Solo Compositions by Female Superstars

As might be obvious to anyone who has read even a few entries on this blog, one of the things I most enjoy doing is compiling albums or music playlists based on various themes, whether it's my favorite songs by particular songwriters, imaginary albums by bands like the Beatles, the best songs of particular eras, early recordings by famous artists, obscure versions of famous songs, or songs about particular topics or in particular musical styles. Granted, some of these lists can get pretty esoteric, but I get a kick out of making them, and I think most of them have some appeal to at least a subset of music fans. Here's one of my more off-the-wall music lists, one that is necessarily incomplete due to the subjective nature of my choice of artists, but I still think a few people might find it interesting. 

More perhaps than the vast majority of music listeners, I'm particularly interested in who wrote the songs I listen to. While mostly this interest is directed to topics like which bandmembers wrote what in groups like the Beatles and Queen, or collecting songs that songwriters I like such as Randy Newman or Joni Mitchell wrote for for or had covered by other artists, it applies to other pop music listening I do, including mainstream artists like Madonna, Lady Gaga or Adele. This can lead to interesting observations, like how many big pop hits Max Martin has had a hand in writing, or how singer/songwriters like Linda Perry and Dan Wilson wrote or co-wrote some of my favorite pop songs from recent decades, but it also led me to making this particular list. Basically, most people know that among massively popular female superstars, a number of them have a hand in writing much of their material. But in most cases, they generally don't write their songs alone, but with co-writers. This seems even more true in recent years, given the tendency for many pop songs to list a large number of writers (though this is probably in part due to changes in the way songs are credited, such that even the smallest contribution results in a writing credit). So I thought it'd be interesting to look through the catalogs of a number of these superstars, and find the songs that they wrote entirely on their own. 

The subjective part of the list, as mentioned above, is which female superstars I included. Mostly I picked ones I have listened to more, such as Madonna, Shakira, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Adele. When Tina Turner died and I went back through some of her catalog, I was inspired to add her as an early example. I also included some recent artists who I may not actually have in my collection but who nevertheless have some songs I like, including Taylor Swift and Meghan Trainor. But of course there are a number of other female superstars who could be included in this list, assuming that they have at least one or two songs that they wrote on their own (or at least were credited with). Many singers, of course, don't write any of their material, or at best they write an occasional lyric. But even some who write a lot don't seem to have written anything entirely on their own. A case in point is Mariah Carey, who wrote a lot of the lyrics for her songs herself, and often co-wrote the music, but doesn't seem to have composed the music for any of her songs all on her own (though I'll admit I didn't check all of her rather extensive catalog, so there may be something I missed). Perhaps I will expand this list in the future if I think of additional artists to include, or if I discover songs that I missed. [Note: I have added a song by Cher, as I discovered that while the vast majority of her songs were written by others, she released one album where she did much of the writing, including one song that she wrote on her own.]

As should be clear, in this list I only included songs that the singer wrote or was credited with writing entirely by herself. Many artists who are known for writing their own material, like Madonna and Lady Gaga (or Mariah Carey, as noted above), usually work with co-writers. Madonna, like Carey, writes most of her own lyrics, but usually has a co-writer handling much or all of the music. She only received sole songwriting credits on a handful of songs, mostly from the beginning of her career (and it's certainly possible that she didn't actually write the music for some of these songs without some uncredited help). This leads to another interesting point I noticed; a number of artists who wrote quite a few songs by themselves early in their careers seem to have mostly stopped doing so after their first few albums. Aside from Madonna, other examples include Adele, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry (Tina Turner, on the other hand, wrote a lot of the songs on her later albums with her ex-husband Ike Turner, but didn't write anything in her later years). Another special case is Taylor Swift. She actually wrote most of the songs on her early albums solo, but I've only included some of the bigger hits from those albums, since otherwise her songs would dominate the list. But even in her case, she has mostly worked with co-writers on her more recent albums. 

 Some additional notes: Stefani Germanotta is of course Lady Gaga's original name. The EP she released with the Stefani Germanotta Band doesn't have writing credits, but her producer has said his assumption was that she wrote all the songs herself, and this seems plausible, given the ones she wrote as Lady Gaga (including what is probably my favorite song of hers, "You and I"). Katy Hudson is Katy Perry's original name, and the name under which she released her first album, which was (of all things) a contemporary Christian album. Ella Yelich-O'Connor is Lorde's real name. 

Solo Compositions by Female Superstars

Feel Good (Turner)    Ike & Tina Turner (1972)

Black Coffee (Turner)    Ike & Tina Turner (1972)

Nutbush City Limits (Turner)    Ike & Tina Turner (1973)

Sweet Rhode Island Red (Turner)    Ike & Tina Turner (1974)

Sexy Ida (Pts. 1 & 2) (Turner)    Ike & Tina Turner (1974)

Everybody (Madonna)    Madonna (1982)

Lucky Star (Madonna)    Madonna (1983)

Burning Up (Madonna)    Madonna (1983)

Shoo-Bee-Doo (Madonna)    Madonna (1984)

Gambler (Madonna)    Madonna (1985)

Hey You (Madonna)    Madonna (2007)

Kindred Spirit (Lauper)    Cyndi Lauper (1989)

New Year's Baby (First Lullaby) (Lauper)    Cyndi Lauper (1998)

With or Without You (Cher)    Cher (2000)

Moscas en la Casa (Shakira Mebarak)    Shakira (1998)

Que Vuelvas (Shakira Mebarak)    Shakira (1998)

Tú (Shakira Mebarak)    Shakira (1998)

Objection (Tango)/Te Aviso, Te Anuncio (Tango) (Shakira)    Shakira (2002)

Escondite Inglés (Shakira)    Shakira (2005)

Día de Enero (Shakira)    Shakira (2005)

I Heard Love Is Blind (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2003)

Rehab (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

You Know I'm No Good (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

Me & Mr. Jones (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

Love Is a Losing Game (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

Some Unholy War (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

Addicted (Winehouse)    Amy Winehouse (2006)

Hometown Glory (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

Daydreamer (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

Best for Last (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

Crazy for You (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

First Love (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

My Same (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2008)

I Found a Boy (Adele Adkins)    Adele (2011)

Something Crazy (Stefani Germanotta)    Stefani Germanotta Band (2006)

No Floods (Stefani Germanotta)    Stefani Germanotta Band (2006)

Wish You Were Here (Stefani Germanotta)    Stefani Germanotta Band (2006)

Words (Stefani Germanotta)    Stefani Germanotta Band (2006)

Red and Blue (Stefani Germanotta)    Stefani Germanotta Band (2006)

Speechless (Stefani Germanotta)    Lady Gaga (2009)

You and I (Stefani Germanotta)    Lady Gaga (2011)

Just Another Day (Stefani Germanotta)    Lady Gaga (2016)

Love Story (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2008/2021)

Fifteen (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2008/2021)

State of Grace (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2012/2021)

Red (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2012/2021)

Holy Ground (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2012/2021)

Begin Again (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2012/2021)

This Love (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2014/2022)

Lover (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2019)

Cornelia Street (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2019)

My Tears Ricochet (Swift)    Taylor Swift (2020)

No Body, No Crime (Swift)    Taylor Swift featuring Haim (2021)

Last Call (Hudson)    Katy Hudson (2001)

My Own Monster (Hudson)    Katy Hudson (2001)

Spit (Hudson)    Katy Hudson (2001)

When There's Nothing Left (Hudson)    Katy Hudson (2001)

Thinking of You (Perry)    Katy Perry (2009)

One of the Boys (Perry)    Katy Perry (2009)

Mannequin (Perry)    Katy Perry (2009)

Every Day Is a Holiday (Perry)    Katy Perry (2015)

I'll Be Home (Trainor)    Meghan Trainor (2014)

My Selfish Heart (Trainor)    Meghan Trainor (2015)

Marry Me (Trainor)    Meghan Trainor (2019)

The Path/Te Ara Tika (Ella Yelich-O'Connor)    Lorde (2021)

Oceanic Feeling/Hine-i-te-Awatea (Ella Yelich-O'Connor)    Lorde (2021)

Honorable Mention: 

Timor (W: Shakira, Peter Gabriel M: Shakira)    Shakira 

[This song wasn't written entirely by Shakira, but she was mainly responsible for it, and I couldn't resist giving it a shout-out for its social commentary, not to mention its co-writer]