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Question about songwriting credits

analogue

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In an interview Brad Buxer said this about Michael

''Sometimes, he knew exactly what he wanted to hear me sing all the parts of a song. Other times, he let me play until he hears something he likes. This is particularly what happened to songs like "Who Is It or Stranger In Moscow''

So if Michael let Brad play until he heard something he likes doesn't that mean that Brad should have gotten a co-composer credit on some songs? I don't know much about how songwriting credits work so this has always interested me.

Brad talks more about his and MJ's process in this video
 
I dont know all the correct musical terms to use but You have to take into consideration the way Michael wrote songs. sometimes he had it all laid out and recorded his voice onto a tape including the sounds of instruments, strings bass percussion etc, He did that all with his voice. Then he would explain what he wanted for the instrumentals. How they should sound. He and Brad would work out an arrangement together until it was the sound Michael wanted. Brad did not play on either of those songs he just worked with Michael to help him create the correct chords ,a run or loop that could be used in the songs. Just like Brad explained. He said michael wrote the songs and had it all in his head.

Michael wrote the songs and the melodies he just had others bring them to life with the instruments for him. Like he would sometimes allowed guitar players to add their own riffs and percussionist to add their own style, after he explained what he wanted. They may have said hey how about this etc. and Michael would say yes that it, sounds great. He would say how he wanted the strings to sound and then work it out with the musicians until he got the sound he wanted. They did not change his melody but the way and style in which it was played. That doesn't mean they wrote the songs or would receive that credit as writer.
 
Like qbee said, explaining to a musician what Michael had in his head doesn't necessarily mean that the musician should get a co-writing credit. For much of his career Michael didn't know how to play any instruments so he needed to dictate it to those in the studio with him to get what he wanted. This applies with Brad -- it seems like he said he "played until Michael heard what he liked," which implies that he played until Michael felt that it replicated what he heard in his head the best.

If memory serves me correctly, apparently Brad had written a good portion of the music for Stranger in Moscow and simply told Michael not to credit him as a co-writer for whatever reason. So it could go either way, depending on the situation.
 
So on Will You Be There Brad said that Michael sang the vocal melody to him and then Michael told him to play some chords and then Brad played some chords until Michael said ''That's it''

So if i came up with a vocal melody and I asked someone to play some chords until i heard what i liked does that make me the full composer of the song?

I'm not trying to take anything away from MJ as a composer btw. It's just that his process has always been fascinating to me
 
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analogue said:
So on Will You Be There Brad said that Michael sang the vocal melody to him and then Michael told him to play some chords and then Brad played some chords until Michael said ''That's it''

So if i came up with a vocal melody and I asked someone to play some chords until i heard what i liked does that make me the full composer of the song?

I'm not trying to take anything away from MJ as a composer btw. It's just that his process has always been fascinating to me
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I don't think you can call Brad a composer of the song if it's Michael who dictates what he wants to include. But it depends on what a composer is for you.

Anyway, in popular music there are lots of cases where people with more input than what we are talking here remain uncredited. Like Prince's Kiss is credited solely to him while it was the band Mazarati who took Prince's originally acoustic version and turned it into the hit we know. Or Pink Floyd's greatest hit Money is credited solely to Roger Waters while in reality it was a band effort. Just from the top of my head, there are a lot, lot more.
 
analogue said:
So on Will You Be There Brad said that Michael sang the vocal melody to him and then Michael told him to play some chords and then Brad played some chords until Michael said ''That's it''

So if i came up with a vocal melody and I asked someone to play some chords until i heard what i liked does that make me the full composer of the song?

I'm not trying to take anything away from MJ as a composer btw. It's just that his process has always been fascinating to me
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I think Michael had a very rare and innate sense of music and how it worked. For example, not many people who cannot play an instrument (to a professional standard, which Michael couldn't) would be able to harmonise each note of a chord and compose an entire song, complete with chord progressions, bass parts and fills using just their voice. Michael did this and it was how he solely composed many of his songs. Listen to the Beat It demo from the TII soundtrack. Listen to the astounding acapella of Who Is It on the Oprah interview.

The man had a gift for composing and it didn't matter that he couldn't play a physical instrument, because he used his voice in ways most songwriters could only dream of.
 
The Beat It demo on This Is It is a perfect example of how MJ works as a composer.
 
Well, I don't know how it works with songwriting credits, but I do remember reading somewhere that he was satisfied just being able to have worked with Michael, and he didn't need the credits.
On that little studio recording with Brad Michael did say "It would be neat if you'd hook up your guitar and just play something, and get me a mic" or something along those lines. But imo, even if he'd let a musician just play until he heard something he liked (so not anything that was already in his head), I'd still consider the song that comes from that his creation. Any type of artist needs inspiration, to create something you need input first. If someone would put random shapes on paper -like suggestions- it would still take the vision of a great artist to pick the right ones and put them together in the right composition to create a beautiful piece. :wub:
So imo, in this case it's just Michael 'using' the skills of someone else, 'cause he couldn't play an instrument, to get inspired :)
 
credit

It doesn't really matter who actually writes a song as far as credit goes. Anybody can get a credit if they get their name registered at the copyright office. If a person doesn't want credit for whatever reason, they can decline. There was a doo wop group named The Cadillacs, in which the members wrote some of their songs, but their manager registered her name only as the writer, and she had nothing to do with songwriting. In the old days, label people, managers, etc. would often add their names to songs. Ripping off credits was pretty common. Then there's songwriters for hire, who write for a salary or get a fee per song, but does not get any royalties. Writers for hire may or may not be credited. Ghostwriters are not credited. People who write string arrangements for songs are generally not credited as a songwriter.

Some songwriters add family members or friends to songs to help them out financially, although they have nothing to do with the songs. In jazz, sometimes band members help compose songs, but only the bandleader gets the credit. Some bands share credit, even if every member does not participate in writing every song on an album. It might say something like "All songs written by Genesis" instead of listing the individual names. Many Lennon/McCartney songs were written separately, but they made an agreement to credit each other. It was mainly the earlier songs that were written together. Some use fake names to get around contracts or they just don't want to be known. There's the getting a writing credit for recording a song, like Colonel Parker did with Elvis Presley. In the 1970s, James Brown would sometimes use 2 of his daughters name (who were under 10 at the time) instead of his own, so that the taxman would not take his earnings.
 
Lil said:
On that little studio recording with Brad Michael did say "It would be neat if you'd hook up your guitar and just play something, and get me a mic" or something along those lines.
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He's talking to Bill Bottrell there who IS credited on Give In To Me.
 
I would love to have seen a full documentary that went into great detail about Michael's creative process. Sadly the closest we ever got to having any in depth insight about Michael's creative process was the Mexico Deposition in 1993 and the Dangerous Deposition in 1994. It's sad that Michael had to be in court to talk about his creative process.

It just always annoyed me that Michael was interviewed by complete air heads who asked dumb and pointless questions like ''Are you a virgin?'' and ''How much plastic surgery have you had?''
 
I am not speaking specifically about Michael, but artists tend to find ways to get and take credit... For example many times when you see 2-3 writers on a song and 1 of them being the artist, that artist actually had very little to do with the song, but did JUST enough to get credit for it and get his/her name on the list of writers..

When it comes to credit, that equals royalties.. A singer gets more money when they produce, direct, and/or write there music, so they try to get there name everywhere..

While Michael is a different story for the most part, he was a true writer, etc. In the dance community several dancers hold a grudge on Michael for not giving them credit for what he got from them.. OK that's off topic, but musically artists can get away with getting more credit than deserved on all aspects of music making.
 
KOPV said:
While Michael is a different story for the most part, he was a true writer, etc. In the dance community several dancers hold a grudge on Michael for not giving them credit for what he got from them.. OK that's off topic, but musically artists can get away with getting more credit than deserved on all aspects of music making.
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First, dance moves aren't copyrighted and for the most part it's simply impossible to tell who really came up with a dance move. Just because you see a guy doing it the first time on TV it does not mean he invented it. Just because someone shows a move to Michael it does not mean that person invented it. Just like Jeffrey Daniel did NOT invent the moonwalk, for example, despite of some people believing that. IMO Michael gave credit when he could, but you cannot expect him to trace back every single move and find the guy who first did it (which may go back decades or more) and keep giving credit to everyone and their mother all the time. Dance moves are usually a result of evolution and do not have a single inventor. It's not at all like songwriting and that's exactly why it cannot be copyrighted. So anyone who claims to have invented a move is suspicious of a too big ego IMO. Because he too probably took something that he made to evolve, rather than truly invent. Because that's the nature of dancing. And Michael too did that - he took something and took it on another level. I have never heard him claim he invented a move.
 
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^ First off.. I don't know why someone got so defensive :doh:


And I am not talking about someone doing something before Michael.. I am talking about dancers that he asked to teach him things and hired!!

Anywho, I should figure that some would get territorial over Michael when it comes to things like this!!

Get mad at me for stating what I said all you'd like the fact is, there is truth to what I said and there are a group of dancers that do hold a grudge on Michael because of it.. That's a FACT there is no Ill words I said there!!

no matter how you dice it, and in the end of the day Michael was the GREATEST dancer that ever lived.. So, dissect my words all you want, if I did that with other peoples posts I'd never stop typing!
 
KOPV said:
^ First off.. I don't know why someone got so defensive :doh:


And I am not talking about someone doing something before Michael.. I am talking about dancers that he hired to teach him things!!

Anywho, I should figure that some would get territorial over Michael when it comes to things like this!!

Get mad at me for stating what I said all you'd like the fact is, there is truth to what I said no matter how you dice it, and in the end of the day Michael was the GREATEST dancer that ever lived.. So, dissect my words all you want, if I did that with other peoples posts I'd never stop typing!
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You brought it up and you get offended when someone answers? Geez.

Many dancers became very famous based on their associations with Michael. Many got their credits - Michael Peters, Vincent Paterson, LaVelle Smith, Travis, Jeffrey Daniel etc etc. Maybe some feel they didn't but again, Michael cannot keep giving credit to everyone and their mother all the time. I guess they got their money for the job they were doing and it looks great on a dancer's CV to have worked with MJ. Like I said dancing is NOT like songwriting. You cannot claim you have invented a move just because you taught it to MJ. So why do you want "credit" for a move that you taught to MJ? Do artist always give credit to every single person who has taught them something or is it only expected from MJ?
 
answers? I was not asking a question, and I am not defensive, lol! my last post was referring to your defensiveness to my comment actually! haha

And the dancers I am talking about are not the mainstream dancers that you mentioned, aside from Jeffery Daniels.. I'm talking about the dancers he would meet up with at 3rd street dance studio in Cali to teach him! some of them hold a grudge towards Michael, that is all I am saying... I just stated a fact!

Now if you want my true opinion and actually give someone a reason to be defensive, I do think it was not very nice of Michael to make up a story of where he learned the Moonwalk from.. That is not only not giving credit to the person who taught him, it's taking away credit.. going from 0 credit to negative credit..

When Justin Timberlake tries to say he got his influence of the fedora from Frank Sinatra while we all know it was from Michael.. We can all talk about that right?? Though Justin Timberlake has often given MJ credit, we hold the ONE time he said something like that! but we excused everything Michael did or didn't do..

In no way does that make me love him any less because I am willing to call out on things that I don't think Michael should have done.. In fact in MY opinion that is the type of behavior that I WISH was around Michael, and maybe if those who would not Enable and excuse everything were not around.. He'd be here!!
 
^ I remember a story from Debbie Allen talking about how Michael wanted her to teach him tap dancing. But this was long after Michael actually already knew how to tap dance, since he did it back on the Jacksons Variety show which Allen may not have been aware of. So Debbie Allen thought she taught him tap dancing...
What I want to say with that is that sometimes Michael pretended to be more ignorant about things than he really was and wanted people to show him what they knew and how they did it, but it did not necessarily mean those were really the people he got that from.

Who really taught MJ the moonwalk? These guys who hold a grudge against him (are you talking about the Electric Boongaloos?) or was it Jeffrey Daniel like LaToya wrote in her book? Or did he also see others, including, indeed, kids on the street doing that? Who can tell? Maybe those guys you talk about taught him something but maybe he had more than one sources. Who can tell?
 
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analogue said:
I would love to have seen a full documentary that went into great detail about Michael's creative process. Sadly the closest we ever got to having any in depth insight about Michael's creative process was the Mexico Deposition in 1993 and the Dangerous Deposition in 1994. It's sad that Michael had to be in court to talk about his creative process.

It just always annoyed me that Michael was interviewed by complete air heads who asked dumb and pointless questions like ''Are you a virgin?'' and ''How much plastic surgery have you had?''
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I definitely agree-those 2 depositions are absolutely fascinating b/c of the songwriting process-to listen to his voice outside a studio to demonstrate the instrumental sounds-I was totally enthralled.
One of the main reasons I bought Joe Vogel's book, which I probably read 20 times now.
 
respect77 said:
^
Who really taught MJ the moonwalk? These guys who hold a grudge against him (are you talking about the Electric Boongaloos?) or was it Jeffrey Daniel like LaToya wrote in her book? Or did he also see others, including, indeed, kids on the street doing that? Who can tell? Maybe those guys you talk about taught him something but maybe he had more than one sources. Who can tell?
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There does seem to be a lot of friction from other dancers and choreographers over stuff like this-or from FRIENDS of the choreographers-who get really defensive about the credit-Michael seems to be the ONLY one not to claim credit-just like the Robot or the crotch grab-
no choreography is really copyrighted-not even Robbins or Fosse-only if you're Agnes DeMille and Oklahoma!
 
Michael would meet up with a few dancers, which he later casted in his videos, the dancers he would bring along are poppin Pete , Suga Pop, Poppin Taco, and a couple others including Jeffery Daniels. The one that I find to hold the biggest grudge is Suga Pop, while all of them give respect to Michael for giving dancers a platform, Suga Pop has talked about MJ not giving credit and taking moves that were not meant to be given etc...

As far as the Moonwalk (According to a few different people including Daniels) Michael saw Jeffery Daniels on Soul Train and got his info, and wanted to know how to do what he was doing on the show.. Of course back then known as the backfloat but as Michael did with every move made it cooler, longer strides..

Now I want to create a thread for MJ dance and the history behind it!! There is so many places that MJ got steps, styles, etc. from it is just so cool to me to see it and learn on how he studied.;
 
KOPV said:
Michael would meet up with a few dancers, which he later casted in his videos, the dancers he would bring along are poppin Pete , Suga Pop, Poppin Taco, and a couple others including Jeffery Daniels. The one that I find to hold the biggest grudge is Suga Pop, while all of them give respect to Michael for giving dancers a platform, Suga Pop has talked about MJ not giving credit and taking moves that were not meant to be given etc...

As far as the Moonwalk (According to a few different people including Daniels) Michael saw Jeffery Daniels on Soul Train and got his info, and wanted to know how to do what he was doing on the show.. Of course back then known as the backfloat but as Michael did with every move made it cooler, longer strides..

Now I want to create a thread for MJ dance and the history behind it!! There is so many places that MJ got steps, styles, etc. from it is just so cool to me to see it and learn on how he studied.;
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Yeah, those are the Electric Boongaloos. Do they all always shout out to each and every person who they ever took a move from? I doubt that.

What I'm saying is we have their story but it's their side of the story, we never got Michael's. There is no way to know what exactly Michael was taught that day and whether or not he already possessed knowlede about those moves and he just wanted a little fine-tuning / reassuring etc or he was taught something completely new to him? We cannot tell that, so I'm not ready to condemn Michael based on just one side of the story.
 
Some of them were members of the Elec. Boogaloos, Sam started the group and Poppin' Pete fallowed.. As far as there side of the story vs. MJ side or whatever, all I can really say is there are for sure many things that support what they say. I have met a couple members myself, and have been to 3rd street dance studio on an occasion, when I went - the first thing I naturally asked is which room was it Michael would go to etc. the workers at the time knew exactly the room, told me of stories of Michael picking up things super fast and always pleasant to be around etc.

Not only that, they have said the same story since Michael was living, they were never snakes that came out with these random stories after he passed. Them saying that IF not true would subject them to things that is not that great. In the dance community they hold a lot of respect, and are very proud of what they've done for dance.. Them making up a story, and one statement from Michael or publicist would damage there image very much.. Stating things like that in the dance community does not come likely.

PS. I never would say to condemn Michael for anything, I would never do so. So I'm glad you are not going to condemn him too!
 
respect77 said:
He's talking to Bill Bottrell there who IS credited on Give In To Me.
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Oops wrong name, I guess it's cause the title of that recording says 'Brad' cause Brad Sundberg used it in one of his seminars.. but I just wanted to use that as an example of Michael letting other people play until he heard what he liked, not really to say anything about who got credits for that particular song.
 
KOPV said:
Some of them were members of the Elec. Boogaloos, Sam started the group and Poppin' Pete fallowed.. As far as there side of the story vs. MJ side or whatever, all I can really say is there are for sure many things that support what they say. I have met a couple members myself, and have been to 3rd street dance studio on an occasion, when I went - the first thing I naturally asked is which room was it Michael would go to etc. the workers at the time knew exactly the room, told me of stories of Michael picking up things super fast and always pleasant to be around etc.

Not only that, they have said the same story since Michael was living, they were never snakes that came out with these random stories after he passed. Them saying that IF not true would subject them to things that is not that great. In the dance community they hold a lot of respect, and are very proud of what they've done for dance.. Them making up a story, and one statement from Michael or publicist would damage there image very much.. Stating things like that in the dance community does not come likely.

PS. I never would say to condemn Michael for anything, I would never do so. So I'm glad you are not going to condemn him too!
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I'm not saying they are lying but it's just their perspective which can be flawed, even if they are honest from their own POV. That's why I brought up the Debbie Allen example. Debbie Allen genuinely thought she taught Michael tap dance but that was just because Michael pretended to be more ignorant about tapping than he really was. He did that a lot with a lot of things. So without knowing MJ's perspective and without knowing what he already knew and what he didn't and whether he had other sources it's not fair to make a judgement about it.
 
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well I learned math every year in school by different teachers... If my high school teacher says he taught me Math, it's true, even though I knew math before that.. I don't see himself pretending not to know, that would be pointless from someone that wants to learn.. If I wanted to learn lets say level 5 of something i'm not going to pretend to be at level 1, im going to say i'm at level 4 and ready to learn the next step..

Plus we don't know if she worded it that way just to get more credit for it than reality.. The one bid difference between what Debbie said and what these dancers said.. We KNOW Michael tapped before the time frame she 'taught' him, what they say fits perfectly in the timeline of Michaels dance evolution as we've seen it..

I know we've gone super off topic but, its an interesting convo!
 
KOPV said:
well I learned math every year in school by different teachers... If my high school teacher says he taught me Math, it's true, even though I knew math before that.. I don't see himself pretending not to know, that would be pointless from someone that wants to learn.. If I wanted to learn lets say level 5 of something i'm not going to pretend to be at level 1, im going to say i'm at level 4 and ready to learn the next step..

Plus we don't know if she worded it that way just to get more credit for it than reality.. The one bid difference between what Debbie said and what these dancers said.. We KNOW Michael tapped before the time frame she 'taught' him, what they say fits perfectly in the timeline of Michaels dance evolution as we've seen it..

I know we've gone super off topic but, its an interesting convo!
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Michael did pretend to know less about things than he really did when he wanted people to show him what they knew and he had a way of making people feel special. So I don't think it's far-fetched at all. Just because we do not have footage of MJ moonwalking before it does not mean he has never done it before in his dance studio or at home and it wasn't just some fine-tuning what he wanted from those dance lessons. I mean he could observe it from several dancers who did it before on TV and on the street and I do think he had the talent to learn something by observing it (just like a lot of people learned it by observing him on TV). One of those people who he saw on TV could be the Electric Boongaloos, but there were others as well who did it on TV or on the streets. Maybe saying he learnt it from black kids on the street was just his way to express that the move is a part of black culture and it's been there on the streets for a long time and cannot be credited to one person or group.
 
analogue said:
Can dance moves be copyrighted?
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Don't think so. Most dance moves aren't the invention of a single person but are a result of evolution. You can see that very well with moonwalk. You can find footage of people doing moonwalk-like moves in both dancing and miming as far back as the beginning of film, but that still doesn't mean the first person who did it on film also invented it. But of course that "moonwalk" was also somewhat different to Michael's and it went through evolution over time.
 
For me it seems really egotistical for someone to claim that they own/invented a dance move.
 
dance moves can't be copy written but I believe they can be trademarked..

Also people or companies can be sued for using the likeness to someone.. If done right people could be sued for even copying style!! For example Lindsey Lohan Is suing a fame for using her likeness... and all it is that a celeb being bombarded by paparazzi and going to a hangout spot she frequented.
 
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