Can Songwriting Be Saved?

Writing songs for top acts used to be a reliable source of income. Now, writers face trouble making ends meet

- BRIAN HIATT

AFTER YEARS OF STRUGGLE and even a few months of homelessness, Kimberly "Kaydence" Krysiuk was sure her big break as a songwriter had finally arrived. In August 2018, Ariana Grande released her fourth album, Sweetener, and there, at number 12 on the track list, was the acerbic kiss-off ballad 'Better Off', co-written by Krysiuk two years earlier over a Hit-Boy beat. At age 27, she had achieved every young songwriter's dream, her lyrics and melodies sent aloft via a superstar's silky voice. The world was hearing her work. Big money, she assumed, was on its way.

At the time, she didn't mind that Grande took 10 per cent of the songwriting credit for what Krysiuk describes as "changing three or four words", tweaking the lyric that ended up as "watch you smoke and drink". (A rep for Grande offered no comment.) Krysiuk was, instead, busy thinking about the house in LA she thought she would soon be able to afford, especially with other promising placements starting to come in. "I didn't understand the business of it," says Krysiuk, who had exhausted an advance from her publishing company and was surviving mostly by renting out her studio space and doing workshops for aspiring writers. "I was like, 'I'm good, I'm set."