Paste Magazine's Top 100 Songwriters

mozmic_dancer

One of the Good Guys
I got this from the NPR.org website. Paste Magazine asked 50 musicians and writers to compile a list of 100 great songwriters alive now. Below is the list. Morrissey is at #57.

For those interested in hearing a discussion about songwriting can hear it here
at http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/archives/paste100/

100. T Bone Burnett
99. Andre Benjamin & Antwan Patton (Outkast)
98. Jay Farrar (Son Volt, Uncle Tupelo)
97. Josh Ritter
96. Jimmy Cliff
95. Patti Smith
94. Sam Phillips
93. Joseph Arthur
92. Alejandro Escovedo
91. Drive By Truckers (Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Jason Isbell)
90. Nick Cave
89. Victoria Williams
88. Parliament (George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell)
87. Lyle Lovett
86. Sam Beam (Iron & Wine)
85. David Bazan (Pedro the Lion, Headphones)
84. John Linnel & John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants)
83. Fleetwood Mac (Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie)
82. John Darnielle (Mountain Goats)
81. Wayne Coyne & Steven Drozd (Flaming Lips)
80. Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason)
79. Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, Silver Jews)
78. Robert Pollard (Guided By Voices)
77. Bruce Cockburn
76. Will Oldham (aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace Music, etc.)
75. Ron Sexsmith
74. Linford Detweiler & Karin Bergquist (Over the Rhine)
73. Julie Miller
72. Michael Jackson
71. Vic Chesnutt
70. Alex Chilton (Big Star, The Box Tops)
69. Merle Haggard
68. Allen Tousaint
67. Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes)
66. Charles Thompson (aka Frank Black, Black Francis) (Pixies)
65. Bill Mallonee (Vigilantes of Love)
64. Andy Partridge (XTC, Dukes of Stratosphear)
63. Richard Thompson (Fairport Convention)
62. Sting (The Police)
61. John Hiatt
60. Jimmy Webb
59. Jack White (White Stripes, Raconteurs)
58. Sly Stone (Sly & the Family Stone)
57. Morrissey (The Smiths)
56. James Brown
55. Dolly Parton
54. Aimee Mann
53. James Taylor
52. Paul Westerberg (The Replacements)
51. Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham
50. Public Enemy (Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Hank Shocklee, Eric Sadler, et al)
49. Cat Stevens
48. Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
47. Sufjan Stevens
46. David Byrne (Talking Heads)
45. Jackson Browne
44. Al Green
43. Ryan Adams (Whiskeytown)
42. Loretta Lynn
41. Ray Davies (The Kinks)
40. Burt Bacharach & Hal David 39. Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham)
38. Kris Kristofferson
37. Smokey Robinson
36. Beck Hansen
35. Steve Earle
34. John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
33. Pete Townshend (The Who)
32. Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller
31. Carole King
30. John Prine
29. Tom Petty
28. Robbie Robertson (The Band)
27. Radiohead (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway)
26. R.E.M. (Peter Buck, Bill Berry, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe)
25. Chuck Berry
24. Jeff Tweedy (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, Golden Smog, Loose Fur, etc.)
23. Elton John & Bernie Taupin
22. Lucinda Williams
21. Lou Reed (Velvet Underground)
20. Van Morrison
19. Patty Griffin
18. U2 (Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton)
17. Holland-Dozier-Holland
16. David Bowie
15. Willie Nelson
14. Stevie Wonder
13. Paul Simon
12. Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (The Rolling Stones)
11. Randy Newman

The Top 10
10. Prince
9. Joni Mitchell
8. Elvis Costello
7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)
6. Leonard Cohen
5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)
4. Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
3. Bruce Springsteen
2. Neil Young (Buffalo Sprinfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
1. Bob Dylan
 
57th is an Utter Disgrace

56th would have been nearer the mark! I will personally write to every person connected with that Penny Dreadful of a Magazine and see if we can have Moz restored to his rightful place at 56!

just goes to show its not what you know...

Reg
 
Re: 57th is an Utter Disgrace

Reggie Pepper said:
56th would have been nearer the mark! I will personally write to every person connected with that Penny Dreadful of a Magazine and see if we can have Moz restored to his rightful place at 56!

just goes to show its not what you know...

Reg

Well Reg, I agree completely because from what I heard and this is confidential, Morrissey himself was overheard to say he would like to be listed at #56 just so he can be in between Sly Stone and Dolly Parton and James Brown should shimmy over to #57.

Whoo, how that man's mind works sometimes.
 
Will someone please remove Sufjan Stevens and Jack White from this list?

Post haste!
 
James Brown Should "GET ON DOWN"

James Brown Should "GET ON DOWN" to 57, Moz should "Ahh GET ON UP" to 56! and claim his rightful place at the bosom of Dolly Parton.
 
dallow_bg said:
Will someone please remove Sufjan Stevens and Jack White from this list?
Hey, dallow, did you catch this one at allmusic.com?
A Case Against Sufjan Stevens

On a lighter note, can't you just imagine all the NME-addled brits scanning anxiously up and down the chart, genuinely puzzled over the absence of Noel Gallagher? :rolleyes:
 
Excuse me, but how can Morrissey be even on the same list as some of these artists, if he can't even play or write music?
 
David said:
Excuse me, but how can Morrissey be even on the same list as some of these artists, if he can't even play or write music?

That crossed my mind too - a great, possibly the best lyricist, but no musician. But it does say Songwriter, so perhaps we should let the right one slip in. Having said that, he appears to me to be the only non-musician on the list, so perhaps he should be grateful. I think Stephen Malkmus should have been higher on the list.

Best Wishes,

Peter
 
I agree. A fantastic lyricist and vocalist...I'm not sure if he fits in on the list. Still, I'm thrilled to see him that high. (If it had been Marr/Morrissey it may have been different.) I'm also thrilled to see Leonard Cohen at No. 6! But where is Bryan Ferry on this list?! Or Billy Corgan?

By the way, Jack White is enormously talented, to deny him a place on this list would be awful
 
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Uncleskinny said:
That crossed my mind too - a great, possibly the best lyricist, but no musician. But it does say Songwriter, so perhaps we should let the right one slip in. Having said that, he appears to me to be the only non-musician on the list, so perhaps he should be grateful. I think Stephen Malkmus should have been higher on the list.

Best Wishes,

Peter

I dunno. It can be said that being a musician doesn't necessarily make one a songwriter ,by this logic. Are all those listed above (including each member of those bands) write the lyrics as well? :confused:
If the artist only writes the music then he/she writes instrumentals not songs.
A song equals lyrics + melodies + music.

To sum up, Moz is a songwriter on the same scale of a musician who doesn't write lyrics IMO.
Besides, he is responsible for the melodies therefore the lyrics are already accompanied by a tune. :o
 
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Codreanu said:
Hey, dallow, did you catch this one at allmusic.com?
A Case Against Sufjan Stevens

On a lighter note, can't you just imagine all the NME-addled brits scanning anxiously up and down the chart, genuinely puzzled over the absence of Noel Gallagher? :rolleyes:


Actually yes, I read that yesterday! I'm used to the novelty of certain artists wearing thin.
I like that last few lines the best, likening him to a precocious high schooler, trying desperately to prove he's smarter and cooler than everyone else.

The absence of Noel is indeed funny. :)

By the way, Jack White is enormously talented, to deny him a place on this list would be awful

Yeah, I just never dug him. White Stripes, and especially not the new group or whatever he's doing.

I would have like to have seen Jad Fair on this list.
 
I really think that list misses Violeta Parra... she was the real thing... but in fact as she always sang in spanish,she won't be in any of your lists never U.u
 
That list is crap! 9 is too low for Joni Mitchell, it should be at least 3 or 4! (I think Bruce Springsteen definetly doens't deserve that place) Pink Floyd at 80?! 95 for Patti Smith?!!! They have proved again it's crap... And Morrissey should be just after Joni Mitchell...
 
If you want to be pedantic about it a song is traditionally the vocal line.

Would you call an instrumental a song? I wouldn't. It's a piece of music. It's not a song until there's a vocal.

Would you call Morrissey standing up and singing Hand in Glove acapella a "song". Of course you would.

song/sing - there's a reason the words are similar.

So Morrissey is a songwriter.
 
Jones said:
If you want to be pedantic about it a song is traditionally the vocal line.

Would you call an instrumental a song? I wouldn't. It's a piece of music. It's not a song until there's a vocal.

Would you call Morrissey standing up and singing Hand in Glove acapella a "song". Of course you would.

song/sing - there's a reason the words are similar.

So Morrissey is a songwriter.
Nice try, but you still haven't gotten around the fact that Morrissey only co-writes his songs. There has never been, to my knowledge, a Smiths or solo song without writing credits to someone else in addition to Moz. Therefore, he alone is not a songwriter on the level of, say, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
 
prisoner77 said:
I thought these people had to be alive R.I.P Sid Barrett Sam Phillips

This issue came out before Sid Barretts's death.

I thought it odd, too because when I think of Sam Phillips, I think of the Sun Records producer. The Sam Phillips they refer to is a songwriter (real name: Leslie Phillips) who was recently divorced from her husband, T-Bone Burnett.
 
Curiously, I found this issue of Paste Magazine at of all places, a newsstand at the Port Authority Bus Terminal (why is it things that you weren't really looking for so much easier to find than things you really are looking for?)

Anyway, along with the critic's choices, they also listed the Paste Reader's choices for Top 100. Morrissey charted a little higher at #53; Prince didn't even appear in the top 20, and the readers included some not even mentioned in the featured list, like Billy Bragg, Rufus Wainwright and Neil Finn.

Here is what William Bowers wrote about Morrissey. See if you can interpret this gobbledegook:

_________________

#57 Morrissey

"Irish blood, English heart, this I'm made of / There is no one on earth I'm afraid of / And I will die with both of my hands untied"

Why bother attempting to separate Morrissey the lyricist from Morrissey the meme? Life is too nasty, brutish and short. Steven Patrick's whole super-idiom is based on reckless blendings: of Wildean wit with the melodrama of a Keats cultist; of humble, other-directed story singing with status-obsessed self-mythologizing; of James Dean/rockabilly style with blousey, glam foppery; of the timeless (Joan Of Arc) with the ephemeral (her Walkman); of soggy sensitivity toward animals and the meek with murderous aggression toward DJs and the powerful; of randy flamboyance with puritanical abstinence; of andro-pop advocacy (yay New York Dolls) with andro-pop dissuasion (boo Elton John); of sagacious subtlety with cretinous bluntness.

Prancing and athletic, his insistence on his own significance -- and his ability to pen couplets defined by universal desires -- make him appealing to the most machismo-driven Manes and Mexican-Americans, as well as the prissiest. (Unfrustrated, normative boys love him, too. Not to mention the ladies.) He's intellectual cheesecake, a reactionary libertine, a solitary populist, an effete aristocrat with the heart of a dole-bound vandal. He transcends gender differentials, and milks them for all that they're worth. He's an evergreen rake, and a bit of a dinosaur -- which is no diss: what other fossil inspires such immediate awe?

Even his physiognomy -- that famous jut jaw -- suggests invulnerable defiance and a weak spot ripe for cheap shots. Throngs of emotionally over-invested fans analyze his compositions like bankers divining a Federal Reserve Chair's prophecy, and yet a compilation disc could be filled with songs defaming him :)eek:) (though The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle has retracted his, and even inscribed a copy of his zine for me with, "William, it was really nothing").

Johnny Marr apologists may bemoan how much harder-to-dance to the solo career has been, as if The Smiths' legacy isn't unassailable, but the Morrissey freed up to sermonize can be just as interesting as the Morrissey shackled to impulse (which is to say that a pulpit in a salon is just as interesting as a "Vicar In A Tutu"). Homemade topical box sets could divide his songs into numerous fascinating categories -- Shaming The Prales, or Cryptically About VD :confused: -- and still only be scratching the surface of the work of this postmodern relic, who kicked off his first post-Smiths singles collection with the lines, "Off the rails I was, and / Off the rails I was happy to stay." Get out of his way!

GET: "Ask" (with Johnny Marr, 1986), ''There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" (with Johnny Marr, 1986), "Everyday is Like Sunday" (with Stephen Street, 1988).


Well, at least Bowers avoided calling him a miserabalist! :p
 
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