The whole 'feat' thing with modern 'artists'

RandallFlagg

I hate this whole 'Featuring' 'Feat.' or 'Ft.' that seems to have become popular over the last 5 years or more with crediting the artist in songs. Every bloody song in the charts (not that I listen to that shite anymore) seems to be by Someone Feat. Someone else or multiple people that I equally have never heard of.

Why? It gets on my nerves. 

I put copies of Now That's What I Call Music! albums in iTunes for my kids and they are full of it, irritating crap!

'RandallFlagg Feat. Cuppa T, Knob Creek and Botla Cobra'

Incidentally I ran through the Top 40 with the wife the other week and on the chart website you can play clips and we checked:

1) Have you heard of this artist before?
2) Have you heard the song?

Scored very very low on both counts.

I'm old, don't care and love loud guitars!

Bellycaster

5 years? There was quite a lot of it in the 80's.

digitalscream

As I understand it, this sort of thing came about in the same way as crossovers between TV programmes, and in comics. It's a neat way to bring two fanbases together, because they'll naturally be excited about it.

Of course, humanity takes everything to its (il)logical conclusion within a few steps these days, so now it's turned into:

1 - Hey, we sell more records when they feature another artist
2 - Great. In that case, every single has to be a collaboration. Loadsamoney!

...with the result that everything sounds like it was designed by committee.

hugbot

Collorations are easier with electronic music than guitar based music. Guitar based music you have to get people together in a room and jam until you get something that works. Electronic music you have a beat that will probably go through a few producers hands and then you have 16 bars in the middle empty so you get get someone to rap over on it.

Also there was a thing for a couple years where they would put well known rappers at the start of a female pop artists track to trick you into thinking its a rap song and not turning over. (Umbrella, Dirrty)

Winny_Pooh

Most diposable pop music has a "producer" writing and putting together loops/beats & song structure etc. So they work with a few singers and shop songs according to who may be best suited. So if said song needs a female vocal they could either bring in someone popular they know or write the song with two people in mind specifically for commercial and publicity reasons. 

Witha traditional bands that write & perform their own material (even electronic bands like Little Dragon) its more work to integrate another personality into the writing and recording process and it happens less often. 

RandallFlagg

Bellycaster said:

5 years? There was quite a lot of it in the 80's.

I know I guess it's really apparent to me as I've been using iTunes as my music repository since 2011 and spend a lot of time keeping tags accurate and up to date. I recently ran Song Sergeant and it highlighted loads of anomalies and many off them were differences between Featuring, Ft. or Feat, so I have spend ages tidying these up but felt more like deleting them from iTunes!

monquixote

I always thought "feat" was a 90s thing.

ChrisMusic

Michael Jackson feat. Eddie Van Halen (& Lukather)  ~ 1982 !

Very clever stuff, engineered to look for a crossover audience in the wake of the launch of MTV

great videos too...

is there really anything 'new' in music ?

Duration 4:58

Stevepage

All about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

ChrisMusic

And talking of 'nothing much new in music', how many gazillion times have you seen derivative dances from various Michael Jackson routines like thriller, and this gem (which came up after beat it on my YT auto play)

Staggering production values, choreography and dancing...

Duration 9:25

ChrisMusic

Stevepage said:

All about the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Well it is called the 'Music Business"

The MJ stuff was also Show Business, which seems to be somewhat sidelined now.

Wouldn't we all love a share of the $$$ though   $-)

RocknRollDave

People probably just get better credit these days for their appearance on a track.

Handsome_Chris

monquixote said:

I always thought "feat" was a 90s thing.

This what I thought when I read the title of this thread. What sprung to mind was:

You've Got The Love by The Source feat. Candi Statton

I'm Free by The Soup Dragons feat. Junior Reid

Grunfeld

...ooops

mike_l

The one that annoys me is when it "artist X Vs artist y" like it's a competition.

ICBM

ChrisMusic said:

Michael Jackson feat. Eddie Van Halen (& Lukather)  ~ 1982 !

is there really anything 'new' in music ?

From a quick check of my iTunes library…

Meat Loaf featuring Ellen Foley - Paradise By The Dashboard Light - 1977
Big Brother & The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin - 1968
The Modern Jazz Quartet featuring Sonny Rollins - 1953