Study: Men Almost Never Sing Songwritten by Women

https://pudding.cool/2023/07/songwriters/

by noisymortimer • 3 years ago

21 41 3 years ago

qwertox• 3 years ago

It's worth scrolling through. Stats that are so rare that they give food for thought, on two topics we deal with everyday (music and gender).

Plus it's nicely made.

tekla• 3 years ago

Goddamn, this is one of the most aggravating sites I have ever seen. I would rather 1995 flashy shit than this.

teach• 3 years ago

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I really like the blend of art and information in these.

It feels sort-of like a good "explainer" YouTube video with voiceover and graphics but -- instead of being forced through the material at the pace chosen by the author -- I get to freely move through it at my leisure. I can skip ahead, linger, or go back.

aozgaa• 3 years ago

The trouble for me is the text flashing in and out on top of the graphics and the rescaling of the images by scrolling.

If the text was above/below the images (like a python notebook) and the images were static, I imagine I would like it a lot more.

Tade02• 3 years ago

I wanted to check one word via Google Translate and the tab, naturally, reloaded, so I had to start my scrolling journey anew.

The word in question was "trifling".

wizofaus3• 3 years ago

I wouldn't go that far but I have to agree it's trying to be too clever for its own good, and ends up just being an annoying way to read text. Probably would've been better as a video clip.

r_singh• 3 years ago

Fascinating, specially because I just found out that I’m not amongst the majority in this respect.

blitz_skull3• 3 years ago

Okay.. honest question without negative intent: Why should we care? Stats are cool and all, but what am I supposed to do with this information?

jimbob45• 3 years ago

You shouldn't. Not only is this study trying to funnel you toward a conclusion, it's not clear what "songwriter" means in this case and they never choose to elaborate.

Do they mean lyrics? In that case, they should know that the singer is often added as an afterthought so that the song sells better which could drastically change the final tally. Do they mean the actual notes of the song itself? In that case, how many women were in the industry to begin with? Perhaps women are vastly overrepresented relative to their footprint in the industry. Did they include music producers in this?

The irony in all this is that scientific and collegiate researchers have solved these (not all) issues of bad research and will readily tell you how to prepare and lay out a well-designed study. These authors couldn't even be bothered to research how to design an effective study but at least there are pretty graphics to look at.

cableshaft• 3 years ago

Interesting link, although not sure why it doesn't have the original title ("Women are superstars on stage, but rarely get to write songs"). The original title better represents the link than what was provided.

JackFr• 3 years ago

What does “rarely get to write songs” mean? Is there a powerful Committee of Songwriting who determines who gets to write the pop songs?

I think a better way to look at it would be to address how song writing credits are assigned, who is getting them and why? Are male producers and session guys, forcing their way into the credits or are artists sampled or with similar previous work being preemptively added?

woodruffw3• 3 years ago

It'd be interesting (but probably challenging, in terms of data quality) to see this extended beyond top hits. It's unfortunately not surprising that men dominate the world of professional hit songwriting; it would be interesting to see if that extends to independent songwriting and producing.

hmaxwell• 3 years ago

Sorry if this is insensitive but; what are "we" supposed to do to have more women write songs? People are so quick to point out male dominated professions, but what exactly is the purpose of pointing it out - what does the author intend to accomplish?

mc322• 3 years ago

You are supposed to go on liking what you like. You don’t have to like what other people tell you you should like instead.

woodruffw3• 3 years ago

I don't think the author is trying to spur you to action. Like most articles, it's meant to make you think.

blitz_skull3• 3 years ago

Make me think about what? I want to listen to good music and don't give a diddly damn if it came from an X or a Y chromosome.

fwungy6• 3 years ago

s/think/click/.

FTFY.

bitshiftfaced• 3 years ago

Seems to me that the author doesn't approve of how men are currently behaving, and so they probably want them to change, right?

but it actually suggests something more vital: you cannot talk about the history of music without talking about men actively limiting the musical activities that women were allowed to participate in, sometimes via physical or sexual violence.
men have continually tried to define what is appropriate for women to do in music. When you listen to women who have worked in the industry, you’ll see that these attitudes have persisted.

akomtu• 3 years ago

The most progressive way to solve it would be for more male song writers to identify as females and publish songs under theix new names.

mc322• 3 years ago

Do they break out songs written by and sung by? Do a song written by a woman but sung by a man and vice versa, do they make a difference or does the actual voice of men and women come through in the writing that who does the singing makes little difference?

jtbayly• 3 years ago

This is not a study.

vr46• 3 years ago

The presentation of the data doesn't support the conclusions drawn, i.e. women have been actively impeded in songwriting - they might have been, but the data doesn't say that on its own.

Also, some credits were only there due to sampling, the songwriters did not actively sit down and write or co-write that particular song.

Given that music has been almost completely democratised with the lowest barrier to entry there has ever been, it's hard to say women are being prevented from songwriting, but breaking into the highest echelons of the hit industry (a dubious accolade) might be tougher. We don't know how many are trying.

fishtoaster• 3 years ago

I feel that this article convincingly makes the case that women are vastly underrepresented in songwriting of top hits.

That said, I feel like I have little to no insight into how songwriting works as an industry. Who chooses songwriters for a headline act? How much say do the performers have? What ostensibly motivates the choices of whoever chooses?

The conclusion implicit throughout the article (made explicit at the end) is that this data is the result of bias, and I suspect that's probably right. But I'd love to hear more about where and how that actually happens.

fwungy6• 3 years ago

Modern songwriting is like a factory. There are multiple technicians adding an editing parts to give it marketable attributes.

The days of Joni Mitchell holing up in a Paris estate with Steinway grand to pour out her soul, and make it up the charts are long gone.

acheron• 3 years ago

At the same time Joni Mitchell was making it up the charts there was Motown and the Brill Building (famously employing Carole King whose songs were often sung by men, n.b. to the “article” authors) and the Monkees and so on. And the Tin Pan Alley stuff before that. “Songwriting like a factory” predates recorded music. There’s nothing “modern” about it.

runpommel• 3 years ago

Considering this is just data, ala lacks any analysis or opinions on why this is the case as well as any actionable insights to improve the situation, I want to just focus on the presentation of the data.

The presentation is designed beautifully, and executed well. I personally despise custom scrolling mechanics that make it near impossible to revisit earlier information cogently, but I can appreciate the aesthetics of the thing.

I feel these sorts of set ups are designed and developed because the people building them already know all of the pertinent information they contain, and so see this as a great, or at least interesting, way to view the data, but I feel that this sort of medium is incomprehensible for someone who is clicking this without previous knowledge of the dataset.

Due to the headline I was intrigued to know just what popular songs were written exclusively by women and what the ratio was for some of my own favourite popular songs was, but I had to wade through a sea of smooth animations to finally be unable to interact with the information I wanted.

Sure lists and spreadsheets are boring to some, but in my opinion they are far more effective at getting your data across.

If you're a designer, please just design a more beautiful experience of /exploring/ the dataset rather than a more beautiful /presentation/ of the dataset.

fwungy6• 3 years ago

As a male singer/songwriter I can tell you that women songwriters tend to, for unknown reasons, write their songs around female vocal capabilities, which are objectively higher than men's in terms of range and fluidity.

Women cover male songwriters frequently, but who are the great female songwriters? Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Kate Bush, and so on. They all tend to be excellent vocalists who write stuff that the average man simply can't match. While the great male songwriters are often weak to average singers: Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lennon/McCartney. Women kill on those songs, with barely an effort sometimes.

As for modern Top40. It sucks. Who cares?

wizofaus3• 3 years ago

female vocal capabilities, which are objectively higher than men's

Not actually all that much among pop singers though. Most successful male artists tend to have quite high natural singing voices and females fairly low. And at any rate most music can easily be transposed as necessary. But I do agree there is a tendency by many male singer/ songwriters to stick to less vocally demanding melody lines. I'm less convinced that would be much of a deterrent for dedicated female songwriters hoping to pen tunes that were well suited to male voices.

fwungy6• 3 years ago

If you look at net worth as a measure of success women singers absolutely dominate men, especially when you consider that the high achieving men tend to be well past their prime or dead.

wizofaus3• 3 years ago

Oops, just re-read this and realised I'd misread the comment I was replying to, it wasn't taking about range at all, so feel free to ignore the first part of my reply!

dekhn• 3 years ago

Bob Dylan might not "sound good", but he was an excellent singer. I would single out Hurricane as a great example.

fwungy6• 3 years ago

He's got a compelling voice, but it's not an objectively good singer.

craig1f• 3 years ago

Although, Maxwell’s cover of This Woman’s Work is outstanding.

majikaja• 3 years ago

female vocal capabilities, which are objectively higher than men's in terms of range and fluidity.

Why even bother trying as a man then

Tade02• 3 years ago

I have another angle: I spent some years of my youth singing in a choir and one of the biggest challenges there was to bring more male voices into the group.

Apparently singing was considered girly or something. Writing wasn't though, because you'd have teenage boys write rap songs - I avoided a lot of bullying by producing work impressive enough to gain some respect among the school thugs - even though it was essentially a diss on the whole culture.

Anyway I landed in a choir only because I was shanghaied into it by my (female) friend. Was a nice change of pace, but the male/female ratio was only slightly different compared to my previous activity - theatre.

What I'm getting at is that not everything has to be intersectional.

tstrimple• 3 years ago

Your reasoning for why it’s normal and okay for men to be the absolute dominating voice in popular song writing is that they need more men in choir? This is a massive non-sequiter.

Study: Men Almost Never Sing Songwritten by Women

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