I find it odd that hit makers are not public figures.
By the term “hit makers” I mean the people that write our popular songs.
For while popular singers are celebrities, blockbuster song writers mostly remain anonymous.
Maybe it’s a cultural thing? We want to think that musical artist X produced song Y.
I mean, who wants to think that 15 people made a song and your beloved favorite musician is simply singing it?
Understand: Maybe art is not made how we think it’s made.
Who are the hit makers? They are enormously influential culture shapers—the Spielbergs and Lucases of our national headphones—and yet they are mostly anonymous. Directors of films are public figures, but the people behind pop songs remain in the shadows, taking aliases, by necessity if not by choice, in order to preserve the illusion that the singer is the author of the song.
-John Seabrook, The Song Machine