This past week, the Grammy-winning songwriter Diane Warren apologized for a tweet in which she questioned how twenty-four writers could collaborate on a single song. Although Warren didn't name a particular track, the post was widely interpreted as a reference to a song on "Renaissance," the new album by Beyoncé, for whom Warren has written in the past. Beyoncé's fan base—the "Beyhive"—quickly swarmed Warren with responses, but the musician might also have found helpful background in "The Song Machine," a 2012 article published in The New Yorker. In the piece, the staff writer John Seabrook explores the world of pop songwriting, including what are known as writer camps—"weeklong conclaves," as he defines them, "where dozens of top producers and writers from around the world are brought in to brainstorm." Whether or not that method was used for "Renaissance," it clearly works. Seabrook's article, which he later expanded into a book of the same name, focusses primarily on hits by Rihanna, but it sheds light on songs created by and for other artists, too, including Beyoncé. The process, Seabrook reports, is highly effective, but it can also lead to artistic awkwardness. In 2009, the pop star Kelly Clarkson tried to prevent her song "Already Gone" from being released as a single, after discovering that it shared elements with the Beyoncé smash "Halo"—the result, in Seabrook's telling, of a producer's "double-dipping." Clarkson needn't have worried. "Nobody cared, or perhaps even noticed," Seabrook writes. " 'Already Gone' became just as big a hit." |
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