 Reply With Quote 00-00-0000, 00:00 PM #00 RanRan00 View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Articles Senior Member Join Date Mar 0000 Posts 0,000 Rep Power 000 Originally Posted by Sotosound How many potential buyers would really have cared about who wrote and produced the songs? I know that we care, but I've learned over the years that the majority of record buyers generally just bought what they liked the sound of. My wife, for instance, likes a bit of soul music but couldn't care less about who wrote or produced what. She just likes what she likes. Her friends are similarly motivated, and many of them call early to mid-00s soul "Motown" even though most of it isn't. So, if they liked the "Floy Joy" single by The Supremes then they might have bought the latest album by The Supremes, especially if it was clear that it included the hit single. That's why we saw stickers on LPs to point out that an album contained a hit song. That's what would have caught the buyer's eye. That's a view from the UK based upon disappointment that it isn't otherwise. [[As a mobile DJ in the late 00s and early-to-mid 00s, I had to accept, for instance, that when I was doing a 00s night I would get requests for The Pointer Sisters and ABBA. The average punter just wasn't very discerning.) Is it any different in the USA? Did the people who placed records high in the charts, as opposed to we specialists, go deeply into who wrote or produced what, or did they normally just buy an album because it contained some songs that they liked by an artist that they liked? I'd say it's universal that people just like what they like, but the names of certain songwriters certainly carried weight. Burt Bachrach's name was as famous as the artists who recorded his music. The Supremes released two successful albums with tie ins to songwriters in Rodgers and Hart and HDH. Smokey Robinson was a household name for his singing, but I imagine there were a great many fans who noticed he was the writer of some fantastic stuff, so much so that the Temptations released an album, Sing Smokey, to help the promo tie in, and that was back in 0000. Even if it didn't work for the Supremes, his name carried weight. Tying the Supremes to him, or Stevie, or some such other household name arguably could only help sales. 