Demos have been used in the past. There used to not be as many demos. The technilogical age ushered that in. The same way as television sitcoms will have a pilot before they order more episodes. Everything is test marketed.

Everything is about hedging your bets.

The two biggest questions asked from people outside a major music center like Nashville are:
"Why is it co-writing is so important? What if you don't co-write?" (two takes on the same questions)
and:
"Why do you have to have such good demos if they are going to redo the song? Can't they hear it?"

Here is the answer to both.

For around 11 years now, Jeffery Steele has set the bar on Nashville songwriting. Last year I caught an interview with him. At that time (around May) he had had 187 cuts, 90 singles and 11 number ones. He has controlled the charts for about that entire time with rarely a week going by that he didn't have something high up on the charts.

If you have ever seen Jeffery you know that he is a great looking guy, great musician, great writer, great singer, monsterous entertainer (5 hour Bruce Springsteen type shows) He knows EVERYBODY and every artist beat a path to his door to hear the newest Jeffery song.

If you look at his list of songs you find he doesn't solo write anything. Everything is co-written, and has been since the beginning of his career. Yet, he writes with TONS of people and almost all of them turn out pretty well. So I would say he is the strong link.

Jeffery does full, radio ready demos on anything he pitches. They sound almost Exactly like the final product that comes out.

Why co-write or do great sounding demos?

Because the leader of the pack does. That is why. That is called
where the bar is."

MAB

PS: And I am not the one who says this. The presidents of four major record companies have all said this. He made them reset their own bars.