Allan, I hear you. There are many singers who are also great songwriters.....and vice versa.

And I always want to encourage people to continue to develop their 'craft'......(if not their art).

But my beef is that there are so many songs......and so many of them are unoriginal and 'sound the same' as others because, as Leeneia says "few of the new players have the talent, insight and creativity to write something truly good. So they produce the same uninspired stuff over and over"

Yet, there truly are some great songs out there.....many of them written by people who aren't 'performers' or aren't dynamic or connected enough to get their music out there.   And because everybody else is encouraged by the money people to write their own 2nd rate songs rather than 'research' and find great, lesser known, material,   so many great songs end up landing up in the musical landfills of the world instead of being 'recycled'.

Again to quote Leeneia: "If anybody makes a new recording of a piece someone else wrote, that's called 'covering' it. Covers are to be spoken of with an ironic tone and a brief lowering of the eyelids, to convey quiet disdain".

Allan, wouldn't you love it if you as a songwriter had some hope in hell of some other excellent performer or 'interpreter' discovering one of your songs, finding it's 'essence' and enhancing it....so that it creates a new wave of inspiration (which might even lead some to ask 'wow! who wrote that'.....and suddenly a new generation of listeners discover the previously unknown Allan Conn.

Well, if all you get is self-penned offerings, it just ain't gonna happen!