Often it's just a way of pretending you've got a "singer/songwriter" when you've really only got a performer (I remember Simon Fuller trying to convince me the Spice Girls wrote their own songs; that pretence was dropped after the first course of the lunch we were having!).

If they ARE co-writing, it usually ruins the individuality of the writing talent... an excellent new talent has just been sent by his publisher to "co-write" with Americans in Los Angeles.

Delicious though Diane Warren can be, I wouldn't want her style to infect a new British talent.

Mind you, it was my idea to send Bonjovi to LA to work with Desmond Child and that produced Livin' On A Prayer. And Blunt's You're Beautiful was far improved by the professionals working it (I have the original demo; the one in which he sings "fucking high").

But it really has become the easy way out. Do publishers truly want to improve new writers by teaching them the basics? Or are they and the labels squeezing new talent into the acceptable shape of every other bland writer in order to try and get a global star out of it?

I fear the latter. They remove the rough edges and the enthusiasm and originality with it. That's my opinion anyway.