Musicians Deserve Credit on Songs and Albums

For those who grew up buying records, part of the fascination was not just listening, but reading. The inner sleeve of records often had extensive notes, lyrics and credits for everything from the songwriter to the cover art designer. Before the days of streaming and the internet, this was often how music information was discovered. If you liked a producer or a guitar player on a record, you would find out who it was from the liner notes and look for that person’s work elsewhere.

This was particularly important for musicians. Credits on albums and songs are like credits for actors, except musicians don’t have an IMDB.

In fact, since streaming essentially swallowed whole the music world, liner notes have all but disappeared. Spotfiy, Apple Music, Tidal and others will display limited credits (if you dig for them), but only what the record label provides. Unlike the film industry where strong unions protect the rights of actors, screenwriters and the like, musicians don’t have anyone speaking for them and, as a result, their names often remain unheard.

For older music where credits were more common, you can often find that information on Wikipedia or AllMusic.com, but not for everything and certainly not organized and categorized in the way IMDB and other film credit databases are. And yet, the contributions made by musicians every day, even now in the age of AI and digital music, are critically important to every new song that drops.

And before you ask why anyone should care about the drummer playing with Taylor Swift (it’s Matt Billingslea, by the way), it’s because musicians are an essential part of forming the sound that made her famous. And knowing the specific people helps not only provide them with the accolades they deserve, but it furthers our knowledge of music.

For years, musicians would listen to records, see who played their instrument on the album by looking at the liner notes, and go find other artists using the same musician. You might be able to follow a bass player from Miles Davis to Sting to the Rolling Stones (Darryl Jones) or find out that before Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page was a sought after guitarist playing with Donovan, Joe Cocker, the Who and numerous others.

And those are just the credits we can glean from recordings. Never mind the hundreds of busy touring musicians who no one really even thinks about. Ask Eric Hernandez. He’s Bruno Mars’ brother…and also his drummer.

Much of what you hear on a daily basis was created by people who spent their lives hunting for their instrumental predecessors. It doesn’t seem like that much effort to give them the credit they so richly deserve.