“Singer-songwriter” is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, which is often self-accompanied generally on acoustic guitar or piano. Such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, sometimes instrumentalist, and often self-manager. According to AllMusic, singer-songwriters’ lyrics are often personal but veiled by elaborate metaphors and vague imagery, and their creative concern is to place emphasis on the song rather than their performance of it. Most records by such artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself.
The term has also been used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, country, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams, and Buddy Holly. It came into popular usage in the 1960s onwards to describe songwriters who followed particular stylistic and thematic conventions, particularly lyrical introspection, confessional songwriting, mild musical arrangements, and an understated performing style. According to writer Larry David Smith, because it merged the roles of composer, writer, and singer, the popularity of the singer-songwriter reintroduced the Medieval troubadour tradition of “songs with public personalities” after the Tin Pan Alley era in American popular music.
by Lee Brickley
Are you sick and tired of war, inequality, racism, and injustice? Me too, and that’s why I write revolutionary protest songs. I wish I knew how to do more, but for now, I’m trying to make people think with my music because that’s what I do best.
by Maekkelae
Glamour? Stardom? Fame? Money? Is this it? That what you’re in for? Then you’re missing out on the real thing. On the hardship to inspire you. On the failure that’ll make you stronger. On the losses that’ll teach you there is more to it than things. On all of what’ll make you put your soul into your songs. Believe me, they will understand. They will know by the way you sing them. And they’ll laugh and cry and weep and smile. Once you’ve seen this, you’re on the right track.
The album A Beard Of Stars from Ataraus Minor was recorded accidentally on purpose when I bought my first bass guitar and wanted to practice to some T. Rex songs. I started recording, and a week later, the album was finished. I played and recorded everything you’ll hear. The words and music are, of course, by Marc Bolan.
by Peter Kasen
Singer/Songwriter Peter Kasen is from the USA and has six records released, international touring and both national/international press. He remains a DIY wonder since 2005.
Write a story about what inspired my first EP? Nothing might be better suited to represent the songs on the EP then the stories of Bucharest at night, haunted by all the life consumed by the city during the day.
It was the summer of 2016 (going into my junior year of high school) when I had switched from Fort Lauderdale High School to South Broward. I was in a cover band at the time with some kids I’d known from earlier on in my childhood, but I never felt too close with them.
I always wanted to be in a band where I was playing with genuine friends and making meaningful music with help from all parties. So I went searching (with the idea of finally writing music, while making friends) in my new school’s band program, I joined the jazz band on guitar and piano, while also joining marching band and regular band on the tuba. Right off the bat, I met two kids that I liked and wanted to start a group with.
by Didi Fever
In the wake of trauma, and especially abuse, there is often a bottoming out of the self: it can feel like everything you were has been hollowed out and replaced by this terrible event. When I started to heal, I began writing songs.
…and you feel like you never grew up,
I love your Peter Pan heart…
by Ethan Hall
Ethan Thomas Hall’s music is characterized by isolation, poverty, and perversion. No other artist quite captures the modern struggle of the straight white male to such a scathing and saucy degree, completely DIY and unsigned proletariat pop.
by HELGA
I’ve always been drawn to the feeling of flying up high in the sky or swimming in the deepest waters. I can’t swim. I can’t fly. But these are all possible in the dream world. I can make music, so this is one way for me to bring it into the physical, waking world and make it palpable. My debut EP “Nebulous” is an outcome of this.