Tubeileh

Starting to realize that features used to be very rare. And all of a sudden every major artist has features just bombarding their albums / singles. I understand that it is there to make money by the industry, but when did it start and why so late? The pressure of the music industry was already heavy back in the days, but why did no one ever get the idea of like: hey lets have the stones hop on this next beatles album (for example)? And even if it was not for the money, just artistic collaborations?

Mucha na Dziko

I'd say it became ubiquitous with the emergence of rap music.

Also it might have something to do with solo artists becoming more popular than bands, and singles more important than albums. The 60s and 70s are the height of the popularity of the band-writing-albums formula, which implies that a certain group of people write, play and record together – no features required. But since in the 80s and 90s solo acts and rap music became more and more popular, features started to be more frequent for publicity reasons.

It did happen before though. Like Clapton playing the solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, or Mick Jagger and Keith Richards singing on All You Need Is Love, Paul and John singing on We Love You (if I remember correctly), George Harrison being featured on The Badge, by Cream, Jimmy Page playing on Scarlett, by Rolling Stones.

Notice those are only pretty much Beatles and Stones ones I mentioned. There sure was more of such things, it just wasn't publicised as much as nowadays.
Often people would just form short-lived bands/projects for collaborations, rather that "feature" someone on their songs. The band ethos was stronger back then.

I think that in the 60s/70s the collaborations were much more friend-based ("hey man, wouldn't you like to come to the studio tomorrow and play something on this track?"), rather than industry required or something.

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SlyStone63

Around the 80s, like Mucha na Dziko said, but it was becoming so tiresome throughout the 90s and later, every artist needed a feature all the time with or without remixing their tracks, it was awful

Tubeileh

yeah I guess the music now is way more on branding, and adding a popular name at the end of a track name advertises that song way more. Kinda wack though that artists focus on making singles. Ive noticed too that even those singles are reduced to becoming a hit on platforms like tik tok. I guess I just miss the album era, way more thought and depth was put into songs and albums as a whole.

jadis

It started great though, credit where due


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk

Mucha na Dziko

You lived through it?

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DinoDavid

What does rap music has to do with music features being popular?

Mucha na Dziko

I think pretty much everything. Ever since rap’s creation rapper’s would invite other rappers to collaborate (like „who’s got the better rhymes” or whatever).

You have one beat over which 2,3,4 rappers would show off their skill. It then went on to appear on records, and so you’d have „Dr Dre feat Snoop Dogg”, „Dr Dre feat Eminem”, „Snoop Dogg feat The Dogg Pound”, „Ice Cube feat Whoever is at the top right now”, „Guru feat Mc Solar”, „2Pac feat Big Syke”, „WuTangClan feat Some No Names”, „Run DMC feat Aerosmith” and so on and so forth.

Then as rap slowly started to become the predominant form of popular music, all the Pop Stars and their managers started copying different elements (or „features” if you will) of rap. Hell, even the jazz guys started adding beats to their songs, creating Acid Jazz in the process.

In the 60s and 70s features where either non-credited or people would form short-lived one album projects with each other.
Since rap emerged, everybody’s started to add the „feat.” thing.

Of course I might be wrong.
But I don’t think so.

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bob_32_116

I think you're correct.

There might be a few cases where "feat." is jutified. I am thinking of that well-known hit by "Gotye featuring Kimbra." Most of the parent album was just Gotye, but that song had Kimbra singing on it so it was appropriate to credit her in some way. In general, though, I think it happens because "Let's put a record of 'X feat. Y' and then fans of both X and Y will buy it." Shift double the number of units.

Mucha na Dziko

I mean, yeah, sure, „feat.” is always justified, if there’s multiple performers on a track, I guess.

Though I think it isn’t needed really.
If someone makes a guest appearance on your track, you can just put that person’s name in the credits on the album.
If someone co-writes with you a track (as was the case with that Gotye song) you can release it as a one-off single („Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye & Kimbra”), and not put it on your album to boost sales.
Just like you’d do in the good old days.

[That’s another thing entirely, but I’m also a strong believer in not putting singles on albums. Just make up your mind, goddamit!]

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