What is a topline writer?

The term ‘topline’ is one that we’ve heard being used with increasing frequency over the past few years, but its meaning is still the subject of some confusion. However, the definition is actually pretty straightforward.

Let’s say you’ve made an instrumental track in your DAW that you’re happy with, but you’re not able to turn it into a commercially viable song. This is where a topline writer can help: they’ll take your beat and write a melody and lyrics over the top of it. In today’s industry, it’s not unheard of for a track to be sent to multiple topliners who’ll compete to come up with the best finished song.

If you’re a producer, this might sound strange and slightly unsettling. You might think that, once you’ve done your bit, you’ve done pretty much all of the hard work, so why would you want to hand over half the songwriting credit to someone else?

The answer is that ‘toplining’ is a very different skill to beatmaking; if a track doesn’t have a hook, it’s unlikely to be a hit. If you’re lucky, you’ll have the skills to do both, but a lot aren’t.

Equally, if you come from a singersongwriter background, you may be rolling your eyes at all this, but you could argue that the business has worked along similar lines all along. There’ve been many successful songwriting partnerships consisting of a musician and lyricist – Elton John and Bernie Taupin spring to mind – and this isn’t all that different.

What’s more, if you are struggling to write melodies and lyrics, employing the services of a topliner could mean the difference between carving out a successful career and having a hard drive full of tracks that no one will ever hear.