Ghost Producing - GamerGate of the Music Production World -

[Glaive]

SO, ethics in the electronic music industry.

A lot of electronic music fans are becoming more and more aware of a trend called "Ghost Producing". If you haven't heard of it before, it's very similar to the concept of Ghost Writing in the rap industry. Which is where a rapper will hire an actually competent lyricist to compose his lines, but will then be able to slap their own artist name on it and claim full ownership because they have paid off the real writer.

So in the electronic music industry this has become widespread. Except rather than simply paying for only lyrics, they are paying for full track productions. Meaning someone else is spending all of that time in the studio going through the entire process of creating the sounds, to then tracks, to the full albums. The artist then takes full credit for the production and is able to add it to his or her discography for whatever predetermined price that they pay the actual producer.

There are many big names in the DJ scene who have been accused of using ghost producers. Some of which have been flat out proven to be guilty of it. I don't follow a ton of names outside my own genre that I follow religiously, but off the top of my head Tiesto, Shogun, Hardwell, Avicii, Markus Schulz, Armin van Buuren, and David Guetta would be some bigger artists I know who are either fully ghost produced or at least have hired other producers for a track or two somewhere along the line.

Where do you stand on this? Should artists/DJs use ghost producers if the music still ends up being good? Is it only wrong because no credit is given to the original artist?
Feel free to chime in with anything you've heard about this topic at all.

 

[AnOminous]

Where do you stand on this? Should artists/DJs use ghost producers if the music still ends up being good? Is it only wrong because no credit is given to the original artist?
Feel free to chime in with anything you've heard about this topic at all.

I actually hadn't heard about this, although ghost-anything goes back a long time. For instance, a lot of those "Dutch masters" were painted by students and other associates of the artist who actually signed them, way back when.

It's generally been a scandal when it's occurred. And of course, you have the famous Milli Vanilli thing.

If you wanted to be completely cynical about it, you could say something on the order of shut up and listen to the music if it's good.

But in another sense, if you actually in some sense care about what might be called quality, or some Greek precursor to it like arete if you wanted to get all fancy about it, chicanery like this somehow leaves the work hollow, soulless. Doesn't it somehow feel like a lesser work somehow knowing it's a fraud? But if you never know about this, maybe it doesn't matter.

So if you do it, don't get caught, I suppose.

As the fake quote attributed to everyone from Groucho Marx to George Burns goes: "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

 

[Glaive]

As the fake quote attributed to everyone from Groucho Marx to George Burns goes: "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

Good point, thanks for contributing! I'm really passionate about this topic given that I produce myself. And like you mentioned in that last line, if a ghost-anything is able to cover up the fact that the work is not originally made by them, then hey what's the difference. Good enough for me. But it has to be done well enough so that I can't tell. If the person making a music track for you already is well established themselves as an artist with signature sounds, and use their same recognizable sound with their 'customer', they will get caught.

Additionally I think that the one DOING the ghosting, as in the one staying hidden and taking some money to do the work, shouldn't be criticized at all if caught. They are the smart ones making a buck or two with actual talent. It is the one relying on them and taking the fame/credit that I think deserves to at least be looked down on a bit if caught.

I actually hadn't heard about this, although ghost-anything goes back a long time. For instance, a lot of those "Dutch masters" were painted by students and other associates of the artist who actually signed them, way back when.

YEAH, that is a great example. Instantly thought of Andy Warhol too and his 'factory' of ghost-painters.


Wanted to point out one case that just cropped up today in the music world which has given rise to another factor. Gender.

Today one of the biggest hardstyle genre labels I follow called Dirty Workz singed a new artist today under the name "Mandy" as pictured above, and released the preview of the first track she would be releasing for them. The track itself was horribly obvious not her work, because it sounded identical to one of the label's veteran artists. Everyone was calling it out and pointing out the fact she had never even had demos tracks or previous music released.

However most of the comments went in the direction of "of course they picked a girl", or "just a pretty face to put in front of a crowd".
And while I agree that having a female artist WILL be easier to market in the male-dominated scene, I think people have gotten into the bad habit of assuming female DJs have ghost producers. And it sucks to have this one case prove them right. Because that witchhunt attitude is going to drive away so many females wanting to enter the scene to be a legit DJ/producer knowing they will have to prove themselves even more-so and deal with accusations of not actually producing themselves.

This is why I half-jokingly called it the #GameGate of electronic music. The gender part seems like a huge parallel and it feels weird taking the side that I am as opposed to GamerGate where I hated both sides and got a good laugh.

 

[DankMemes]

When I saw Avicii on that list I actually laughed out loud. What a pleb, of course he paid someone off to make his shitty beats.

 

[Spooky_Scary]

Damn @Glaive

This is essentially how my sis and her friends make their money, ghostwriting and producing for other people. She's happy when she can get someone who's cool enough to at least let her claim credit for writing lyrics or even let her do vocals, but yeah it sucks. She says she's happy but she's always wanted to be the artist and its sad to see no one wanting to promote her as "The Artist" but are always eager to have her and her friends write and produce tracks for them. Then again she's making good bread so I guess that makes up for everything else.

 

[Megahertz]

Ghost producing essentially happens with nearly every single pop-oriented genre in the music industry. It always has, and it always will. I personally don't really care about it, actually, it creates jobs, so yeah, why not?

While it is disappointing to learn that some artists essentially only perform their material instead of create it, it sort of guarantees that we'll always have songs written by people who actually know what they're doing. (...most of the time.)
Something interesting once you think about it - uptown funk was written by 11 people. (I'm not a brit so idk how reliable metro is) It took 11 musicians to create a #1 chart hit that gently fondles the balls of funk music. Very few other tracks this year have done this, which is part of the reason why this song was such a megahit. It was fresh. It was new. It seems odd to me that Mark Ronson needed 10 other people to compose the track with him, but I'm sure it's obvious that Bruno Mars didn't write a single note. There are musicians out there who know exactly how to make a chart-topper that still pleases critics, and they will do so from the shadows. And I think that's pretty cool. Kinda corporate, but cool.

Now, with electronic music in particular, especially the non-pop stuff, I'm not so sure. I don't really hear people talk about ghost producing very often, but maybe that's because I'm hanging out with the wrong crowd. Lol

Although I do know, since I make it myself, that electronic music is a very "DIY" oriented community. Somebody who doesnt Do Everything Themselves can drop a huge disappointment bomb on fans. It's understandable. but the key here is not to think that ghost producing is some new thing, or that it only happens because people are lazy. It has a purpose, and it is a very successful tactic. I absolutely wouldn't mind working as a dirty liar ghost producer.

(I could open a whole other can of word vomit on sexism in the electronic music industry but I won't for now. lol)

 

[Arctic]

I always thought ghostwriting and its derivatives were really just a form of legalised fraud, parasitically taking advantage of both the writer and the consumer. Then again, laws will do more harm than good with this kind of thing, so I suppose the best thing to do is just to record these incidents as well as possible.

 

[Stratomsk]

Where do you stand on this? Should artists/DJs use ghost producers if the music still ends up being good? Is it only wrong because no credit is given to the original artist?
Feel free to chime in with anything you've heard about this topic at all.

Never heard of this before, interesting. When a producer is paid for his work in writing the lyrics or even the track itself for a song in exchange for giving up his rights to be credited it is a peculiar case indeed. The producer is giving his consent to not be credited so that isn't the issue. The problem comes when the songs themselves are credited to the artist without acknowledging the efforts made by the producer. Pretending you made the lyrics or even the song itself is inherently dishonest.

Just as video game outlets have been sometimes shown to not acknowledge possible sources of cognitive bias in their articles creating a conflict of interest, not disclosing if a song was created with outside help will only hurt the trust between artists and those that listen to their music. Transparency would be the best policy here.

I'm really passionate about this topic given that I produce myself.

Kinda off-topic, but what have you produced thus far?

 

[Dudeofteenage]

This is what the Monkees did, right