I love music. It's my favorite form of entertainment, and artistic expression. I have a pretty varied taste in music ranging from rock, blues and jazz, to classical, flamenco, even a little (very little) hip-hop and just about anything in-between. Today I want to cover some of my favorite songwriters. This list, like all my other lists, is in no particular order.
Bob Dylan. You can't have a credible songwriter list without putting Dylan on it. He is the best songwriter of our time period, and quite possibly any time period. You would be hard pressed to find any musician or band who wasn't influenced by Bob Dylan, either directly or indirectly.
Bradley Nowell. Nowell is one of the most underrated songwriters ever. He is a rarity in which nearly every song he wrote was fantastic, with very few, if any, bad songs. I understand that not everyone is into
Sublime and their type of music, but if you can look at it from an unbiased, open-minded perspective, I'm sure you would agree with me.
Jeff Buckley. Not many people even know that this guy ever existed, which is kind of astonishing to me. It may be due to the fact that he only recorded one studio album,
Grace. Almost everyone has heard his remake of
Hallelujah, in various films and television shows, although they may not even know it. Even though he only produced one album it was ranked by
NME as the 23rd greatest album ever.
Jimi Hendrix. Of course I put Hendrix on this list, he's my favorite guy ever. To refrain from rambling on about Hendrix for too long, I will just say that he is probably the most innovative force in rock music. If you don't believe me then go listen to
Machine Gun.
Neil Young. Another folk/rock musician. From Buffalo Springfield, to Crazy Horse, To CSNY, and his solo work. Neil Young consistently puts out excellent music, not only lyrically, but musically as well. He was even dubbed the "Godfather of Grunge".
Roger Waters. Waters is the Mad Scientist of rock music. He was the driving force behind the post-Barrett
Pink Floyd, with albums like
Dark Side of the Moon, and
The Wall, and so forth. He draws from his darkness within to create these thematic masterpieces. It's even become a "cool thing" to wear
Pink Floyd shirts, even if you know next to nothing about the band. By the way, it's not cool. If you do this, then you are a douche bag.
Johann Sebastian Bach. Not to be confused with that asshole from that shitty 80's buttrock band. While Bach probably wouldn't be considered innovative. He built upon the pre existing musical structure, and paved the way for a lot of artist to come after him.
Bob Marley. Marley is usually know (often ignorantly) for his marijuana use. Which is a shame, because he was an amazing songwriter. Marley liked to write songs about peace and love. But he also wrote political songs, and songs about internal conflict and struggle. I find it disturbing that so many people think Eric Clapton wrote "I Shot the Sheriff". He didn't, it was Marley damnit!
Ok, that's most of the ones that I could think of off the top of my head. I left a lot of great ones out, mainly because some were more "group efforts" rather than individual efforts, Led Zeppelin for example. Please refrain from leaving "hey you forgot _____" posts. Instead please let me know some of your own favorite songwriters, group, individual, or otherwise.
