Hot Take: When Does Selling Songs Cross the Line?

Collaboration Contribution By Rebecca McDevitt and LJ Portnoy

Microphone, keyboard, notebook, headphones and soundboard.

There is no music industry without songwriters. They are the emotional engineers behind the biggest hits, the people who take tangled feelings and turn them into midnight anthems shouted from car windows. Songwriters shape artists. They influence genres. They deserve every ounce of recognition and compensation they get.

But the conversation around ownership, artistry, and identity is shifting.

The Line Between Artist and Architect Is Getting Blurry

More albums are dropping where the story doesn’t actually belong to the person singing it. Sometimes an entire body of work arrives built by outside writers, with the artist stepping in only for the final performance. Listeners feel that shift — not because they’re purists, but because something personal gets lost. That microscopic fingerprint an artist leaves on a lyric, melody, or idea… fans can tell when it’s missing.

It raises a real question: When the writing process no longer includes the artist at all, whose story are we actually hearing?

Fans build emotional connection through words. They hold certain lines for years, sometimes decades. If an album becomes an anthology of someone else’s emotional world, the bond changes.

But Authenticity Isn’t Defined by a Writing Credit

Here’s where the debate gets complicated. Emotional truth doesn’t live in the metadata. A song isn’t dishonest just because the artist didn’t write it. Authenticity comes from delivery. The way an artist breathes life into a lyric, bends a note, reshapes a meaning.

Some performers transform a song they didn’t write into something that feels deeply lived in. That is its own kind of authorship.

The place where things do get delicate is the debut era. The first single is a thesis statement. It introduces who this person is. So when a new artist launches with a song they didn’t help shape at all, listeners may feel unanchored. Not judgmental, just unsure. They’re trying to understand the emotional universe before collaborators start expanding it.

Collaboration Is the Sweet Spot

The goal isn’t purity. The industry is built on partnership. Writing camps exist for a reason. Song shopping keeps thousands of creatives employed. Songwriters deserve financial stability, and artists deserve access to incredible storytelling.

The danger is in extremes. When an artist fully vacates the creative seat and relies on purchased songs across an entire project, the music can start to feel disconnected. Conversely, demanding that every artist write every lyric is unrealistic and creatively limiting.

There’s a middle ground: 

Artists don’t need to be the primary writer; they just need to be present.

 A concept tweak. A personal line scribbled at 2 AM. A melody shift. A moment of authorship that lets listeners feel them inside the record.

The songs that stay with people usually have fingerprints, not perfect paperwork.

Songwriters Are Emotional Architects — And Artists Should Learn the Blueprint

Photography by SHVETS production (obtained via Pexels.com)

Writers like Amy Allen, Jon Bellion, and Julia Michaels build emotional architecture that artists can step into and elevate. They don’t replace the artist’s voice, they sharpen it. Many of pop’s most resonant tracks were born from that fusion, where expert writing meets a performance that adds heat and clarity.

Still, artists benefit from learning the craft themselves. Not because they must become full-time writers, but because writing deepens identity. It expands emotional vocabulary. It gives artists a clearer understanding of the worlds they’re trying to build.

A well-rounded musician. One who sings, performs, and at least occasionally writes, often leaves a stronger, more lasting impression.

So… When Does Selling Songs Cross the Line?

It happens when songwriting becomes a replacement for the artist instead of a tool for them.

It happens when an album sounds polished but hollow. When listeners can’t find the artist inside the story. When the emotional connection shifts from personal to generic.

The solution isn’t gatekeeping or purity tests. It's a partnership.

Let songwriters write. Let artists perform. But let them meet in the middle. It’s here where identity forms, emotions sharpen, and the music starts to feel like it could only come from one person.