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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 88: RICHARD MARX

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I’ve often wondered what constitutes a timeless song. A song that is regarded as being legendary in its own right. Something that can tug at your heart, and can invade your innermost being, bringing forth emotions to the surface that you never knew you had. I’ve often wondered if it’s the artist who makes a great song, or if it’s the songwriter. Because usually, the great songs (like the great songs in the 90’s like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion and “When You Believe” by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey), are 9 times out of 10, written by a songwriter, or maybe two or more; and then given to a singer to ‘make famous’. Is a song famous because of the name and reputation of the artist, or because of the reputation or repertoire of the songwriter? Songwriters like Diane Warren, Ashley Gorley, Justin Paul & Benj Pasek, David Garcia, David Foster, Justin Tranter & Julia Michaels, Sia, Ryan Tedder, Toby Gad, Shane McAnally and Ester Dean, are all in high demand; and only some of these are artists. The rest just keep chugging along, ploughing away at their craft, helping to make artists famous by crafting a radio friendly hit song. Many of these songwriters are world renowned and respected by their peers- and so the question needs to be asked as to whether the song lives on in the hearts of all of us because of the artist or the songwriter. I reckon it’s about 50/50 at least, in that the songwriter generally does around about 50% of the work in propelling an artist into stardom. But whether a song lives on in my heart, and then just doesn’t connect in your heart- that’s a different thing altogether. But generally speaking, the big iconic songs that we’ll still be singing in 20-30 years’ time, are because of a symbiotic or sometimes parasitical relationship between the songwriter and the artist. But what happens when an iconic song is written by the artist who has sung it? Does that artist achieve the recognition, the praise, the accolades, before the songwriters who write for other people? If an artist has been going and going and going for a long period of time, writing and singing, and keeping their head down… and they don’t receive any awards because their songs aren’t flashy nor of big production; is that fair? Even if they’ve worked with a wide variety of people and are considered a legend in their field, by their peers?

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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 44: Apollo LTD

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Motivational pop-rock isn’t necessarily all the rage, nowadays that is. Gone are the days of artists like the Goo Goo Dolls, Train and to some extent, Coldplay. Yes, these artists during their heyday (which unfortunately, isn’t really now) dominated the sonic landscape and created music with an inspirational edge, all the while utilising the mainstream music market and delivering songs of poignancy and fun, reminding us that it is ok to have a deep song right next to a jovial, fun track on a track-list on an album. Coldplay brought to us one of the 2000s best in ‘Fix You’, quite possibly for me, one of the top 5 songs to ever grace our ears in that decade. Also in the same decade was both Train and Goo Goo Dolls- Train brought to us the quirky and often nonsensical ‘Drops of Jupiter’ (but we all didn’t care, it’s still a classic song, all these years later), and even the thought-provoking ‘Calling All Angels’, ‘Marry Me’, ‘When I Look to the Sky’ and ‘If It’s Love’. And while the Goo Goo Dolls’ biggest hit ‘Iris’ was unveiled in the 1990s (1998 to be precise), the band still had relative success during the 2000s, with songs like ‘Big Machine’, ‘Here is Gone’, ‘Better Days’, ‘Give a Little Bit’, ‘Stay With You’ and ‘Sympathy’. Coldplay, Train and Goo Goo Dolls were all delivering what was considered to be popular during that era- motivational pop-rock, and while that type of branding has always been able to strike a chord with me (considering my own love of CCM and worship music, this umbrella of motivational pop-rock is something in the mainstream that can be very closely attributed to CCM/worship if ever someone was able to find a proverbial link there!), it seemed that as though time went on and music changed, the artists that changed with them seemed to not as care as much for the ‘motivational’ genre as the next guy, and started to place more emphasis on the glitz and glamour of the music, than the lyrics and music themselves. Which is a bit of a shame though- but when you do look around at the music of today, it can be hard pressed to find artists that seem to embrace the motivational pop-rock umbrella as well as bands like Train, Goo Goo Dolls and Coldplay did, way back in the 2000s. Sure, these three bands are still at it today, and are still delivering motivational pop-rock anthems for the masses, but there is where it all stops.

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