Barry Manilow’s issue with modern songwriting

Barry Manilow thinks songwriting has changed, and that young artists don’t write the same way he was trained to.

Manilow – known for hits such as Copacabana and Mandy – is currently amid his The Last Concerts tour, and is planning to release a new album by the end of the summer which he says will probably be his last. Manilow also runs the Manilow Music Project, which has provided schools with instruments and equipment for over 30 years.

In an interview with Billboard, he discusses the forthcoming album: “I’ve been working on it for a long time…for so long that the style of music has changed [laughs]. I had to go back and redo [the songs] so they sounded a little more contemporary.

“I had to take all the strings out, all the background vocals out ‘cause they don’t do that anymore. They don’t use strings and background vocals and all that. Even I heard that it sounded dated, so we had to go back and redo it,” he says.

“The songwriting has changed. Young people don’t write the way I was trained to write. There’s no verse which goes into the chorus which goes back to the verse which goes to [the] ending, and you change keys. They don’t do that.

“They start the song and then they just…it feels like a run-on sentence to me. I can’t find the hook. I can’t find the chorus. It just keeps on going, and then it ends,” Manilow continues. However, he assures his own album will stick to the classic formula. “That’s not what this album is, and that’s not the way I know how to write, and I think my contemporary songwriters and people I work with would say the same.”

Barry Manilow will continue playing shows for his Last Concerts tour in July. He is also playing a number of shows in Las Vegas as part of his residency at the International Theater. You can find out more via his official website.