Diane Warren hates how “data-driven” the music industry is these days.
The songwriter to the stars – who has penned hits for the likes of Britney Spears, Celine Dion, and Lady Gaga – doesn’t understand why success is measured by streaming numbers and how many views someone has on a social media post.
She bemoaned: “Well, I’ll tell you one thing: Everything’s so data-driven. That’s frustrating. Because, to me, the data that matters is: Does it make your heart stop? Does it make the hairs on your arms stand up? Does it make you say, ‘What the f*** was that?’ Does it make you sit there and say, ‘What?’ That’s the data that matters to me. But what are you going to do? That’s the world that we live in.”
The 64-year-old record producer – who has just dropped her debut album, ‘The Cave Sessions Volume 1’, after 35 years in the music industry – insisted music is about making the listener “feel something” and shouldn’t have anything to do with numbers.
Diane added to GRAMMYS.com: “If The Beatles or Prince came out and their TikTok numbers weren’t high enough – you know what I mean? It’s a strange world with all that. I don’t understand that, to be honest. My brain isn’t a data brain. I just try to write songs that make you feel something.”
The Grammy-winner is equally as miffed by pop stars using multiple co-writers for a single song.
The ‘Because You Loved Me’ hitmaker can’t believe that the majority of today’s pop songs have so many names on the credits because they don’t sound “any better” for it.
She said recently: “You have 10 writers on a song now.
“I look at the credits and think: ‘What the f*** did you guys all do? Why isn’t this song 10 times better?’
“Prince, by himself, wrote songs 10 times better than these songs where everyone in the room gets a writer’s credit.”