical arrangement."

 

It's also worth pointing out people whose contribution to the authorship of a musical work is MINIMAL are NOT entitled to authorship and their contributions are not considered a copyrightable element.

 

So no, sis. It's not about having a narrow view about anything. Words have meaning. The law is pretty clear. She either writes the lyrics/melody the song or she doesn't. There's no middle ground.

[Madonno]

Who really cares about GRAMMY?

Those payolaed awardsare so out of touch

[blueberries]

Probably because her albums are mediocre

[UnusualBoy]

There's racism involved in this whole situation or somebody there hates her because she should have 1 by now for BEYONCÉ or maybe even for LEMONADE.

[Moonlight Nation]

1 hour ago, Relampago. said:

Kendrick Lamar couldn’t win against the likes of Taylor when she probably shouldn’t have won given the impact and quality of TPAB. I love 1989 and revisit it more than TPAB and it’s not close, but c’mon now. Same thing happened with Damn and Bruno. There’s obviously a trend here.

 

This isn’t to discredit talent like Adele and Taylor though, they create amazing bodies of work, especially Taylor who’s songwriting is out of this world. But Bey and her black peers’ artistry getting snubbed constantly is a trend we’ve seen time and time again. The Grammys are racist. That is a massive factor in why Bey hasn’t gotten her AOTY award yet despite deserving it twice now. This does not discredit the excellent work girls like Taylor and Adele have done, but we’ve gotta call a spade a spade here. 
 

Constantly critiquing a woman like Bey for stealing over and over because it’s the only thing you can really say about her is just tiring and kind of weird at this point. Hoping Renaissance can snatch this upcoming year but I’m sure the Grammys will toss 30 another award it doesn’t deserve considering it wasn’t Adele’s best work and didn’t have the impact of 25, let alone 21.

2 minutes ago, family.guy123 said:

I think there’s two different discussions going on in here.

 

Yes, I do think that the amount of credits does hinder her chances of winning AOTY.

 

But coming up with your own definition of songwriting (sitting alone on your bed with a guitar and diary) and then discrediting Bey for not meeting that very narrow view of songwriting is just stupid, wrong, and yes there’s racism in there too. 
 

Has she not always been transparent of how she creates? During B’Day, she put together her list of collaborators and put them all in different studios, going back and forth to check on their progress and input her own ideas. She reiterated the same process during Homecoming documentary (three studios). 
 

Beyoncé has stated that she struggles to put her thoughts into words and that’s why she likes to collaborate; to better convey what she’s trying to say. I relate to her in that way. Yet, when she does speak in her own words (speeches, interviews, handwritten letters etc) she gets attacked for being “dumb”. (This part is very racist imo). She’s stated how she prefers coming up with harmonies and vocal arrangements. God forbid she knows her weaknesses. 
 

Point is, those who have actually worked with her directly have nothing but good things to say about her and how hands on she is. In fact, does anyone have examples to counter this? Someone who has actually worked with her? 

Two excellent comments. Extremely well put - both of you 

 

I want to highlight @family.guy123 's comment in particular for raising very important points. It's honestly sad how the general sentiment among some users here seems to be echoed by voting members of the Academy (see Diane Warren's infamous tweet), and there's a clear racial bias involved, as black genres like hip hop have historically incorporated and reinterpreted samples, yet they're seen as having 'less artistic merit' than your (typically white) guy or woman writing music with an instrument. Doesn't the quality of the final product matter more than the creation process? 

 

Beyoncé has always been open about her penchant for collaborative work, but any group project needs a strong leader coordinating things for a successful, cohesive, and thematically powerful result, and that's her role. Even then, I noticed folks are severely downplaying her contributions on "Renaissance". Have you seen the track listing on Wikipedia? Separating lyrics (the words) from music (i.e. the melodies and theory-driven stuff) gives a much clearer and more accurate picture, where you can see most songs were written by Beyoncé alongside one or two people on average, with "CHURCH GIRL" being a solo composition. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Artistofthedecade said:

I agree with your point and not to go against it but Adele and Taylor are just super uncommon examples in the Grammys history. If you exclude last 5 years, Adele and Taylor had as much Grammy wins as all the other white female artists combined(6) too. I think them being biggest female artists in the US(arguably) plays a big part too. I feel like popularity bias plays a much bigger part than it should do in the voting. 

This statistic shocked me. I double-checked several times, and it seems to be true. Excluding the last 5 years, only six white women (as solo artists) won AOTY, We also had four victories from groups featuring prominent female leads (Fleetwood Mac, The Chicks, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, and Arcade Fire). Then we had Natalie Cole, Whitney, and Lauryn Hill as the three black women to have ever won, plus Yoko Ono and Norah Jones representing Japan and India respectively.

 

Unbelievable...When putting it into perspective, you raised a very valid point here. Both are definitely uncommon cases on that regard, and as you said, their success among voters is definitely a combination of their incredible commercial success and their Academy-friendly profile. 

[Blue Rose]

3 hours ago, Alexz said:

Yes, she does like Already Gone/Halo and Irreplaceable. 

Halo came out before Already Gone. Come on, you’re losing your trolling skills. Focus.

[Theshigo Washidu]

The writing credit situation aside, I think the committee just don't see her as an artist and especially one who is worthy of winning AOTY. They see her as an entertainer.

 

Grammies don't mean anything tho considering that there have been great artists who have never been nominated for a Grammy, let alone won one. It's all politics.

That said, it is definitely possible that her being a Black woman may play a part in them not awarding her.

 

 

[family.guy123]

2 hours ago, NausAllien said:

LMAO! No one has to come with a definition of songwriting. It's pretty clear under the letter of the law.

 

The authors of a musical work are the lyricists and composers of it.

 

The "production" of a musical work is NOT considered songwriting under the law. It's referred as "musical arrangement."

 

It's also worth pointing out people whose contribution to the authorship of a musical work is MINIMAL are NOT entitled to authorship and their contributions are not considered a copyrightable element.

 

So no, sis. It's not about having a narrow view about anything. Words have meaning. The law is pretty clear. She either writes the lyrics/melody the song or she doesn't. There's no middle ground.

What’s this “legal definition” you’re talking about? Sort by country 

[Alexz]

1 hour ago, Blue Rose said:

Halo came out before Already Gone. Come on, you’re losing your trolling skills. Focus.

It was intended for Leona Lewis and Kelly Clarkson before. 

[Richie.Valdez]

I mean she can always have the safe and easy Contemporary R&B álbum category 

[Blue Rose]

42 minutes ago, Alexz said:

It was intended for Leona Lewis and Kelly Clarkson before. 

So Leona and Kelly can pick and sing demos but when Bey does it she is stealing? You’re so worried about Bey’s writing credits but mind you, your fave doesn’t even sing her own vocals