Singer-but-not-songwriter

 Insane as it may seem, there is a book titled How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll. Also, the song “American Pie” insists that “the music” died when Buddy Holly did. In 1959.

In the book, the author explains that rock was written by pros and sung by teenagers who could sing but not write songs. That has been the template for pretty much forever, with one group of people composing and another group performing. True for pop, jazz, gospel, and much of classical. Even much of folk music was performances of traditional, older material. Some people did perform their own work, of course, but the real idea was to hand that part of the job to the experts-- the same why an architect did not build the house, nor did the carpenters ink the blueprints. Two separate jobs.

Then along came The Beatles and ruined everything by knowing how to sing and write their own songs! Now, neither those non-singing composers nor those non-composing singers could get work!

Well, the Rock Hall kinda wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, they honor those Brill Building songwriters who, pre-Beatles, wrote and composed the rock music of the 1950s, as Ertegun (previously “Non-Performer”) winners.

On the other, they almost entirely induct Performers who write their own material. Only maybe 20 or so— of 200+ acts inducted as Performers— predominantly performed what was handed to them.

So… where are the rest of those? All those non-singing songwriters wrote all those songs for someone to sing. If it was OK to write but not sing... why is not OK to sing but not write?

And it’s not true that all of such acts are pre-Beatles. Some of them are Motown acts. Even some major rock acts were more vocal interpreters than writers.

Which is fine. It’s just strange that not being able to write songs doesn’t disqualify you from being inducted…

…until it does.

Update: Tina Turner, who to my knowledge did not pen her hits, was Inducted in 2021.