Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon are among the artists recognized on The New York Times Magazine’s new list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters.
According to the mag, the list was based on feedback from more than 250 music insiders and six New York Times critics, noting that in making their picks, they decided to focus on “contemporary practitioners working in the ever-evolving tradition of the great American songbook.”
The mag describes Simon as “musically voracious, an almost obscenely gifted crafter of melodies and chord progressions and — surprisingly, perhaps — a beatmaster supreme, forever seeking new ways to syncopate his songs.”
For Dylan, they debate the idea as some have suggested that he’s the “greatest songwriter of them all,” but note that he’s “pushed back the horizons of popular music, expanding the limits of what a song could say and how it could say.”
When it comes to Springsteen, the mag points out how he’s “continued to believe in songwriting as a tool to hold his bruised, beloved country accountable.” It adds, “He takes seriously his self-appointed role as America’s conscience, its cultural ambassador and its chief firefighter, and he knows that these jobs are never done.”
Other songwriters making the list include Carole King, Lionel Richie, Diane Warren, Smokey Robinson, Nile Rodgers, Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple, Mariah Carey, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Taylor Swift.
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