Adam's song writing...

Sealion wrote:

Iron Butterfly wrote:

AL is still in contact with Cowell these days. I wish All would leave those type of shows behind, and move on from it.
PS..I don't need or want to see links or pics of AL and Cowell together, sweetcaroline.

Those must be new. I was looking for a connection about two-three years ago. There was none. Nothing in the whole WWW since idol.

Wasn’t he a judge on one of his shows not long ago? Maybe the connection got renewed.

He was one of the people invited when Simon got his Hollywood walk of fame star, he was at his after party and then appeared as a guest judge at the judges houses in LA.

I forgot to say he was an actual judge on the Australian X factor in 2016 so the connection was still there then.

rockchic65 wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

Writing lyrics is not the same as writing songs. If you can't play any instrument, it's extremely unlikely that you're capable of writing songs. That is quite aside from quality, whether or not you can write *good* songs. It means you don't have the tools or the specialist knowledge.

To put it in a metaphor: no matter how good you are at playing the guitar, it says nothing about your skill at building a guitar.

I take your point I just think if you have technical knowledge of singing and by that I mean you have the knowledge of what key and note etc you're singing then you could theoretically come up with a melody line in your head and sing it to someone who plays an instrument the same way someone can just play something by ear on a piano for example. I know Adam changes the arrangement of a lot of his songs when touring solo or works with the band to come up with arrangements of covers he decides to do last minute. He obviously needs them to play what he's thinking but between them they can work it out so the same in theory can apply when writing new music. Not saying he does, just that he could.

At the end of the day though it doesn't really matter, like you said lots of singers never write music and it doesn't hold them back. They can't all be multi skilled.

It's theoretically possible, but not very likely. There's a lot more to writing a song than meets the ear: harmonies, part-writing and the likes can be extremely demanding, unless you're happy to end up with a string of musical cliches.

The scenario you describe reminds me of Irving Berlin. A great lyricist, to be sure, who gets shared credit for the music on his songs - Berlin came up with wonderful melodies, but did not have the know-how to turn them into songs. So, he used the services of others to set his pieces to music. And, remember, Irving Berlin is probably the absolute best-case-scenario in the real world of someone without much technical knowledge of an instrumentalist of some kind in writing songs.

rockchic65 wrote:
Yeah X Factor is completely different, it's Simon's own show and the judges all mentor the contestants, choose the songs or at least have input into it etc. Idol was created by Simon Fuller and Cowell was only a judge, he didn't have any sway over it and his record company weren't involved, nineteen was the label they got signed to from Idol, part of RCA.

I found it especially interesting, because I always felt, that the judges or mentors have too much influence after the contestants made the show. They can’t really decide on anything. They got pushed into a genre and an image. And I think, that‘s what people here mean with“manufactured“. At least that’s what I understand by it. ;-)

BUT that didn’t really happen on the show, that AL was on. The performances were his. The song choices as well. The clothes and most other things as well.

If I had been an artist, I would have gone to that show. The others only exist to promote the judges and make money for the producer, who gets a fresh, young artist in the end. One that he has certainly pushed behind the scenes. And who will fade away after a year or two. Because that artist just fitted a bill, but didn’t necessarily have enough talent.

Sealion wrote:

rockchic65 wrote:
Yeah X Factor is completely different, it's Simon's own show and the judges all mentor the contestants, choose the songs or at least have input into it etc. Idol was created by Simon Fuller and Cowell was only a judge, he didn't have any sway over it and his record company weren't involved, nineteen was the label they got signed to from Idol, part of RCA.

I found it especially interesting, because I always felt, that the judges or mentors have too much influence after the contestants made the show. They can’t really decide on anything. They got pushed into a genre and an image. And I think, that‘s what people here mean with“manufactured“. At least that’s what I understand by it. ;-)

BUT that didn’t really happen on the show, that AL was on. The performances were his. The song choices as well. The clothes and most other things as well.

If I had been an artist, I would have gone to that show. The others only exist to promote the judges and make money for the producer, who gets a fresh, young artist in the end. One that he has certainly pushed behind the scenes. And who will fade away after a year or two. Because that artist just fitted a bill, but didn’t necessarily have enough talent.

Out of all the singing shows out there, I almost wish AL was on The Voice instead of Idol.

Iron Butterfly wrote:


Out of all the singing shows out there, I almost wish AL was on The Voice instead of Idol.

It might be interesting to see, what they would have made of him. My guess: not much at all.
The producers would have made sure, that he didn’t win. Because they knew, that he would be very hard to promote.

They want to manufacture an artist, that they can sell to the mainstream audience.

Sealion wrote:

rockchic65 wrote:
Yeah X Factor is completely different, it's Simon's own show and the judges all mentor the contestants, choose the songs or at least have input into it etc. Idol was created by Simon Fuller and Cowell was only a judge, he didn't have any sway over it and his record company weren't involved, nineteen was the label they got signed to from Idol, part of RCA.

I found it especially interesting, because I always felt, that the judges or mentors have too much influence after the contestants made the show. They can’t really decide on anything. They got pushed into a genre and an image. And I think, that‘s what people here mean with“manufactured“. At least that’s what I understand by it. ;-)

BUT that didn’t really happen on the show, that AL was on. The performances were his. The song choices as well. The clothes and most other things as well.

If I had been an artist, I would have gone to that show. The others only exist to promote the judges and make money for the producer, who gets a fresh, young artist in the end. One that he has certainly pushed behind the scenes. And who will fade away after a year or two. Because that artist just fitted a bill, but didn’t necessarily have enough talent.

Yeah the way they did Idol was a lot better fit for Adam than X Factor would have been, essentially he did most things himself, most of the clothes were his own and aside from two songs from the final and one other song which was a judges choice they got to choose their own from a theme each week. They did have guest mentors but the work they did with the contestants was pretty limited in most cases.

He worked most with the music director/vocal coach Michael Orland, he helped him do all the song arranging and he still works with him sometimes, he's played piano for him on quite a few appearances, he really loves working with Adam.

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

It's theoretically possible, but not very likely. There's a lot more to writing a song than meets the ear: harmonies, part-writing and the likes can be extremely demanding, unless you're happy to end up with a string of musical cliches.

The scenario you describe reminds me of Irving Berlin. A great lyricist, to be sure, who gets shared credit for the music on his songs - Berlin came up with wonderful melodies, but did not have the know-how to turn them into songs. So, he used the services of others to set his pieces to music. And, remember, Irving Berlin is probably the absolute best-case-scenario in the real world of someone without much technical knowledge of an instrumentalist of some kind in writing songs.

Yeah I'm not saying he does that, he's been asked plenty times about which songs he wrote but no one seems to have asked if he had a hand in putting together the actual music as opposed to just the lyrics so I don't really know if he does that with new songs, I just know he does help with rearranging songs he covers etc. He does have a basic knowledge of piano etc, his brother plays piano but Adam gave it up.

The winners from The Voice are never heard from again compared to the success of both winners and non-winners from American Idol:

Kelly, Carrie, Jennifer, Fantasia, Chris, David, Adam, Scotty, etc.

**************************************

“They’re not equals.”

Right! My son always says that Freddie was like a Thunderbird and Adam is a Lamborghini.

Hey, what about the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin? Ever hear of them? Not everyone can be a genius like Freddie.

SweetCaroline wrote:

“They’re not equals.”

Right! My son always says that Freddie was like a Thunderbird and Adam is a Lamborghini.

Fred is both of those, and also the Batmobile, a Delorean, a Ferrari F1, and the Compact Pussycat.

Lambert is a grown man on a kids tricycle compared to the Fredster.

And the flying car in Radio Ga Ga was Fred's runabout.

rockchic65 wrote:

MisterCosmicc wrote:

WWFM? What the fuck is that? Can we do away with the initials and learn to type shit out? You're fully capable of typing out a huge paragraph but can't write out the title of a song?

Sorry you appeared to be familiar with some of his songs so I assumed you would know that one being the most well known - it's Whataya Want From Me, the second single of his first album.

'Take One' is Adam's greatest album.

MisterCosmicc wrote:

'Take One' is Adam's greatest album.

Ah right, wasn't thinking of that one, it was from when he worked as a session singer doing demo's, they asked him to sound different, they were songs they were planning to sell onto artists but after he went on Idol they saw the opportunity to release it in his name to coincide with his other album, hence calling it take one, trying to make out it was his debut album.

Take One is only a compilation of demos he recorded as a session musician. Not his songs, nor songs he has any relation to. That’s what he said about it:

Lambert issued a statement through 19 Entertainment stating, "Back in 2005 when I was a struggling artist, I was hired as a studio singer to lend my vocals to tracks written by someone else. I was broke at the time and this was my chance to make a few bucks, so I jumped at the opportunity to record for my first time in a professional studio. The work I did back then in no way reflects the music I am currently in the studio working on."source Wikipedia.

That album had been released without his ok. The studio wanted to make money.

rockchic65 wrote:

thomasquinn 32989 wrote:

It's theoretically possible, but not very likely. There's a lot more to writing a song than meets the ear: harmonies, part-writing and the likes can be extremely demanding, unless you're happy to end up with a string of musical cliches.

The scenario you describe reminds me of Irving Berlin. A great lyricist, to be sure, who gets shared credit for the music on his songs - Berlin came up with wonderful melodies, but did not have the know-how to turn them into songs. So, he used the services of others to set his pieces to music. And, remember, Irving Berlin is probably the absolute best-case-scenario in the real world of someone without much technical knowledge of an instrumentalist of some kind in writing songs.

Yeah I'm not saying he does that, he's been asked plenty times about which songs he wrote but no one seems to have asked if he had a hand in putting together the actual music as opposed to just the lyrics so I don't really know if he does that with new songs, I just know he does help with rearranging songs he covers etc. He does have a basic knowledge of piano etc, his brother plays piano but Adam gave it up.

He sings or hums melodies and makes musicians play these. He knows, what beat he wants, what kind of instrumentation, how a song is supposed to sound. That’s much more than just writing lyrics.