NYT List of 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters is Trolling Us

[LinkedMusicians]

When I saw the NY Times list of “The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters,” it was clear to me that they were trolling us with the intention of making this go viral. And it worked. They excluded Donald Fagan, Billy Joel, Jimmy Webb, Randy Newman, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Jackson Browne…

Bad Bunny, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Fiona Apple, and Babyface, made the list. I get why Taylor Swift is there. She’s incredibly popular, but she sticks to cliches lyrically and musically and part of their stated criteria is to list songwriters that don’t do that. I think that she’s capable of being a very good songwriter, but she’s not interesting that when she can crank out cliches and make half a billion. I think the list was created to get buzz. It also seemed to focus on pop culture influence, not great songwriters.

Rick Beato does a good job of expressing how I feel about the list:

Here’s the NY Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/magazine/greatest-american-songwriters-alive.html

 

What do you think?

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11

[fretman]

Great video! Thank you for sharing.

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1

[joegyork]

They missed out Richard Shindell!

1

[fretman]

Very nice! I’ll have to research him more.

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11

[LinkedMusicians]

@joegyork Do you have any other American songwriters you think should be on the lists. It’s about ones that have a huge influence. I think, for folk, James Taylor should absolutely be on the list. It’s ridiculous that he’s not. Jimmy Webb and Billy Joel are two others where I think it’s completely ridiculous that they were snubbed.

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[MagicRuss]

Too many people whose songs I don’t know and a lot of people I disagree with.  But whether you agree or disagree with the songwriting choices, sometimes their choices of representative songs didn’t make the case.

They listed OutKast as a songwriter but their 5 best don’t include “Roses” or “Hey Ya”?

Mariah Carey – They listed “Fantasy”, which is just her singing over “Genius of Love”.  Not exactly my idea of great songwriting.

I agree with most of what Beato said, but I really dislike Ryan Tedder.  He’s definitely part of the Axis of Axis Progression Abusers.  The other thing I disagree with him on is I don’t think all the bands he mentioned were great songwriting bands.  For example I would have listed Styx as a great songwriting band before AIC or GNR.  The same could be said for Grand Funk.

Bob Seger wrote more than a few great songs, as did Henley/Frey.  Jack Antonoff is no stranger to today’s pop charts, neither is Dan Wilson.  Jeff Tweedy wrote songs that created a subgenre.  Paul Westerberg wrote some great songs and was also hugely influential.

Finally any list of great American songwriters that includes Lana Del Rey but leaves out John Fogerty just sucks.

 

 

 

[MagicRuss]

And don’t forget Ben Folds.

1

[LinkedMusicians]

On MagicRuss said

And don’t forget Ben Folds.

Great add. I’m 100 percent with you. But I have to acknowledge, it didn’t hit me until you brought it up. I tended to think about writers like Billy Joel and Randy Newman from an even earlier generation. Folds is superb. He has the right combination of knowing how to write a great song, tell a great story, and has a style that’s unique — which isn’t easy to do.

On a related note, I think Ben Folds 5 was the absolute most perfect combination of musicians possible for his music. I don’t recall their names, but I have a concert DVD of the band and it’s just perfect. Every note. It’s one of those great three-piece bands, but I don’t see people bringing them or Ben up at a level I think all of them deserve. Kudos for a worthy add.

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[LinkedMusicians]

On MagicRuss said

Too many people whose songs I don’t know and a lot of people I disagree with.  But whether you agree or disagree with the songwriting choices, sometimes their choices of representative songs didn’t make the case.

They listed OutKast as a songwriter but their 5 best don’t include “Roses” or “Hey Ya”?

Mariah Carey – They listed “Fantasy”, which is just her singing over “Genius of Love”.  Not exactly my idea of great songwriting.

I agree with most of what Beato said, but I really dislike Ryan Tedder.  He’s definitely part of the Axis of Axis Progression Abusers.  The other thing I disagree with him on is I don’t think all the bands he mentioned were great songwriting bands.  For example I would have listed Styx as a great songwriting band before AIC or GNR.  The same could be said for Grand Funk.

Bob Seger wrote more than a few great songs, as did Henley/Frey.  . Jack Antonoff is no stranger to today’s pop charts, neither is Dan Wilson.  Jeff Tweedy wrote songs that created a subgenre.  Paul Westerberg wrote some great songs and was also hugely influential.

Finally any list of great American songwriters that includes Lana Del Rey but leaves out John Fogerty just sucks.

I am with you on Fry, Seger, Dan Wilson — who I’ve met and chatted with and is a really cool guy (we talked about songwriting and our mutual appreciation for Carole King) and others you mentioned. I thought some of the choices, like Mariah Carey or Lana Del Ray were really poorly reasoned — and it’s nothing to do with genre, it’s about the quality of work and influence it’s had

On a light note, I think a lot of folks here know Dave Kerzner, either as someone in the industry or as an acquaintance. I’ve known Dave more than 20 years. So, I look at Facebook on phone over breakfast and the first thing I see is Dave commenting — all fired up — on the NYT’s post by the author of the original list on why Billy Joel isn’t a good enough songwriter to make the list (the argument was that he lacks versatility and his songs are all in a similar vein; the author expresses the opinion in a really insulting manner that is sure to tick off Joel’s fans. I thought I didn’t realize Dave was such a huge Joel fan, and there’s no doubt about that from his post. I would absolutely easily consider Billy Joel one of the greatest living American songwriters and one of the greatest American pop songwriters of all time. I wouldn’t go as far as Dave and call for the writer’s termination, but I do understand his passion and agree, Joel should not only be on that list, he deserves to be near the top of fhe list if it was according to the body of work of the songwriter.

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