Quote Originally Posted by blackmage_nuke View Post
I'll be more inclined to keep up with their work and releases if I know they wrote their own songs as they are more likely to write more songs which I will enjoy but otherwise I dont enjoy a song any less knowing that the performer did not compose it. It's an interesting experience when an actor is also the director and writer but it's not like I judge an actor's performance any less if they didnt write their own lines in a movie.
Interesting point. I hadn't thought about it like that, but it's interesting to think what the difference might be. The whole of the actor's art is interpretation. The musician/singer's art is not as well defined. There are different layers to it as well. For instance, some bands have singers that don't write the lyrics but some of the music, or do write the lyrics but have nothing to do with the music. The same for the various instruments. There are some bands in which one person does ALL the writing, and everyone else just plays their parts. The way we usually think of things, the drummer should "write" and play the drums, the guitarist should write and play the guitar, the bassist should write and play the bass, the vocalist should write and sing the lyrics, etc. That's the standard, I guess. Many bands deviate from this, though, many many bands. Rush is a prominent example. Drummer writes the lyrics, lead singer is a bassist, etc.

Looking back, some of the biggest songs, biggest acts, have been artists performing songs other people wrote for them, especially in the last 20-30 years (but even before then), so it's definitely just a personal thing.

I don't know. I think I just feel like the musicians are more in tune (pun not intended) with their music (including the vocals) when they've written it themselves. They're closer to being artists then, not just machines reproducing sounds that someone else created.