Many cultures believe music comes from mythical origins. There’s a mystery to the act of arranging words and sounds into something of form. But there’s also the discipline and skill behind making music. Songwriting holds a unique space occupying the magic and the craft. Here are 10 renowned contemporary artists who, if you didn’t think of them first and foremost as stellar songwriters, we wish you would.
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1. Robert Smith
The Cure excel at escapism. Robert Smith’s songwriting threads opposing forces: the heartbroken and romantic in a community of loners. His songs (“Just Like Heaven,” “Pictures of You,” “Lovesong”) are pop gems hidden under dreamscapes. Smith made goth majestic as he scraped the bottom of the barrel of desolation and somehow found beauty. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, The Cure changed how kids dressed. Smith’s songs connected with others scattered around the world who were feeling just like him.
[RELATED: 5 Songs You Didn’t Know The Cure’s Robert Smith Wrote for Other Artists]
2. Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl was introduced to most of the world via his you-better-pay-attention drum fill on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Grohl was drumming for a band who rejected mainstream rock music. Then they became the mainstream, albeit on their own terms. After Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, Grohl entered a studio to record his own songs. In one week, he’d recorded the first Foo Fighters album, playing all the instruments apart from a single guitar part. Foo Fighters have become one of the biggest bands on the planet, and Nirvana’s drummer is one of the most successful songwriters on said planet.
[AS OF THIS WRITING: Foos Tix Are Available! – Get ‘Em Right Here]
3. Trent Reznor
There’s a reason a band as punishing as Nine Inch Nails has endured: Trent Reznor is a great songwriter. Reznor finds music in the machine. Pop melodies hide in plain sight under feral sounds and thematic intellectualism. Industrial music was broadly nihilist. It had shared ideals in Marxist philosophy. But Reznor wrote from a personal perspective. Though he studied piano, he relies on modern devices to make records. He eschews tradition. He finds hooks in unlikely places. The chorus lyrics to his biggest song go a little something like this: I wanna f— you like an animal. Reznor has found a second chapter as one of the great modern film composers, but anyone paying attention to Nine Inch Nails was already aware that he was a musical genius.
4. Noel Gallagher
The first two Oasis albums are one of the best one-two punches in rock ’n’ roll history. Kurt Cobain had changed popular music in America, and Noel Gallagher did the same thing in England. “Supersonic” and “Live Forever” made stadium stars out of these working-class lads from Manchester. Then Gallagher wrote “Wonderwall,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” and “Champagne Supernova.” His early songwriting run also produced a B-sides collection called The Masterplan. Gallagher’s B-sides rival some bands’ greatest hits collections.
5. Smokey Robinson
Smokey Robinson, a pop soul poet, was a monumental part of a musical revolution in America. Motown, an independent record label out of Detroit, brought soul music to the mainstream. Robinson’s work with The Miracles (“You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” “The Tears of a Clown”) and his songwriting for other artists (“The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “My Girl,” and “My Guy”) remain a central part of the Motown sound, and thus, Americana.
[AS OF THIS WRITING: Smokey Tickets Are Available! – Get ‘Em Right Here]
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