As a solo artist, writing an entire album's worth of songs for yourself can be a daunting enough task, but these artists found themselves so overflowing with creativity that they managed to write entire albums (or very close to it) for other artists, and in most cases, produce the albums as well.
1. Prince
If you ever find yourself wishing that Prince had released more albums during the '80s, you should check out the albums released by some of his protégés, such as Sheila E. and The Time. Prince wrote nearly all of the music and lyrics for Sheila E.'s first two solo albums The Glamorous Life and Romance 1600, as well as the first three albums by The Time: The Time, What Time Is It?, and Ice Cream Castle. As if these weren't enough, he also wrote nearly all of the music and lyrics for the self-titled albums by his girl groups Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6.
2. R. Kelly
In a way, R. Kelly is like the Prince of '90s R&B: a singer, songwriter, and producer so prolific and in demand that he was able to write entire albums for other artists. In 1994, Kelly wrote and produced nearly every track, with the exception of an Isley Brothers cover, for Aaliyah's debut album Age Ain't Nothing But A Number, as well as the self-titled debut album by R&B singer Sparkle.
3. Beck
Ironically, the best album that Beck released in the last 10 years had someone else's name and face on the cover. In 2009, Beck wrote and produced nearly every track on Charlotte Gainsbourg's third studio album IRM, a percussion-heavy collection of experimental pop and folk songs that sounded unlike anything else before or since.
4. Serge Gainsbourg
Beck wasn't the first artist to pen an entire album for Charlotte Gainsbourg. In 1986, Gainsbourg released her debut studio album Charlotte for Ever at age 14, which was almost entirely written by her father, the legendary French pop star Serge Gainsbourg. However, Serge's involvement in his daughter's career proved controversial; the international edition of the album included the song "Lemon Incest," a duet between Serge and Charlotte that is (obviously) incredibly creepy.
5. Jim Steinman
In its purest and most artistically successful state, "Meat Loaf" isn't so much the stage name of singer Michael Aday (born Marvin Aday) as it is the collaboration between Aday and songwriter Jim Steinman. Out of Meat Loaf's 12 studio album, Steinman composed the entirety of the music and lyrics for three: the classic Bat Out of Hell, its follow-up Dead Ringer, and Meat's 1993 comeback Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell. A third Bat Out of Hell album, subtitled The Monster is Loose, featured seven Steinman compositions, though these only made up half of the album.
6. Linda Perry
Though Linda Perry achieved some mainstream success as a musician in the early '90s as the lead singer and songwriter of 4 Non Blondes, she's more well known these days as a songwriter and producer for other artists, including Ariana Grande and Christina Aguilera. In 2005, Perry produced Kelly Osbourne's second (and so far final) album Sleeping in the Nothing, writing or co-writing all ten of the albums songs herself (in fact, six out of ten songs were written solely by Perry).
Who else has written an entire album for another artist? Let us know down in the comments section below!
