The Songwriters Are Talking

April 28, 2018 – Two things have me in a seriously rock ‘n’ roll mood, Greta Van Fleet (and still no matter how much I search, there’s no ticket) and coveting this certain guitar (which I won’t talk about because it’s not going to be one that my people will like). But this week, I got a really cool little reminder of Lana Del Rey, so I checked in on her. Lana news….

This past week she won an award from ASCAP (the people who oversee the payment on copyrighted songs). Another artist who I’m not all that familiar with, but who I know was in the video for her song Freak, presented the award and, before-hand, covered her song Ride (one of my personal favorites), this guy just playing an acoustic guitar and singing. Stripped of the usual layers, I could really hear the “song” part of the song, you know, the actual tune and the actual words.

Lana songs, for me, are like little poems. I’m into them. I listen to the music for those poems. And honestly, I sort of always want to add some guitar to it, to reinterpret the songs that way. Someday I will; who knows maybe even with that new guitar I want. In the meantime, I am proud of Lana for being honored for being a songwriter. To me, that’s a serious thing. Songwriter. It sounds so much better than pop star. So much more serious-artist-like. I’m sure Lana likes it too. (Also, credit to Lana for giving credit to her song-writing partner Rick Nowells in her acceptance speech.)

In my search that brought up this story, I saw mention too of Ellie Goulding, another artist I really like, but who isn’t doing that much now. And frankly, what I like of Ellie is older-Ellie, original-Ellie. I really thought her early work was also good on the poetry aspect, good on the songwriting aspect, but her latest work, which now is itself older (having been released in 2015), was geared more for that disposable pop world I’ve taken to mocking. Well… except the one song that my bird and I will always sing; that song will be forever cool. Of course, forever; if a parrot thinks something is cool, it necessarily is … forever. On that point, in case you don’t know, when a parrot likes something, they do the sound a lot!

As for current Ellie Goulding, she is reported to have recently hired Lana’s management personnel. I often wondered what Ellie thinks of Lana, the Lana who seems to have success within her ever-increasing fan-base, the Lana with nothing played on the radio, the Lana, who like Ellie, is a bit off-beat. The article said Ellie has not had success in the United States and is looking to increase her success. I thought that was an odd statement because in my mind Ellie, who had songs on the radio, was perhaps a bigger commercial success as compared to Lana. But the more I thought about it, the more I wonder if Ellie’s decision wasn’t about songwriting, specifically about Lana’s songwriting success. I wonder if Ellie wants to return to her own songwriting roots, release off-beat songs that are poetry-driven, and like Lana, somehow be able to sell those songs, instead of the pop-dance driven songs that Ellie turned to. I really love Ellie Goulding’s voice, so I would welcome that change. I’ve read that Ellie is working on a new record; I really do hope these delays are so that Ellie can release more interesting songs, so that she can follow the model of playing to an underground and concert-driven audience like Lana does.

Completely unrelated to any of this, I’ve continued my listening to Greta Van Fleet. I ran across another interview, and in that interview the Greta-guys discuss their songs. They too credit songwriting as the reason for their success. I’m not sure if it’s okay to tout one’s own songwriting skills, but I know Lana wanted to be taken seriously as a songwriter; she has said so, so why not the Greta-guys having that same sentiment?

And as I sat thinking about this subject, I realize that is what it is. Songwriting. It’s the strength of the songs that draws me to the music I like, be it rock ‘n’ roll, be it Lana, whatever Lana is genre-wise. If a song is good, I want to sing it, to learn it, to play it, to cover it. And that’s what’s wrong with the radio. Those radio songs are too … un-complex, too repetitive, too un-song-like. How do you like that description? Pretty bad, right? But hey, I’m describing something that’s pretty bad.

Still, it’s nice that people are starting to notice, starting to listen to music with good songwriting. They don’t play Lana on the radio. And radio doesn’t know what to do with Greta, where to play it, what stations it should be on. But the tickets, at least here, show a huge demand for Greta — not even one ticket on the secondary market. And Lana was selling out everywhere. Songwriting, in all genres; if the radio doesn’t start listening, I can see it now: the entire music-consuming public will just ignore the radio, listen to their favorites wherever they are played and go to shows. Someone is watching though. People like Ellie Goulding watched what Lana did, and perhaps wants that for herself. I’m pretty sure someone out there is watching what Greta Van Fleet is doing too. Will these artists, the songwriters in all genres, stay underground, stay off-beat, or as artists as diverse as Lana and Greta find success, will the radio do what it wasn’t designed to do – instead of broadcasting what it wants… listen? Hey, radio: the songwriters are talking! And we are, or at least I am, listening.

Article featuring Lana Del Rey cover: http://www.nme.com/news/music/father-john-misty-covers-lana-del-rey-ride-2302613