Pat - as always, I am enjoying reading your thoughts here - you make astute observations. Since turning the radio back on 2 years ago, I have said - the guy songs all sound like BTO and the girl songs all sound like Pat Benatar. That part is not surprising since the Country music sound has been "borrowing" from old rock for a long time now - the stuff we all grew up on (as you noted). 90's country borrowed more from the singer/songwriter side of things. The last wave seemed to be from 70's rock (who doesn't like that) and the current stuff is 80's pop (which I was never a fan of - but plenty of people were...).

The hits are still being written by a couple of guys (or 3) getting together in a room with acoustic guitars. Writing appointments are usually a couple of hours. Often with a break for lunch (head to a meat and three), talking things over, then back for the 2nd or 3rd hour. Occasionally there is a follow up in a day or so if you didn't finish - not often. More often than not it only takes a couple of hours. The "re-write, re-write" scenario is a myth... The final sound as you have noted is the producers - so it really becomes a different discussion. The writers may be banging on those acoustic thinking "let's write an REO thing this time..." but it's still acoustic guitars - it's the guys in the studio creating that sound that radio is wanting... and that is a part of "The big change".

Many of the big guys (producers) have a small group of writers in their employ - their own publishing house which is then a part of one of the major publishers - so they control what gets written (suggesting) as well as what gets recorded... another reason why you see the same writers names all the time ....

Which was where this thread started in the first place...

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