Clive Davis Wants Singers to Stop Writing Songs

According to Reuters, Clive Davis, chairman and chief executive officer of the BMG Label Group, said singers should focus on singing and not feel pressured to write their own songs.

"The odds are always against you," Davis said Thursday. "You have got to go over the best material, and that should win out, notwithstanding any track record. I don't care how many No. 1's you have written in the past, have you written a new No. 1?"

Davis, who has helped launch the careers of Whitney Houston and Alicia Keys, said that 80-90 percent of all the artists he has ever worked with have written their own songs. However, after the launch of American Idol, singers are now able to become successful without writing their own material, according to Reuters.

Davis and Idol winner Kelly Clarkson had some recent disagreements over her third album, My December, of which she co-wrote all the songs.

"She was not signed as a singer/songwriter," Davis said.

Clarkson's second album sold 11 million copies worldwide and My December has only sold 754,000 since its release in June 2007.

When Whitney Houston asked Davis if she could start writing her own songs, he told her, "Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra didn't write, and they are among Time magazine's greatest artists of the century."