Songwriting - Solo or Group?

For the last 15 years, my songwriting has been solo.  The songs (for the most part) have been cohesive, and exactly what I am trying to portray.  Or exactly what my inner demon wants to shout through me... 
Either way, I’m extremely proud of them.  I have written these songs myself.  I have recorded these songs myself.  The real boost has been in the mixing and pre-mixing stage, where the songs are shaped by fresh ears (belonging to John Jamieson) and become what you eventually hear.

Co-songwriting makes sense.  One person has an idea, the other builds on it, the first builds on that, and so forth.  You end up with new and exciting songs that evolved significantly from the basic chords or riff that started the whole thing.

Having four or five songwriters seems to go too far from the original seed that started the entity.  I’ve had that happen once or twice in the past, and you could actually take that seed as it originally existed and it is an entirely different song.  This just seems disappointing.

Here's a BBC article writing about the average number of songwriters in today's hit songs. 

Progress on the Album

It's May 1st, and in the time since my last post, Gravedigging has been moving along well.
It's a pretty slow process, but is having some surprising results.
John Jamieson is mixing the album.  I've been listening to various incarnations of these songs for about 5 years, while he's hearing them for the first time.
This is a huge bonus, because he's not following the assumptions that I've always had about them.  For example, if I've added a trumpet line at the end of a verse that I'm using to help build into the chorus, I might assume that it'll be a subtle thing for texture.  The type of thing that the listener wouldn't focus on, but I'd feel that something was missing if it wasn't there.  John, on the other hand, sees it as a hook and puts it in a prominent place in the mix.
Suddenly it's a part that you're humming when the song is done!  It has changed from being "that acoustic guitar song" to "the one with that Bah-bah-BAAAAH trumpet!"

Gravedigging For Two has been a long time in the making.  I wrote the songs and realized that they should be combined into one project, an album.  But then I spent years trying to make them fit.  it wasn't easy, and I took time away to write and record The Scars That I've Earned as a way to distance myself from Gravedigging, to have a breather.  Not My Song, for example, went from being slow, dark blues, to klezmer, to reggae, to a faster blues...  And now it's a great rocker that disappears into a weird 70s spaced-out thing.  It's a totally different beast than when it first emerged from the black hole of inspiration.

My biggest surprise is how energized and fresh these songs are sounding.
So far we've mixed Little Rose Tattoo, Not My Song, Kill Me, You And Me, and Tonight.  Next up will be recording the saxophones on My Clown, Gravedigging, and You're A Star.  It's still a month away, but I'm really looking forward to that - I don't normally have another person play on my albums, but I'm sure she'll add another spark to it.

That's it for now, thanks for reading.  Thanks for listening.  Thanks for Supporting.
It's a long slog, but I couldn't be happier.

Matt