Today's Artist Is A Songwriter

Digital Music News offered an interesting article the other day regarding the fact that 83 percent of all mainstream songs were at least partially written by the artist or a member of the band. This came after searching the databases of ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, and cross-referencing the top 100 songs on Big Champagne's Ultimate Chart.

While bad news for so-called "professional" songwriters, this is generally good news for the public, since an artist is truly an "artist" if he or she has some hand in the songs performed, and that tends to be the kind of artists that we really appreciate as fans. That being said, songwriting credit is dubious sometimes (like producer credits on a television show or movie), so unless you were actually in the room when the song was written, you'll never know for sure who exactly wrote what.

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The Ultimate Chart

One of the problems with today's music charts is the fact that they utilize the sales numbers to determine chart position. While has been the primary way of doing it for years, it's certainly a less valid methodology that it was in the past before Internet metrics were available.

But now that we do have multiple online metrics, what exactly should be used to determine chart position? Internet music measurement company Big Champagne thinks they have the answer with a chart that takes a combination of traditional sales, airplay, audio and video streaming, plus fans, friends and followers from various social networks. It's called the Ultimate Chart and it measures everything except illegal downloads, which is Big Champagnes core business so it's charted separately.

The Ultimate Chart currently only looks at the top 100 artists, so you'll only see label acts and those that have a high profile, but Big Champagne is said to be working on the Ultimate Independent and DIY chart as well for those up and comers. In the meantime, an interesting blog called We Are Hunted has a chart that measures chatter and blogging for indie acts.

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Follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.