Let's Call These What They Are...Pop Music

Where, oh where have the songwriters gone. Oh where, oh where can they be?  With Rod Stewart, Michael McDonald and Boyz II Men on their respective third covers project, and any number of veteran artists from Seal to Deniece Williams releasing whole albums of covers, one can’t help but wonder what the Great American songwriter of soul is doing? Standing on street corners holding an unemployment sign in one hand and a waving tin cup in the other? Ne-yo can’t write every damn thing, and Dream, well, Dream will always have “Umbrella,” won’t he?

To be fair, there are other notable soul writers like Andrea Martin, Ivan Barias, Carvin Haggins, Gordon Chambers, Knightwritaz, and Sean Garrett and performers who write for others like Tank, Eric Roberson, Dorian Holley, Kipper Jones, and Rahsaan Patterson who have been trying to hold it down for years. There are also producer/songwriters like Angela Johnson, Barry Eastmond, Dre and Vidal, Chucky Thompson, Salaam Remi, Raphael Saadiq, Rex Rideout, Jam and Lewis, The Underdogs and Qwestlove who keep gainful employment by wearing many hats and honing a signature sound.

These writers still get placed on premium projects, but the tide seems to be turning against them with this latest, more enduring cycle of the covers craze. Further, some of these writers are transitioning into their middle years, and some have already been there for years. If the go-to writers are getting long in the tooth and everything else is a cover, how will the fresh young writers break through?  Who will write tomorrow’s cover?

Skiddish labels experiencing annual double-digit declines play it safe by dropping volume after volume of cover projects to a public desperate for the nostalgic and the familiar in an uncertain era of disruptive transition. Annual releases of American Idol and Glee now cover everything in the American Pop and Soul Songbook and guarantee respectable sales. All of this ensures that the Brill Building, Tim Pan Alley, and classic soul assembly line writers of decades gone will be eating well for years, maybe even generations to come if the current trend continues. Relatively inexpensive, these proven bets don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. So if its here to stay, maybe it’s time to return the cover album to its own genre again? It used to be, you know.

There was another tumultuous time in the 50s and 60s that these comfort albums were once called what they are, pop. Jazz standards and Broadways showtunes were the familiar covers of their day and everyone from Motown and Stax to Ella and Sarah did them to great acclaim and wealth. The soul of the 50s, through the 80s is today’s feel good jazz standard and Broadway showtune, today’s traditional pop. As such the recent Ruben Studdard and Kenny Lattimore cover albums should sit side by side with Susan Boyle and Michael Buble in the pop section where they belong.

Maybe after we call cover projects pop again we can give young songwriters a chance to be heard and stop being mad about the 20^th rendition of “A Song For You,” “Nights Over Egypt,” “People Get Ready,” “A Change Is Gonna Come” or any number of hits that have been chewed and chewed until the flavor’s gone.

There’s nothing wrong with hearing someone’s rendition of other people’s songs, particularly if they can make them their own. Hit songs have always been repeatedly covered by the artists of their day; Barry Gordy was a master at squeezing platinum juice from this particular turnip. Maybe if pop is pop again, today’s soul songwriters can commit to writing tomorrow’s pop song for A.I. 2030 and beyond.

TAGS: Jazz, Motown, pop