I have seen here a number of negative comments concerning original songs and singer-songwriters. These range from "girls singing their diaries", that they sing introspective songs about the contents of their navels, that they are trying to save the world, they are songs that will not last and other less than complimentary things. These are mostly said humorously and as an aside to the main business of the thread. I thought it might be an idea to have a thread where these views/prejudices could be aired and debated.

I think it a little unfair to the many people who are currently writing and performing original material (not all of them exclusively), that they should be covered by these generalisations. Even the ones who may be performing introspective songs would not be performing an entire set of such songs and are we saying that all introspective songs are bad?

All song are written (and re-written) by someone, even if we do not know who they are. There are some gems contained in the collections but there as also a lot that do not shine so brightly. I would suggest that some critics are harder on the material produced now than they are of material in the archive and all I would ask for is a level playing field.

It is easier to sing a song that your audience may know, for even if they don't know it well, they do have a point of reference. With an original song it is harder as the audience have to work a little to appreciate it.

It is not difficult to write songs, it is difficult however to write good songs and I think that only time will provide the evidence of if it is a good song or not. The writers that we would all call good have not written many songs that would pass that test.

Can we not make it a little easier for those songs to come through by at least encouraging the writers rather than not listening to them because they have the (unfortunate) label of singer-songwriter? If they don't believe in their songs and sing them who else will and what gems might we miss?