Just cuz one guy writes most the music, doesn't mean that's a bad thing. I read an interview with Peter describing the process. He said that Mikael's just good at what he does, why stop a man at something he excells at?
Plus, I've been in several bands in the past, and I can tell you that it's not like everybody's gonna be trying to take control of everything and everybody's gonna want to be in every ounce of every process. Writing music is only one part of being in a band, and just about everybody who's been in a band will tell you that other qualities come first. For a band to work you do need that one guy who is a control freak; any more than one and you have the clash that leads to breakups, any less than one and you have disorder eventually leading to nothing happening and therefore a breakup any how.
In some cases, band members submit close to an equal amount in the music writing process, but that's just some bands. Most bands have either primarily one, and other times two songwriters. Is there something wrong with that? I'd say no.
You might recall a very famous band opening up to the idea of adding other members of the their band to the song writing process; now I liked it, but the vast majority (or at least half) of their fans have critisized them for selling out. But I've always felt that to be a premature idea. Because when I listen to it, it just sounds like they gave more liberty to their song writing, and a natural place to progress after releasing so many tightly-knit albums. So much so their first release in a few years was just a few minutes short of filling the cd to capacity. And in the process, they lost a lot of their following and are now generally referred to as sell-outs.
So does everybody in a band have to write the music? Certainly not. I mean, I don't know any members of Opeth personally (though I wish I did!!), but I'd bet their styles are very different, and if I had to guess, trying to force a cohesive effort would probably just lead to an undesired sound. In the end, most great creations are lead by the vision of one man; because everybody else can't see what he sees, and what he's trying to accomplish, and so this one man arranges it so that it makes one beautifully unified masterpiece.
So back to the main topic at hand:
Does it bother anyone else that Mikael writes all of the music?
Not me.
