Here is one that gets me. I really like Aldeans music a lot. I really like Brantly Gilbert's Just as much if not more now that I have really listened to some of it. I found out that Brantly and Colt Ford wrote "Dirt Road Anthem" (one of my favorite songs of late). That doesn't bother me in the least bit but, what did was watching an interview where Aldean talked about the song and recording it and didn't once give any sort of credit where it was truly due. Now he didn't say he wrote it but, not a single mention of the ones who did. Some of my favorites are: Garth Brooks, George Straight, Brad Paisley, Brantly Gilbert, Toby Kieth and John Rich. All of which I am pretty sure write their own music or at least most of it.
Garth didn't write many of his own songs either. He was given co-writing credit on a few of them, but they were predominantly written by songwriters. Doesn't change the fact that I love me some Garth. Danced to Shameless with my wife at our wedding. Of course that's a Billy Joel song. :D
Welcome to my world JZ. Although I will say I really cannot stand 99% of the stuff that comes out of Nashville these days, I get exactly what you are getting at. I basically only listen to Alternative country, Americana, Indie rock types these days, most of which will never play for more than 2000 fans. It sickens me to death when I hear of these local 80's cover bands playing Journey songs as close as they can to sound exactly like the original band, and make more than bands that write their own music. Sometimes, artists are great narrators. George Strait. Still country. Still gold. My biggest problem with the whole genre/industry yada yada, is how they deem something "Country" when it's really Pop music with an extra acoustic guitar, or without synthesizers. You can paint your penny gold, it still ain't worth a dime
