TY - JOUR

T1 - ‘The song factories have closed!’

T2 - songwriting camps as spaces of collaborative creativity in the post-industrial age

AU - Herbst, Jan-Peter

AU - Ahlers, Michael

AU - Barber, Simon

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

PY - 2024/6/30

Y1 - 2024/6/30

N2 - This article explores ‘songwriting camps’, a contemporary form of collaborative music creation initiated primarily by record labels and music publishers but also by producers and enthusiasts. In such camps, musicians produce songs for various purposes, from commercial exploitation to self-actualization. This research explores the origins of industrialized songwriting, collaborative songwriting practices, and current thinking on creativity and copyright with a view to interrogating how songwriting camps relate to commercial songwriting practices in popular music since the early twentieth century. We find that camps have a proven track record of producing commercially successful pop songs and are deemed beneficial by songwriters for developing their careers and skills, networking, gaining industry contacts, and generating royalty income. We argue that while camps have adapted to the post-industrial age, characterized by digital music creation tools aiding musicians, they owe more to the past than is perhaps acknowledged. Songwriting camps are a microcosm in which many of the same tensions, strategies, goals, and relationships can be observed as in past structures from the Brill Building era, or organizations like Motown. Camps draw on features from these historical examples, such as: strategic, time-limited collaboration, clearly delineated roles, friendly competition among writers, and group evaluation.

AB - This article explores ‘songwriting camps’, a contemporary form of collaborative music creation initiated primarily by record labels and music publishers but also by producers and enthusiasts. In such camps, musicians produce songs for various purposes, from commercial exploitation to self-actualization. This research explores the origins of industrialized songwriting, collaborative songwriting practices, and current thinking on creativity and copyright with a view to interrogating how songwriting camps relate to commercial songwriting practices in popular music since the early twentieth century. We find that camps have a proven track record of producing commercially successful pop songs and are deemed beneficial by songwriters for developing their careers and skills, networking, gaining industry contacts, and generating royalty income. We argue that while camps have adapted to the post-industrial age, characterized by digital music creation tools aiding musicians, they owe more to the past than is perhaps acknowledged. Songwriting camps are a microcosm in which many of the same tensions, strategies, goals, and relationships can be observed as in past structures from the Brill Building era, or organizations like Motown. Camps draw on features from these historical examples, such as: strategic, time-limited collaboration, clearly delineated roles, friendly competition among writers, and group evaluation.

KW - Songwriting

KW - creativity

KW - music industry

KW - music production

KW - popular music

KW - songwriting camps

KW - Music education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85197375792&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/20b2fe0d-8391-3cf8-8935-6a870873fba0/

U2 - 10.1080/17510694.2024.2366163

DO - 10.1080/17510694.2024.2366163

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 17

JO - Creative Industries Journal

JF - Creative Industries Journal

SN - 1751-0694

IS - 1

ER -