' Adele wrote the song in 10 minutes after her mother tried to persuade her to leave her home town of West Norwood in London for university.' From wiki which though may not be the most reliable is so in this case.

She told Jo whiley that in an interview once, you are correct

Co-writing doesn't make you any less of a talented song writer. Marina & the Diamonds wrote her first album entirely on her own but has co wrote some of her second album. Does that make her less talented? No, of course not!

We shouldn't turn our noses up at Adele, Katy Perry etc because they 'only co-write'. Surely it's just a way of getting new ideas and styles onto an album. Ke$ha is being praised on this thread for writing her own stuff but I know for a fact she wrote 'Your Love Is My Drug' with her mum and 'Tik Tok' with Dr. Luke. That doesn't make her less of a writer.

All artists who co-write get my respect.

I personally think it depends on how much input someone else has on the song. Some people barely contribute a few words or lines to a song and make out they wrote and created the whole thing. If I see a group of 5/6 etc.. people on the writing credits I do normally wonder how much input the singer actually had.

With people like Amy Winehouse she was involved artistically from start to finish, with people like Rihanna you just suspect she goes into the studio and sings what she is given,

It matters in so far as artists themselves clearly want to be seen as the creators of their material and as fans most of us like to think our favourites are that talented. However, if beautiful music is the result then certainly who cares.

For my part, perhaps naively I though artists usually did write their own stuff apart from the obvious like eg Kylie Minogue and then I realised that many do but have collaborators and then others who I imagined at least collaborated used song writers totally.

There is a lot of talent out there but it mainly seems to be people in the wings which is fine if they are indeed making money and perhaps don't want the limelight anyway.

Lady Gaga... she wrote all of born this way didn't she?

She's co-written every track on all her albums.

Amy MacDonald writes most of her songs alone, but a few have co-writers.*

*And then covers, which she obviously didn't write.

Duffy writes her own material I think.

With sole writing credits for Speechless and You & I.

Lady Gaga writes and co-writes all her own material, and has taken to co-producing a fair bit too.

The ratio of popstars who write/co-write their music to those who don't is actually quite good these days: Lady Gaga, Adele, Katy Perry, Madonna, Ke$ha, Nicki Minaj, Jessie J, Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera, Pixie Lott, Emile Sande, Florence and the Machine, Marina and the Diamonds etc.

It's really only Beyonce, Kylie, Rihanna and Britney who usually don't.

Kate Bush writes all her own stuff, lyrics and music. Not that she's a pop princess but I just thought I'd add an actual all round talent to this thread. It's hard to be impressed by co writes and miming when you know true talent like Kate Bush exists.

None of the mainstream "pop princesses" write all their own songs and some don't contribute very much at all. There are of course some brilliant female singer-songwriters around who do but you wouldn't really call them pop stars.

I think the thing is, there won't really be an artist who will do it all by themselves, because as a popstar, there is a lot to put into a song. However, I dunno if it's just me, but I find an artist more credible if they've put work into their album. I just find it more commendable to see artists who have a lot of self writing credits as oppose to song-writers doing it all.

It's great to see that a lot of the up and coming female artists aren't sitting back and singing songs wrote for them, but instead working their ass off on their albums. You can see that people like Lana Del Rey, Emeli Sande, Christina Perri etc. have all put a lot of effort into their albums.

Ke$ha.

Does she not have any co-writers at all? Someone said above that she did, although her songs are awful anyway imo.

...have you not read the thread?

She has co written a few of her songs. But she has had a hand in every single one and written SO many songs by herself, which I think she deserves credit for as she is seen as a trashy talentless drunk, when she is obviously more than that.

I think Young Foolish Happy is underrated. For sure there is a lot of filler and there are too many tracks. I'd also say it doesn't really know what genre it wants to be.
I also agree her voice has changed slightly, she doesn't have the range she used to anymore.
But I think there are some gems on there. They are not all instantly catchy like All about tonight but much better once you give it a chance. The soulful tacks are good (You win, Stevie on the radio, Everybody hurts sometimes) and urban soulful songs (Come get it now, Nobody does it better) and then the pop feel singles.

Like the other poster I have become more a fan since she flopped really. I hope negative reviews don't put people off buying the album!

So the answer is that a few of the 'pop' princesses do write a high percentage of their own songs but it is rarely as sole writer.

And Adele doesn't write very much just on her own.
So, Joni Mitchell she's not and so what?

You're right that co-writes aren't necessarily a bad thing. For example, all of Bjork's albums have some co-writes on them and she's (rightly) considered one of the most influential artists of recent times. The issue for me is that co-writing credits can be very vague about who contributes how much of the material. There isn't any agreed listing for the credits either - just because a person is credited first does not man they contributed the mots. Elvis forced songwriters to give him a songwriting credit even though he didn't write any of the song. More recently, Beyonce has songwriting credits that are dubious to say the least http://randomjpop.blogspot.com/2011/...inue-on-4.html. (Before anyone jumps on me, I think Beyonce's a great singer and performer I'm just very dubious about her songwriting credentials).

For me at least, I tend to only believe co-writes after I hear the artists talking about the creative process (e.g. Lana Del Rey, Amy Winehouse, Rebecca Ferguson).

I said all their songs, as in every song written without co-writers.

Just to reiterate Amy contributed nearly all of the material to Back to Black, there were a few song writing credits on the album (Ashford and Simpson was for legal reasons), but I don't believe anyone other than her had much input in the song writing. It's a shame she's no more because songs like Wake up Alone and Tears dry on their own are brilliant and just a little insight in this woman's head was enough to confirm she was a one off.

Many artists work with other people on their music but maybe the number of sole writing credits compared to co-writing credits is a sign of someone's input/ability. It's the artists that have co-writing credits on pretty much all of their songs (like probably most of the "pop princesses" being discussed on here) that people tend to question.

tbqh, you can never know. and it doesn't really matter. Its all business. You don't have to write an entire song by penning it but you can do everything else besides writing lyrics such as arrangement, vocal production and flow etc. You can even do bits of all of it. She could write the hook and they all write the rest of the song or she could write the bridge. I doubt she'd have gotten away with it from the early DC days when they were nobodies. And she does do a lot. Listen, it MJ didn't put his name on the biggest selling album of his career when he didn't write and he was the biggest male star in the world, I doubt Beyonce can.