Years of controversy over whether Beyoncé actually writes her songs are back given the news that 72 people helped her write ‘Lemonade.’ Welcome to the new reality of music in 2016.It takes a village to raise a music god.
On Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade, already a religious work for its legion of worshippers, that village is populated by dozens of the industry’s most in-demand producers and no less than 72 writers, including James Blake, The Weeknd, Jack White, and, um, Led Zeppelin.
In fact, scrolling through the liner notes of Lemonade turns your browser into its own endless Star Wars crawl, with each song dutifully ticking off every producer, writer, and writer/owner of any sample used on the tracks. The result is that, in “Hold Up,” for example, there are a whopping 15 writers credited.
But the name that appears most often, and for every track: Beyoncé.
Despite what recent memes might suggest, this is actually quite normal, especially among today’s biggest music acts.
Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo has over 100 writers.
Rihanna’s Anti has over 30.
And Drake’s Views, which came out Friday, has over 40 writers. Like he admits in “Big Rings”: “I got a really big team.”
Even Taylor Swift, the “at least she writes her own songs” girl, brought in a team of writers and producers to help complete the transformation from country tween to pop queen.
Adele enlisted the help of 11 writers for 25. Neither approaches the village of authors and composers that populate Lemonade, Life of Pablo, Anti, or Views—all of which are still reflective of an artist’s voice and vision.
But it speaks to the truth of the way the industry’s top artists create their music today: by committee.