100 best songwriters missed out by expensive bog roll.
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Day dop · Member since
From the Telegraph...
100 BEST SONGWRITERS MISSED OUT BY ROLLING STONE 1 Cole Porter 2 Townes Van Zandt 3 Ewan MacColl 4 Kate Bush 5 Ray Charles 6 Freddie Mercury 7 Louis Jordan 8 Damon Albarn 9 John Hiatt 10 Richard Thompson 11 Irving Berlin 12 Stephen Sondheim 13 George Gershwin 14 Joan Baez 15 Cat Stevens 16 Phil Spector 17 Lefty Frizzell 18 Paul Anka 19 Shane McGowan 20 Gordon Lightfoot 21 Gil Scott-Heron 22 Lead Belly 23 John Denver 24 Jelly Roll Morton 25 Otis Redding 26 Peter Gabriel 27 Guy Clarke 28 Jarvis Cocker 29 Loudon Wainwright III 30 Frank Zappa 31 Lyle Lovett 32 Nick Drake 33 Tom Lehrer 34 Tupac Shakur 35 Bob Seger 36 John Lee Hooker 37 Neyo 38 Linda Perry 39 Steve Earle 40 Richard Shindell 41 Patty Griffin 42 Beck 43 Noël Coward 44 Joan Armatrading 45 Harold Arlen 46 Rodney Crowell 47 Chuck D Public Enemy 48 Amy Winehouse 49 Fred Neill 50 Bryan Ferry 51 John Cale 52 Roy Orbison 53 Nick Cave 54 Tracy Chapman 55 Robert Plant 56 Nick Lowe 57 Ryan Adams 58 Jeff Buckley 59 Laura Marling 60 Erykah Badu 61 Tim Hardin 62 Dr John 63 Warren Zevon 64 Ralph McTell 65 Gram Parsons 66 Rickie Lee Jones 67 Squeeze (Chris Difford/Glenn Tilbrook) 68 John Mellencamp 69 Bill Withers 70 Bobby Bland 71 John Martyn 72 Cyndi Lauper 73 Phil Ochs 74 Marc Bolan 75 Nanci Griffith 76 Nina Simone 77 Peter Case 78 Lowell George 79 Donovan 80 WC Handy 81 Ian Drury 82 Ian Curtis 83 A Tribe Called Quest 84 Don McLean 85 Christy Moore 86 Chris Martin 87 Mark Knopfler 88 Colin Meloy 89 Jeff Lynne 90 John Grant 91 Sandy Denny 92 Vic Chesnut 93 Elliott Smith 94 PJ Harvey 95 Jim Croce 96 Paul Weller 97 Ray Noble 98 Sia 99 Annie Lennox/Dave Stewart 100 Bobby Bradock
Nice to see the public voted Freddie up... [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/100-great-songwriters]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/100-great-songwriters[/url]/
stevelondon20 · Member since
How the hell is Martin Gore not in that list?
Great to see Freddie, but he should have been higher.
Chief Mouse · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]stevelondon20 wrote:[/b]
How the hell is Martin Gore not in that list?[/QUOTE]
I agree.
queenfanbg · Member since
"99 Annie Lennox/Dave Stewart " - why ?
thomasquinn 32989 · Member since
I love them both, but Gershwin should've been higher than Irving Berlin. Not in the last place because Irving Berlin relied on external arrangers to write the harmonies to his melodies.
brENsKi · Member since
the only thing about these lists that surprises me is the ignorance/bias of the compiler
so this is a list citing the "obvious omissions" of the original publication, and it then goes on to show equal disregard/ignorance
ffs - Seger, Plant, Zevon, Mellencamp, Lynne and Moore - THIS far down the what constitutes the "Second Best" list
sheesh!!!
thomasquinn 32989 · Member since
Ranking Dr. John, Warren Zevon and Mark Knopfler way below Amy Winehouse (seriously?!) and Tupac Shakur (seriously?!!!)...if that doesn't spell 'arbitrary' I don't know what does...
master marathon runner · Member since
At least Jeff Lynne made it, so obscenely underrated.
stevelondon20 · Member since
Good to see Paul Anka there. The legendary writer of My Way.
Day dop · Member since
When it comes to the Rolling Stone list - Lennon & McCartney should've been on top.
Goffin & King were put together on that list, as were Jagger & Richards, as were other songwriters that were often partnerships and widely regarded as such.
Not doing so with Lennon & McCartney seems quite selective on their part. But I suspect that's because they wanted Dylan at the top. Their bias towards Dylan has always been obvious (they placed him 7th on their 100 greatest singers list, over other singers such as Freddie and Robert Plant. Seriously? I wouldn't rate Dylan as much of a singer at all. An artist, sure, but a singer, no). Mike Patton was completely ignored on their 100 greatest list too, as was Kate Bush (who was also ignored on the 100 greatest songwriters list). Rolling Stone's bias for and against certain artists is quite something.
All these lists are bollocks. But their ratings of certain singers get plonked down on wiki pages, as if Rolling Stone magazine is some sort of authority on the matter, when in reality, they're a bunch of biased tosspots.
master marathon runner · Member since
No. 80,' WC Handy' - quite appropriate, best place for these lists.
thomasquinn 32989 · Member since
@Day dop:
You might enjoy Lennon/McCartney more, but Dylan was definitely the more influential songwriter. Bear in mind that he was writing things like "When The Ship Comes In", "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "The Times They Are A-Changing" back when Lennon/McCartney were writing things like "Love Me Do" and doing covers. Without Dylan, The Beatles would not have sounded like they did when they wrote their best work. The other way around, The Beatles (or, more accurately: George Harrison) didn't start to have an impact on Dylan's work until New Morning (1970), when Dylan was already over his peak.
Also, let's not forget how important the electric set at Newport Folk Festival '65 was. Practically every classic rock group you know would not have existed without that.
Day dop · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]
@Day dop:
You might enjoy Lennon/McCartney more, but Dylan was definitely the more influential songwriter. Bear in mind that he was writing things like "When The Ship Comes In", "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "The Times They Are A-Changing" back when Lennon/McCartney were writing things like "Love Me Do" and doing covers. Without Dylan, The Beatles would not have sounded like they did when they wrote their best work. The other way around, The Beatles (or, more accurately: George Harrison) didn't start to have an impact on Dylan's work until New Morning (1970), when Dylan was already over his peak.
Also, let's not forget how important the electric set at Newport Folk Festival '65 was. Practically every classic rock group you know would not have existed without that.[/QUOTE]
I'm aware Dylan influenced them, but I'd still say The Beatles - or rather Lennon/McCartney - were better songwriters than Dylan.
Elvis influenced the Beatles too, and a whole host of others, but I'd place The Beatles, overall, over Elvis (but I guess that's neither here nor there as Elvis wasn't a writer like Dylan or Lennon/McCartney). But still, why place Goffin & King and Jagger & Richards together but not Lennon & McCartney?
Rolling Stones bias shows itself to me when they're placing Dylan as 7th greatest singer on their 100 greatest singers list. As I said, no Mike Patton on the list (his vocal capabilities are phenomenal, especially in terms of range and diversity - most likely more so than any of the others on the list), no Kate Bush. Plant and Mercury placed lower. I honestly don't see how anyone could say Dylan is a greater singer than any of those. They have another greatest list - 100 greatest artists. That's a different matter. But a greater singer than any of those? No way in a million years.
You can probably tell RS bugs me.
master marathon runner · Member since
Can't stand Dylan, never could and yet, love Woody Guthrie.
thomasquinn 32989 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Day dop wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]
@Day dop:
You might enjoy Lennon/McCartney more, but Dylan was definitely the more influential songwriter. Bear in mind that he was writing things like "When The Ship Comes In", "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "The Times They Are A-Changing" back when Lennon/McCartney were writing things like "Love Me Do" and doing covers. Without Dylan, The Beatles would not have sounded like they did when they wrote their best work. The other way around, The Beatles (or, more accurately: George Harrison) didn't start to have an impact on Dylan's work until New Morning (1970), when Dylan was already over his peak.
Also, let's not forget how important the electric set at Newport Folk Festival '65 was. Practically every classic rock group you know would not have existed without that.[/QUOTE]
I'm aware Dylan influenced them, but I'd still say The Beatles - or rather Lennon/McCartney - were better songwriters than Dylan.
Elvis influenced the Beatles too, and a whole host of others, but I'd place The Beatles, overall, over Elvis (but I guess that's neither here nor there as Elvis wasn't a writer like Dylan or Lennon/McCartney). But still, why place Goffin & King and Jagger & Richards together but not Lennon & McCartney?
Rolling Stones bias shows itself to me when they're placing Dylan as 7th greatest singer on their 100 greatest singers list. As I said, no Mike Patton on the list (his vocal capabilities are phenomenal, especially in terms of range and diversity - most likely more so than any of the others on the list), no Kate Bush. Plant and Mercury placed lower. I honestly don't see how anyone could say Dylan is a greater singer than any of those. They have another greatest list - 100 greatest artists. That's a different matter. But a greater singer than any of those? No way in a million years.
You can probably tell RS bugs me.
[/QUOTE]
I don't like RS any more than you do, maybe even less because I've had to use it as a source in writing on the history of politicized music, seeing up-close how it compared (unfavorably) to other music periodicals in the same period, and how it tended to get the big picture wrong every time. However, putting Dylan high in the singers-list is totally justified. To find out why, you have to look at the *context*.
What did male popular singers sound like between 1945 and 1960? Basically, they ALL tried to sound like Sinatra/Bing Crosby-style crooners. There was a VERY narrow band of voice-types that were deemed 'good' for singing, everything had to be excessively polished and singers tried to get pretty much identical tones of voice.
Folk music was different, as was blues, but neither of those had much of an audience, before Bob Dylan came around. Now, it's not true that Bob Dylan single-handedly created folk-rock, nor is it so that folk-rock alone, and not blues, had its influence on pop-music, but it was Dylan's shockingly unpolished voice that created, for the first time in history, a musical context in which singers were celebrated for having an ORIGINAL voice and NOT sounding like the standard. If you have a couple of hours, look up a list of hits from the early '50s, and listen to the ones sung by men. Then look up a list of hits from the late '60s or early '70s, and again, listen to the ones sung by men. Notice the striking difference. Now, that's not solely Bob Dylan's work, but of all the *individuals* involved in bringing this about, he was certainly the most important.
