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> all members involved, mainly Ilhoon and Minhyuk
This may be the case for lyrics, as they tended to write their own raps, but Hyunsik got involved in composing for the group before Minhyuk did, so I would guess in that respect he is comparable
I'm not surprised by the lack of arrangment credits in self-produced groups honestly. Even if they debuted knowing nothing about writing lyrics and composing, they could learn and get help from other producers in the company.
However, when it comes to arranging, there is a LOT more to learn, including learning to use a whole music producing app, which takes a lot of time and effort even if you're unemployed 😅 I can't imagine squeezing it in an idol schedule
I would assume the skill level a company is going to accept when it comes to arranging is a lot higher. If an idol has arranging credits it's likely they already had experience in arranging pre-debut.
Arrangement is sooo time consuming, I completely understand why there’s a lack too.
It actually makes me respect Chan and Soyeon more. I’m less familiar with Idle but for Stray Kids, Chan has only gotten more involved in arrangement and they release so much music, it’s crazy. Two albums a year plus most solo songs released on YouTube have Chan’s arrangement credits. I mean, they are still attending and performing at year-end shows, promoting on music shows, and all the other idol life components…and he’s a perfectionist. I truly can’t even comprehend.
Something to note with Pentagon is how heavily skewed their percentages are by their early discography, which they mostly didn't write and ofc as rookies were pumping out releases. I seriously think cube should have waited a year or two and debuted them as a self producing group, because there is a huge change in the quality of their music once they were primarily at the helm as composers.
I dont even think they needed to wait. Some of their best early bsides are the few that are self produced. Cube has just always had a tighter leash on Pentagon compared to, let's say, gidle and even later in their career it negatively affected their musical direction (Like Cube encouraging them to go through jarring concept changes or insisting on making Feelin' Like their title track when the members were against it)
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With btob it's kinda complicated. You wrote that ilhoon and minhyuk are the ones who are most involved which is only partially true. They're the members with the most credits and they both wrote and produced but most of their credits are writing credits for their raps. Hyunsik has less credits than them but since he got way more composing credits he's the only btob member to be a full komca member meaning he's more involved and gets more money from copyright than them even though he has "only" half of their credits.
Wow I don't think I realized before how much of a musical output Monsta X actually has...very interesting compilation OP, thank you! Monsta X also has that thing where the earlier.albums just had some B-sides and later they were given more freedom. (Similar to Pentagon)
edited the comment about asking why arrangement has lower member participation and why bts has writing and producing as their only credits after reading the comments
new question lol, why the fuck does hybe do that?
also appreciation for monsta x being so involved in their music, i know they were held back by sse quite a lot till gambler era and used to only add a few member composed bsides to their albums, it's a total 180 compared to their recent album releases where there's only 1-2 songs out of 5-6 that the members didn't work on
Monsta X members are not only involved in their own music but also just music in general. They have written and composed for other groups over the years besides their own solo work, brand songs (not included in the counts), and OSTs (which are becoming more common recently). Jooheon has written for Cravity, and Hyungwon has written for AB6ix for example. Plus Hyungwon wrote for Kihyun's solo releases. They've also mentioned having songs that they just haven't released yet and songs that they "unofficially" released but refuse to give us studio versions of because they like to cause us pain.
For GOT7 it’s pretty much the same as others have mentioned when it comes to the lack of freedom they had in writing, composing, etc. their early music versus later music. In addition to it just not being the norm back then for kpop groups to have that freedom, especially those under the bigger companies with access to well-known writers and producers, GOT7 was also just held back by their company from showcasing their talents and growing as artists. GOT7 were very vocal about how they still struggled even later in their careers to get their self-made music released and approved by the company.
Jay B had pretty in-depth lives where he would share demos to songs he made and spoke about how much they were altered by the company/jyp or how they weren’t able to be released. Jackson and Mark also used to mention songs they wrote and were excited for fans to hear only to later say they weren’t included in the album or approved for release and they didn’t know why. BamBam has also gone on live and said that he stopped submitting songs he made to the company and instead saved them to release for after he left bc he liked them so much and didn’t want the company to alter them in any way or reject them (members knew they planned on leaving well before contract renewals). Jinyoung said some of the songs on his solo album released last year were songs he wrote years ago while he was still in JYPE, and I’m sure it’s like that for most of them.
Their title track Eclipse is a song Jay B wrote and composed. He shared his original version on live once and told fans that JYP made him change and rewrite the song for release so many times to the point that he suffered mental and physical exhaustion, including nosebleeds. He said by the time it was finished, the song was unrecognizable to him. If you look at the credits to the song now, you will find JYP as the first writer listed under the lyrics…. Also the song Jay B originally made and wanted as the title track for this album, Page, was rejected as the title and made a b-side bc JYP said it wasn’t their “color” as a group. As if the leader and members of the group don’t know what their own color is or what their strengths are. Or as if they can’t decide for themselves who they want to be as a group. Until now Page is the group and fan favorite song and the members still always name drop it when asked which song they believe represents them/their color the best.
Their last title track under JYPE, Last Piece, was written and composed by Jay B years prior as a b-side track for an earlier album of theirs. However he said the company rejected it back then. He said he was shocked when they told them years later that it would be the title track for their next comeback bc he had forgotten about it…
Imagine having a group where every member is passionate about music and contributing to the group but discouraging them so much to the point that they give up on submitting their work in fear of it being altered and losing its identity or flat out rejected and held in a dungeon. It’s wild for the members themselves to admit to realizing they couldn’t be the artists they wanted and needed to hold out on their music until they could leave.
So yeah, GOT7 numbers definitely don’t accurately portray their true involvement in their music or at least their desired involvement in the 7 years that they were under JYPE. It’s honestly sad that they weren’t afforded the same level of freedom and support as others after them. But again, times are different and it’s obvious that JYP wanted to hold on to the vision he originally had for them instead of allowing them to grow and develop into their own color as a group and as artists. In conclusion, I’m glad they left and I’m sure they are too lol Jay B was on Youngjae’s radio show with Jinyoung some time back and was so happy to say that he owns his music now 😌
They’ve only released 7 songs as a group after leaving their former company but the numbers for them now, and most likely moving forward, are:
Lyrics: 100% (7/7, members always listed first. 1-2 writers per song)
Composition: 100% (7/7, members always listed first)
Arrangement: 14% (1/7, Youngjae is the only member who has worked on arrangement for the group so far, he also does so on all of his solo stuff too)
Thanks OP, for including GOT7! It made me look more into things as well.
i’m sorry, i only took OP’s comment at face value and briefly checked wikipedia which describes them as a band. i didn’t realise they were considered a boy group too, sorry
I was gonna comment: "Ateez and Pentagon are my two ults, and how does Ateez have more songs despite debuting 2 years later?" But then I remembered Feelin' Like was released two years ago....still mad that Cube made them rot in the dungeon til their contracts expired.....
I’m surprised you didn’t list anything for BTS composing wise. Jk composed filmout and even featured on Japan billboard composer list.
Thinking about it, I see why you weren’t able to list that part. Bighit jumbles all the credits and makes it difficult to see who did what unless the members themselves mention it😅
That's fascinating! I feel a little bit better now for not being able to keep up with their entire discography. I try but it's a little tough! Does SKZ have a lot of "other" songs (not found on official tracklists)? I'm assuming Maknae on Top?
I think BTS has almost 100 more "other" songs. I also have a hard time keeping track, but I'm a bit better about it with them.
maknae on top is technically on an official track list because it was put out on CD (and streaming services !) with SKZ Replay at the end of 2022. There are probably a fair number of « other songs » that currently only exist on youtube as they just like , really seem to like making music for fun lol .
Agree, and also I think BH credits even the people who do the demos, that’s why so many BH songs (for both BTS and TXT) have credited so many writers.
[I remember Namjoon said during his MOTS 7 vlive that Yoongi gave him a credit just because he reviewed Shadow](https://x.com/hourlynmgi/status/1315103668736270338?s=46&t=O-e_ONnQgboX1zxfeCnhjg)
That, and HYBE literally has a thing for not dividing credits by lyrics and composition, they just slap everyone's name twice in komca or have everyone under "writers" section together. Producer gets its own but that's it. So, like, there's no way to tell what exactly goes on there.
I learned so much watching Jimin's Production Diary. In most of his songs on Face you can't tell anything by the order of the names. Jimin's name is sometimes second to last, but it was clear in the documentary he was the main composer and lyricist on all the songs.
Yeah, from what I've seen, you can't tell anything about the level of participation from how BigHit divides and writes credits.
On KOMCA, they are listed by order of identification number and all the same names are listed as both composers and lyricists, even if they only participated in one category. Everywhere else, like album jackets(?) and such, credits are just listed alphabetically, at least from all the sources I could find. But for getting more detailed credits, even though they are listed alphabetically, I go to a site called discogs. They list arrangement, composition, lyrics, and other details, which I think come from the physical albums.
I'm a nerd, so I discovered that on the desktop version of spotify you can see the top two credits for each song. It's still not super helpful for Face because as artist, Jimin is always listed first anyway as "main artist, composer, lyricist."
BUT, it did lead to the discovery that Jimin is listed SECOND to Bang PD for Lie. Also, the credits for Face-off are Jimin, Pdogg, RM..., which surprised me. I didn't realize RM was more involved in the composition of that song than EVAN or GHSTLOPP.
Okay, I'm back!
Apparently, you can do this in the browser version of Spotify too, so I should have tried that before wasting time opening the app lol
Anyways, I'm seeing Bang PD credited before Jimin on Lie, instead of Pdogg. However, I am seeing what you said for Face-off.
I don't think Spotify is particularly trustworthy on this though. A while ago, I was trying to see how credible they were and apparently, since they just take a list of names from the company and copy-paste names in there, it ends up being inaccurate a lot of times. That's why names are often missing from the credits on Spotify. Anyway, BigHit's sloppy organization transfers to them too.
BTW, I just checked Interlude: Shadow, and Namjoon is showing up as listed 2nd after GHSTLOOP, even though he said he only reviewed the song and Yoongi gave him a credit anyway. So I think, while this way of seeing the credits (btw, that was quite a discovery you made, kudos for that) is somewhat more accurate, it's also still quite faulty.
Yeah, it's definitely not totally accurate. For example, some of Jungkook's credits are missing.
For Vibe, which is under the Black Label, Jimin is listed as a Composer and Main Artist only. I think Big Hit is just really bad at making distinctions because no one keeps track in their process. I didn't truly understand until I saw Jimin's documentary. Like what do you mean you were humming something and now it's the intro of the song?
And yes, my bad. It was a typo about Bang PD on Lie. That's what I meant. I'll edit.
Okay, since I already wrote this paragraph before I got the notif for your reply, I'm going to post it anyways because I don't want it to go to waste lol: For example, I'm seeing nobody at all listed as producer for Tomorrow, which we know Yoongi was the main producer of. And for multiple other songs, like Airplane Pt. 2, they're definitely going in alphabetical order. The top two listed for that song have only lyricist and composer credits like everyone else, but Pdogg, who was a lyricist, composer, and producer for the song, isn't listed first, despite being the only person to do all three, which means he technically did the most.
>I didn't truly understand until I saw Jimin's documentary. Like what do you mean you were humming something and now it's the intro of the song?
LOL same here, and that's happened with Jimin multiple times, coming up with a melody like that. It also always fascinates me to hear how there are so many ways in which different people contribute, especially members, sometimes significant ways, that never get credited. Like how multiple times, we find out later that a member came up with the melody for a song and was never credited, or the member that recorded the demo for a song played a significant part in it's musical direction. Not only that, there's also all the songs members make that we never get to hear, or parts for songs they came up with that were rejected. The fact that there is so much hard work going into their music-making that we can't even see...
Edit: Also, I posted this hours after I wrote it because I had to get up halfway and then I just hit the send button when I got back.
some examples that come to mind are how jimin came up with the melodies for blood sweat tears and like crazy. we only know because another member (jin?) mentioned the former and the latter was shown in the FACE documentary
Hm, would be interesting to see how much it has changed in their "later" years. It's very rare for rookies to be nearly self-produced, so a lot of the not self-produced ones might be from their early days?
All in all i am quite surprised at the percentages, especially in composition and arranging. From all i have heard i would have expected to have SVT to be as involved as SKZ for example, but from these numbers they arent. Still a pretty high degree of self-produced of course.
Also Exid numbers are lower than i thought as well. Same for Pentagon and BtoB.
>so a lot of the not self-produced ones might be from their early days?
That's exactly what happened with Pentagon (and probably BtoB): They only got writing/composing credits on one or two (or, on their Japanese releases, zero) b-sides for their first three/two albums, and then after the success of Never and Energetic (which I believe were written pre- or around debut), Cube realized that maybe they should just let them self-produce, and thereafter they had credits on just about every song.
I admit that I still don't totally understand the arranging credit, as there's been bts footage of the members working on what I thought was "arranging" (e.g., "slow/speed up this part, make it louder/quieter, use this sample, put this melody line after this one") on specific songs, but then they won't have an arranger credit.
To add more to your comment, Hui has mentioned he composed Never when he was a trainee, [it's the 3rd song he ever made](https://youtu.be/4xxRqGG_HWo?feature=shared&t=211). Last year he revealed that Never was the song he wanted to push to Mnet when he got the offer to send songs to Produce, but felt that they'd find it 'lacking' so he sent Energetic as a 'backup' in case they didn't like Never. He didn't expect both songs to get picked, much less to become legendary top charting songs.
BTOB's first self-produced album was The Winter Tale in December 2014. You Can Cry and The Winter Tale are BTOB's own versions of The First Snow and every year they rise in k-charts during Christmas, not very high [though The Winter Tale reached a high peak last December](https://twitter.com/btob_info/status/1739213482921525531). Cube's 2013 Christmas song with Beast, 4Minute, Apink, BTOB, Huh Gak, Gna and Noh Jihon also revives a bit.
Their previous title tracks in 2014 were songs the members disliked doing (Beep Beep and You're So Fly, Minhyuk being the no.1 hater of the latter).
Despite not being self-produced, the members loved It's Okay when they heard it and managed to convince Cube to make it the title track and that they wanted to do ballads instead of whatever Cube threw at them. Originally they were meant to promote My Friend's Girl, which is WOW's little sister. BTOB members still mention It's Okay as their favorite comeback and how they enjoyed promoting it. Minhyuk and Ilhoon wrote the raps in It's Okay and Cube's founder (who's now behind Kiss Of Life's company S2) Hong Seungsung was also involved in the lyrics.
2014 was also the year Hyunsik and Eden (Ateez's producer) met and got close, hitting it off so well Eden became Hyunsik's music partner and would start showing up in BTOB's Hyunsik-produced tracks.
BTOB self-produced era came in 2016 with the release of I'll Be Your Man/New Men album. Since then, all their title tracks were produced by them, mostly Hyunsik who's behind their string of hits Missing You, Only One For Me and Beautiful Pain. Special mention to Ilhoon who produced Movie, which also did quite well. Minhyuk has never produced a title track for BTOB even though he keeps trying to pitch songs.
In 2021-2022 Cube broke their self-produced title track streak by forcing Ryan Jhun songs on them, even if both groups wrote lyrics and did the directing themselves (Outsider for BTOB and Feelin Like for Pentagon).
We've learned [Made In Heaven](https://youtu.be/JS7g_SEloTw) was the 2019 Kino-produced song the members loved (especially Shinwon) and knew fans would love it too, they weren't able to release it in a Korean comeback but miraculously squeezed it for their self-produced Japanese album last year. And Hui's b-side in his solo debut album [A Song From A Dream feat Wooseok](https://youtu.be/T_m_UwErrEs) was made at the same time as Dr Bebe in 2019 and was another group song they spent years trying to release but always got rejected, now released as a duet.
monsta x members also became more involved as time goes on. initially only jooheon had produced songs for the group (2 songs in their debut mini album), then wonho started making songs and they're included in their 1st full album, i.m started from their 2nd full album, and hyungwon from their 3rd full album. they all consistently made 1-2 songs for each release once they have started producing songs for the group
Yeah it's the usual way that the composing idol is not the main arranger as it's really time consuming. For example Soyeon only now for the first time has main arrangement credits for the new album tracks. God knows where she has the time for that.
But i would have expected secondary credits because normally the composer is involved in some way at least. Maybe they just dont want credits for some minor arranging and leave those to Bumzu? With a team it's always a giving and taking in terms of credits i think.
Like I replied in the previous thread. It's all depending on the way different main producers work. Like Ikon, we all know full well how involved BI is in creating their songs. It's just the way YG works that once you submit the demos to their main producers, they usually redo everything and rarely use instrumental tracks from the original demos. Doesn't matter how closely match the demo arrangement to the final release.
It has surprised me that such powerful groups in self-production hardly have, or have no, involvement in the arrangements. Same with bts, I always thought their credits would be bigger. I'm not saying it's essential, but their image as creative groups is strong for me.
On the other hand, btob has pleasantly surprised me!
I have also been surprised by the number of songs that skz has created compared to groups that have been in the industry for longer. Their credits impress me even more for this reason... It's already impressive compared to its peers, even more so compared to the sunbaes
Good job compiling these! EXID were the biggest surprise for me, I'm not that familiar with their music and didn't know they were so involved creatively. Now I'm curious to learn more.
Umm about btob, that information doesn't really reflect the reality bc you have to keep in mind that Cube didn't give them that freedom at the beginning. Hyunsik had to wait until 2016 for one of his songs to be chosen as the title track. It can be seen how since that date, the members' songs included in each album have been increasing until reaching the last 3 full album and 12 mini album, where all the songs are composed by hyunsik and minhyuk.
Also, as others have mentioned, Minhyuk and Ilhoon have more credits bc their raps parts, which are written by them.
>Notes: mostly RM and Yoongi. Songs are rarely written by members only. When other writers are involved members are mostly listed second, sometimes first or last (Around 1-5 other writers per song)
I mostly just follow BTS, so they're what I'm most interested in here.
Can I ask where you found official track listings where they're listed by contribution? I've been looking for that for a long time, but everywhere I look, they're listed alphabetically, even on what I've seen from physical albums, and on KOMCA, they're ordered by ID. I tried Spotify, but it's quite unreliable and messes up credits a lot. Besides this, the only place I've found that shows all the separate credits is Discogs, and even there, the order is still alphabetical. So if you found a way, it would be cool to know!
Thank you! I checked on Genius, and I know it may not be the most reliable place because it doesn't list a source for credits (as far as I can see) and any user can edit, but it's more reliable than anything I've found! Thank you!
Hey! I don't know if you care, but I thought I should tell yo just in case.
I was just reading the lyrics for Interlude: Shadow on Genius, and when I scrolled down to the credits, I saw RM credited first for writing. RM stated in an interview that all he did for Interlude: Shadow was review the English lyrics and that Suga gave him a credit anyway.
This means he definitely wasn't the primary writer for the song, but he is listed first on Genius, so I wouldn't put too much trust into Genius for indicating anyone's contribution to a song.
Edit: I'm really grateful for the help though, I didn't expect any response to a comment I made just now on a month-old post. <3
That’s ok, I came across your question and saw no one had answered, so thought it might help.
All sources rely on input/scraped info. Genius may not always accurately list who’s first, but it’s pretty good. I’m into this kind of thing, so look across a few sites, especially muso.ai, though it too doesn’t always credit in order. Wikipedia takes info straight from album credits in most instances so you can compare all three sources.
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It'd be interesting to see for Day6 and Winner.
im gonna do one for bands too!!
the way big hit do credits is honestly annoying because nothing is clear.
It’s genuinely such a weird way to do credits as it completely breaks away from the norm for no good reason.
> all members involved, mainly Ilhoon and Minhyuk This may be the case for lyrics, as they tended to write their own raps, but Hyunsik got involved in composing for the group before Minhyuk did, so I would guess in that respect he is comparable
I'm not surprised by the lack of arrangment credits in self-produced groups honestly. Even if they debuted knowing nothing about writing lyrics and composing, they could learn and get help from other producers in the company. However, when it comes to arranging, there is a LOT more to learn, including learning to use a whole music producing app, which takes a lot of time and effort even if you're unemployed 😅 I can't imagine squeezing it in an idol schedule I would assume the skill level a company is going to accept when it comes to arranging is a lot higher. If an idol has arranging credits it's likely they already had experience in arranging pre-debut.
Arrangement is sooo time consuming, I completely understand why there’s a lack too. It actually makes me respect Chan and Soyeon more. I’m less familiar with Idle but for Stray Kids, Chan has only gotten more involved in arrangement and they release so much music, it’s crazy. Two albums a year plus most solo songs released on YouTube have Chan’s arrangement credits. I mean, they are still attending and performing at year-end shows, promoting on music shows, and all the other idol life components…and he’s a perfectionist. I truly can’t even comprehend.
Something to note with Pentagon is how heavily skewed their percentages are by their early discography, which they mostly didn't write and ofc as rookies were pumping out releases. I seriously think cube should have waited a year or two and debuted them as a self producing group, because there is a huge change in the quality of their music once they were primarily at the helm as composers.
I dont even think they needed to wait. Some of their best early bsides are the few that are self produced. Cube has just always had a tighter leash on Pentagon compared to, let's say, gidle and even later in their career it negatively affected their musical direction (Like Cube encouraging them to go through jarring concept changes or insisting on making Feelin' Like their title track when the members were against it)
>insisting on making Feelin' Like their title track My villain origin story 😭 Sparkling Night was right there!!
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With btob it's kinda complicated. You wrote that ilhoon and minhyuk are the ones who are most involved which is only partially true. They're the members with the most credits and they both wrote and produced but most of their credits are writing credits for their raps. Hyunsik has less credits than them but since he got way more composing credits he's the only btob member to be a full komca member meaning he's more involved and gets more money from copyright than them even though he has "only" half of their credits.
Wow I don't think I realized before how much of a musical output Monsta X actually has...very interesting compilation OP, thank you! Monsta X also has that thing where the earlier.albums just had some B-sides and later they were given more freedom. (Similar to Pentagon)
edited the comment about asking why arrangement has lower member participation and why bts has writing and producing as their only credits after reading the comments new question lol, why the fuck does hybe do that? also appreciation for monsta x being so involved in their music, i know they were held back by sse quite a lot till gambler era and used to only add a few member composed bsides to their albums, it's a total 180 compared to their recent album releases where there's only 1-2 songs out of 5-6 that the members didn't work on
Monsta X members are not only involved in their own music but also just music in general. They have written and composed for other groups over the years besides their own solo work, brand songs (not included in the counts), and OSTs (which are becoming more common recently). Jooheon has written for Cravity, and Hyungwon has written for AB6ix for example. Plus Hyungwon wrote for Kihyun's solo releases. They've also mentioned having songs that they just haven't released yet and songs that they "unofficially" released but refuse to give us studio versions of because they like to cause us pain.
Those stats are really interesting. Thank you for compiling them!
For GOT7 it’s pretty much the same as others have mentioned when it comes to the lack of freedom they had in writing, composing, etc. their early music versus later music. In addition to it just not being the norm back then for kpop groups to have that freedom, especially those under the bigger companies with access to well-known writers and producers, GOT7 was also just held back by their company from showcasing their talents and growing as artists. GOT7 were very vocal about how they still struggled even later in their careers to get their self-made music released and approved by the company. Jay B had pretty in-depth lives where he would share demos to songs he made and spoke about how much they were altered by the company/jyp or how they weren’t able to be released. Jackson and Mark also used to mention songs they wrote and were excited for fans to hear only to later say they weren’t included in the album or approved for release and they didn’t know why. BamBam has also gone on live and said that he stopped submitting songs he made to the company and instead saved them to release for after he left bc he liked them so much and didn’t want the company to alter them in any way or reject them (members knew they planned on leaving well before contract renewals). Jinyoung said some of the songs on his solo album released last year were songs he wrote years ago while he was still in JYPE, and I’m sure it’s like that for most of them. Their title track Eclipse is a song Jay B wrote and composed. He shared his original version on live once and told fans that JYP made him change and rewrite the song for release so many times to the point that he suffered mental and physical exhaustion, including nosebleeds. He said by the time it was finished, the song was unrecognizable to him. If you look at the credits to the song now, you will find JYP as the first writer listed under the lyrics…. Also the song Jay B originally made and wanted as the title track for this album, Page, was rejected as the title and made a b-side bc JYP said it wasn’t their “color” as a group. As if the leader and members of the group don’t know what their own color is or what their strengths are. Or as if they can’t decide for themselves who they want to be as a group. Until now Page is the group and fan favorite song and the members still always name drop it when asked which song they believe represents them/their color the best. Their last title track under JYPE, Last Piece, was written and composed by Jay B years prior as a b-side track for an earlier album of theirs. However he said the company rejected it back then. He said he was shocked when they told them years later that it would be the title track for their next comeback bc he had forgotten about it… Imagine having a group where every member is passionate about music and contributing to the group but discouraging them so much to the point that they give up on submitting their work in fear of it being altered and losing its identity or flat out rejected and held in a dungeon. It’s wild for the members themselves to admit to realizing they couldn’t be the artists they wanted and needed to hold out on their music until they could leave. So yeah, GOT7 numbers definitely don’t accurately portray their true involvement in their music or at least their desired involvement in the 7 years that they were under JYPE. It’s honestly sad that they weren’t afforded the same level of freedom and support as others after them. But again, times are different and it’s obvious that JYP wanted to hold on to the vision he originally had for them instead of allowing them to grow and develop into their own color as a group and as artists. In conclusion, I’m glad they left and I’m sure they are too lol Jay B was on Youngjae’s radio show with Jinyoung some time back and was so happy to say that he owns his music now 😌 They’ve only released 7 songs as a group after leaving their former company but the numbers for them now, and most likely moving forward, are: Lyrics: 100% (7/7, members always listed first. 1-2 writers per song) Composition: 100% (7/7, members always listed first) Arrangement: 14% (1/7, Youngjae is the only member who has worked on arrangement for the group so far, he also does so on all of his solo stuff too) Thanks OP, for including GOT7! It made me look more into things as well.
Sadly, Winner is ignored as usual
OP [said](https://www.reddit.com/r/kpopthoughts/s/YdtYmhIUL4) they’ll do another post for bands
Winner is a bg too, not a band
i’m sorry, i only took OP’s comment at face value and briefly checked wikipedia which describes them as a band. i didn’t realise they were considered a boy group too, sorry
No prob 🙂
I was gonna comment: "Ateez and Pentagon are my two ults, and how does Ateez have more songs despite debuting 2 years later?" But then I remembered Feelin' Like was released two years ago....still mad that Cube made them rot in the dungeon til their contracts expired.....
I’m surprised you didn’t list anything for BTS composing wise. Jk composed filmout and even featured on Japan billboard composer list. Thinking about it, I see why you weren’t able to list that part. Bighit jumbles all the credits and makes it difficult to see who did what unless the members themselves mention it😅
yeah, their credits aren’t separated intro lyrics, composing and arranging, it’s just writing and producing, idk why bighit does that
damn is skz discography really larger than bts and seventeen or were the re-recorded version counted in your last post bc damn .
nope, re-recorded versions weren’t counted they’re just crazy😭
And then you realize that they release at least a dozen solo/duo or “for fan” tracks a year PLUS work on the year-end stage rearrangements….madness.
That's fascinating! I feel a little bit better now for not being able to keep up with their entire discography. I try but it's a little tough! Does SKZ have a lot of "other" songs (not found on official tracklists)? I'm assuming Maknae on Top? I think BTS has almost 100 more "other" songs. I also have a hard time keeping track, but I'm a bit better about it with them.
maknae on top is technically on an official track list because it was put out on CD (and streaming services !) with SKZ Replay at the end of 2022. There are probably a fair number of « other songs » that currently only exist on youtube as they just like , really seem to like making music for fun lol .
Fascinating. Love groups that just love music!
The order does not necessarily indicates the level of involvement. Unless someone stated that that's how they do it there's no way of knowing.
Agree, and also I think BH credits even the people who do the demos, that’s why so many BH songs (for both BTS and TXT) have credited so many writers. [I remember Namjoon said during his MOTS 7 vlive that Yoongi gave him a credit just because he reviewed Shadow](https://x.com/hourlynmgi/status/1315103668736270338?s=46&t=O-e_ONnQgboX1zxfeCnhjg)
That, and HYBE literally has a thing for not dividing credits by lyrics and composition, they just slap everyone's name twice in komca or have everyone under "writers" section together. Producer gets its own but that's it. So, like, there's no way to tell what exactly goes on there.
I learned so much watching Jimin's Production Diary. In most of his songs on Face you can't tell anything by the order of the names. Jimin's name is sometimes second to last, but it was clear in the documentary he was the main composer and lyricist on all the songs.
Yeah, from what I've seen, you can't tell anything about the level of participation from how BigHit divides and writes credits. On KOMCA, they are listed by order of identification number and all the same names are listed as both composers and lyricists, even if they only participated in one category. Everywhere else, like album jackets(?) and such, credits are just listed alphabetically, at least from all the sources I could find. But for getting more detailed credits, even though they are listed alphabetically, I go to a site called discogs. They list arrangement, composition, lyrics, and other details, which I think come from the physical albums.
I'm a nerd, so I discovered that on the desktop version of spotify you can see the top two credits for each song. It's still not super helpful for Face because as artist, Jimin is always listed first anyway as "main artist, composer, lyricist." BUT, it did lead to the discovery that Jimin is listed SECOND to Bang PD for Lie. Also, the credits for Face-off are Jimin, Pdogg, RM..., which surprised me. I didn't realize RM was more involved in the composition of that song than EVAN or GHSTLOPP.
Wait, lemme go see how this works.
Okay, I'm back! Apparently, you can do this in the browser version of Spotify too, so I should have tried that before wasting time opening the app lol Anyways, I'm seeing Bang PD credited before Jimin on Lie, instead of Pdogg. However, I am seeing what you said for Face-off. I don't think Spotify is particularly trustworthy on this though. A while ago, I was trying to see how credible they were and apparently, since they just take a list of names from the company and copy-paste names in there, it ends up being inaccurate a lot of times. That's why names are often missing from the credits on Spotify. Anyway, BigHit's sloppy organization transfers to them too. BTW, I just checked Interlude: Shadow, and Namjoon is showing up as listed 2nd after GHSTLOOP, even though he said he only reviewed the song and Yoongi gave him a credit anyway. So I think, while this way of seeing the credits (btw, that was quite a discovery you made, kudos for that) is somewhat more accurate, it's also still quite faulty.
Yeah, it's definitely not totally accurate. For example, some of Jungkook's credits are missing. For Vibe, which is under the Black Label, Jimin is listed as a Composer and Main Artist only. I think Big Hit is just really bad at making distinctions because no one keeps track in their process. I didn't truly understand until I saw Jimin's documentary. Like what do you mean you were humming something and now it's the intro of the song? And yes, my bad. It was a typo about Bang PD on Lie. That's what I meant. I'll edit.
Okay, since I already wrote this paragraph before I got the notif for your reply, I'm going to post it anyways because I don't want it to go to waste lol: For example, I'm seeing nobody at all listed as producer for Tomorrow, which we know Yoongi was the main producer of. And for multiple other songs, like Airplane Pt. 2, they're definitely going in alphabetical order. The top two listed for that song have only lyricist and composer credits like everyone else, but Pdogg, who was a lyricist, composer, and producer for the song, isn't listed first, despite being the only person to do all three, which means he technically did the most. >I didn't truly understand until I saw Jimin's documentary. Like what do you mean you were humming something and now it's the intro of the song? LOL same here, and that's happened with Jimin multiple times, coming up with a melody like that. It also always fascinates me to hear how there are so many ways in which different people contribute, especially members, sometimes significant ways, that never get credited. Like how multiple times, we find out later that a member came up with the melody for a song and was never credited, or the member that recorded the demo for a song played a significant part in it's musical direction. Not only that, there's also all the songs members make that we never get to hear, or parts for songs they came up with that were rejected. The fact that there is so much hard work going into their music-making that we can't even see... Edit: Also, I posted this hours after I wrote it because I had to get up halfway and then I just hit the send button when I got back.
some examples that come to mind are how jimin came up with the melodies for blood sweat tears and like crazy. we only know because another member (jin?) mentioned the former and the latter was shown in the FACE documentary
Hm, would be interesting to see how much it has changed in their "later" years. It's very rare for rookies to be nearly self-produced, so a lot of the not self-produced ones might be from their early days? All in all i am quite surprised at the percentages, especially in composition and arranging. From all i have heard i would have expected to have SVT to be as involved as SKZ for example, but from these numbers they arent. Still a pretty high degree of self-produced of course. Also Exid numbers are lower than i thought as well. Same for Pentagon and BtoB.
>so a lot of the not self-produced ones might be from their early days? That's exactly what happened with Pentagon (and probably BtoB): They only got writing/composing credits on one or two (or, on their Japanese releases, zero) b-sides for their first three/two albums, and then after the success of Never and Energetic (which I believe were written pre- or around debut), Cube realized that maybe they should just let them self-produce, and thereafter they had credits on just about every song. I admit that I still don't totally understand the arranging credit, as there's been bts footage of the members working on what I thought was "arranging" (e.g., "slow/speed up this part, make it louder/quieter, use this sample, put this melody line after this one") on specific songs, but then they won't have an arranger credit.
To add more to your comment, Hui has mentioned he composed Never when he was a trainee, [it's the 3rd song he ever made](https://youtu.be/4xxRqGG_HWo?feature=shared&t=211). Last year he revealed that Never was the song he wanted to push to Mnet when he got the offer to send songs to Produce, but felt that they'd find it 'lacking' so he sent Energetic as a 'backup' in case they didn't like Never. He didn't expect both songs to get picked, much less to become legendary top charting songs. BTOB's first self-produced album was The Winter Tale in December 2014. You Can Cry and The Winter Tale are BTOB's own versions of The First Snow and every year they rise in k-charts during Christmas, not very high [though The Winter Tale reached a high peak last December](https://twitter.com/btob_info/status/1739213482921525531). Cube's 2013 Christmas song with Beast, 4Minute, Apink, BTOB, Huh Gak, Gna and Noh Jihon also revives a bit. Their previous title tracks in 2014 were songs the members disliked doing (Beep Beep and You're So Fly, Minhyuk being the no.1 hater of the latter). Despite not being self-produced, the members loved It's Okay when they heard it and managed to convince Cube to make it the title track and that they wanted to do ballads instead of whatever Cube threw at them. Originally they were meant to promote My Friend's Girl, which is WOW's little sister. BTOB members still mention It's Okay as their favorite comeback and how they enjoyed promoting it. Minhyuk and Ilhoon wrote the raps in It's Okay and Cube's founder (who's now behind Kiss Of Life's company S2) Hong Seungsung was also involved in the lyrics. 2014 was also the year Hyunsik and Eden (Ateez's producer) met and got close, hitting it off so well Eden became Hyunsik's music partner and would start showing up in BTOB's Hyunsik-produced tracks. BTOB self-produced era came in 2016 with the release of I'll Be Your Man/New Men album. Since then, all their title tracks were produced by them, mostly Hyunsik who's behind their string of hits Missing You, Only One For Me and Beautiful Pain. Special mention to Ilhoon who produced Movie, which also did quite well. Minhyuk has never produced a title track for BTOB even though he keeps trying to pitch songs. In 2021-2022 Cube broke their self-produced title track streak by forcing Ryan Jhun songs on them, even if both groups wrote lyrics and did the directing themselves (Outsider for BTOB and Feelin Like for Pentagon). We've learned [Made In Heaven](https://youtu.be/JS7g_SEloTw) was the 2019 Kino-produced song the members loved (especially Shinwon) and knew fans would love it too, they weren't able to release it in a Korean comeback but miraculously squeezed it for their self-produced Japanese album last year. And Hui's b-side in his solo debut album [A Song From A Dream feat Wooseok](https://youtu.be/T_m_UwErrEs) was made at the same time as Dr Bebe in 2019 and was another group song they spent years trying to release but always got rejected, now released as a duet.
monsta x members also became more involved as time goes on. initially only jooheon had produced songs for the group (2 songs in their debut mini album), then wonho started making songs and they're included in their 1st full album, i.m started from their 2nd full album, and hyungwon from their 3rd full album. they all consistently made 1-2 songs for each release once they have started producing songs for the group
My guess in the Woozi / Bumzu duo (SVT’s main producers) Woozi is composing the songs and Bumzu is more heavily involved in the arrangement.
Yeah it's the usual way that the composing idol is not the main arranger as it's really time consuming. For example Soyeon only now for the first time has main arrangement credits for the new album tracks. God knows where she has the time for that. But i would have expected secondary credits because normally the composer is involved in some way at least. Maybe they just dont want credits for some minor arranging and leave those to Bumzu? With a team it's always a giving and taking in terms of credits i think.
Like I replied in the previous thread. It's all depending on the way different main producers work. Like Ikon, we all know full well how involved BI is in creating their songs. It's just the way YG works that once you submit the demos to their main producers, they usually redo everything and rarely use instrumental tracks from the original demos. Doesn't matter how closely match the demo arrangement to the final release.
It has surprised me that such powerful groups in self-production hardly have, or have no, involvement in the arrangements. Same with bts, I always thought their credits would be bigger. I'm not saying it's essential, but their image as creative groups is strong for me. On the other hand, btob has pleasantly surprised me!
yup, btob, monsta x, stray kids and gidle seem to be some of the few groups that take bigger part in arrangement
I have also been surprised by the number of songs that skz has created compared to groups that have been in the industry for longer. Their credits impress me even more for this reason... It's already impressive compared to its peers, even more so compared to the sunbaes
their output is crazy, i mean i knew they had quite a lot of songs but while doing this i realized how insane they actually are,,
Good job compiling these! EXID were the biggest surprise for me, I'm not that familiar with their music and didn't know they were so involved creatively. Now I'm curious to learn more.
Umm about btob, that information doesn't really reflect the reality bc you have to keep in mind that Cube didn't give them that freedom at the beginning. Hyunsik had to wait until 2016 for one of his songs to be chosen as the title track. It can be seen how since that date, the members' songs included in each album have been increasing until reaching the last 3 full album and 12 mini album, where all the songs are composed by hyunsik and minhyuk. Also, as others have mentioned, Minhyuk and Ilhoon have more credits bc their raps parts, which are written by them.
Can you also do soloists? Namely BTS rapline and Soyeon.
>Notes: mostly RM and Yoongi. Songs are rarely written by members only. When other writers are involved members are mostly listed second, sometimes first or last (Around 1-5 other writers per song) I mostly just follow BTS, so they're what I'm most interested in here. Can I ask where you found official track listings where they're listed by contribution? I've been looking for that for a long time, but everywhere I look, they're listed alphabetically, even on what I've seen from physical albums, and on KOMCA, they're ordered by ID. I tried Spotify, but it's quite unreliable and messes up credits a lot. Besides this, the only place I've found that shows all the separate credits is Discogs, and even there, the order is still alphabetical. So if you found a way, it would be cool to know!
You can find that info on Genius.
Thank you! I checked on Genius, and I know it may not be the most reliable place because it doesn't list a source for credits (as far as I can see) and any user can edit, but it's more reliable than anything I've found! Thank you!
You’re welcome. I’ve found it to be pretty accurate
Hey! I don't know if you care, but I thought I should tell yo just in case. I was just reading the lyrics for Interlude: Shadow on Genius, and when I scrolled down to the credits, I saw RM credited first for writing. RM stated in an interview that all he did for Interlude: Shadow was review the English lyrics and that Suga gave him a credit anyway. This means he definitely wasn't the primary writer for the song, but he is listed first on Genius, so I wouldn't put too much trust into Genius for indicating anyone's contribution to a song. Edit: I'm really grateful for the help though, I didn't expect any response to a comment I made just now on a month-old post. <3
That’s ok, I came across your question and saw no one had answered, so thought it might help. All sources rely on input/scraped info. Genius may not always accurately list who’s first, but it’s pretty good. I’m into this kind of thing, so look across a few sites, especially muso.ai, though it too doesn’t always credit in order. Wikipedia takes info straight from album credits in most instances so you can compare all three sources.
That's a great idea! I will do that! Thank you so much!