Best lyricists and Worst Lyricists, Overated and Underated Lyricists

underrated: Kraftwerk overrated: every damn "singer-songwriter" type

One of my favourite lyricists is Jessica Griffin (Would-be-Goods). The Camera Loves Me has to be one of the wittiest albums of the '80s.

overrated: Morrissey, anybody in Belle & Sebastian.

overrated: eminem/D12

underrated: roots manuva, princess superstar.

but in a GOOD way.

A possible inverse of this is the idea that people who write unshowy 'pop' lyrics that do an unobtrusive job are underrated. I don't particularly want to agree with this, though.

Edna W likes that Morrison / Morrissey line. I want her to spring, cat-like, to its defence. (I can't.)

Mark E Smith is overrated. Luke Haines is not even worth a mention. Cocker is overrated. Albarn is, too, if anyone likes his lyrics. Gallagher isn't overrated - everyone knows he's a poor lyricist.

Hal David is - sad to say this - overrated. 'Pneumonia' != a first- class ticket to sophistication.

Stephin Merritt is accurately rated: people can see what it is that he does well, and appreciate it. He may even be underrated, in that there are nuances, relations between melody / genre / music + lyric, etc, that are not always explicitly discussed, but are a big part of why the songs work.

Lloyd Cole is underrated by people who don't think about Lloyd Cole, but possibly overrated - as a lyricist - by his fans. He's not a Great Writer like he's always wanted to be, but he is a canny placer of pop lyrics.

I can't think of anyone else who's underrated.

Except - Elvis Costello, who is the best of all lyricists who have attempted to push the envelope and make the words do a lot of work (rather than just do a functional - and perhaps excellent - job). I think that most people know that EC is a good lyricist - even people who don't like him. But I also think that even people who do like him (like me) don't often think about just how much good material he has produced, with incredible consistency.

It need hardly be said, perhaps, that lyrics are only part of a pop song; and a whole other vista of judgment might, possibly open up when you think about the lyrics more in context(s), less in isolation.

worstest - jeez, I dunno. Bad or mundane lyrics are the norm. 'Castles in the Sky' is an obvious recent offender. I can't stand that 'Wasting my time, In the waiting line' couplet from the song of that name by Zero 7. Which waiting line for god's sake? GRRRR. Horrid coffeetable music. nasty.

Overrated: Patti Smith, Lou Reed.

Underrated: Colin Moulding, Green Gartside, Ludacris, and whoever wrote Barry Ryan's "Eloise".

underrated: Dickon Edwards

Q: I don't buy your line on Costello - he's not about darkness / melancholy.

But what you say about the Boss is compelling. I really dig this unreliable narrator idea. Great stuff; great to see someone sticking up for the Boss, who's one of my faves.

Definitely most over-rated is Bob Dylan (not sure if we've had him yet). Underrated: Paul Buchanan?

I liked Costello more as a teenager than I do now. Which may also prove Dave's point. As fer Radiohead, I just like the music and really couldn't care less about the words.

And whoever called Syd Barrett an underrated lyricist is also 100% right -- Dave Gilmour once said that had Barrett not lost his shit he would have beaten Ray Davies at his own game, and I believe it.

I agree with David. Anyways, I like his lyrics for what they are. (I feel the same way about Ride.) Didn't he write those three albums over a relatively short span of time? Maybe it's not just the impression of youth and inexperience (cf. e.g. Catcher in the Rye, Portrait of the Artist...), but given that many people seem to think that pop music is tied to one's youth, I'm surprised that allowances aren't made. For a songwriter with an extended career, of course, it's different. I think Mrs. Welthorpe has criticized Lloyd Cole for writing the same songs over and over. I don't agree: he still writes the same way (if anything, his lyrics have become less obtrusive), but what he writes about has changed. With his songwriting style, he had to go with realism (in reference to the paragraph from Tom's Smile article quoted on that thread). He has managed to switch to writing about "real life" but with less drama. (I don't think that what's not real is shallow, but maybe Tom wasn't using the word pejoratively.) On Etc., I particularly like the lyric to 'Another Lover'.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle are underrated. I agree with what Dave225 said about Chrissie Hynde. Leonard Cohen may be overrated by people who like him, but he has plenty of detractors.

I'll second that one.

"I could picture you, girl, in a bath... naked at my crib, girl, what's up?"

"All the ladies in the place, if you've got big breasts, come over to my place, we could play chess!"

I think Thom Yorke is actually overrated. I skip "Airbag" everytime I listen to OK Computer because of that horrid "I'm back to save the universe" line. God awful.

I think Neil Young is justly rated, for what it's worth.

Stan Ridgway
Tom Waits
Nick Saloman (of the Bevis Frond)
Roy Montgomery -- Only 'cause he hardly ever sings. His 'pop' singles are well worth hunting down.
Kate Bush -- Just overlooked, i suspect, due to the forefronting of her studio technique. Though some of the lyrics on her later releases struck me as kinda dire.
Michael Stipe -- Well, he was severely underrated until you could hear what he was saying, when he immediately swung hard in the other direction (at least for me, he did).

Overrated:

Dunno. Don't pay enough attention to most lyricists to really get a feel of who is and isn't revered to get worked up about it.

Overrated: Bob Fuckin' Dylan

i didn't realise nick drake's lyrics were highly regarded, but if so, he is certainly overrated. richey edwards is overrated, although maybe not on ILM. Jason Pierce is fucking awful, i'm not sure how highly regarded he is, but he's certainly at least a tad overrated.

Kobain: even rated?

Drake: other people will tell you otherwise because he's a stuffy bore but Ian McDonald's "Exiled from Heaven" is a good atomisation of Drake's lyrics. Also, search Marcello's personal CoM piece.

Underrated: Lee Renaldo, Graham Smith, Marvin Gaye

underrated: definitely Richard Thompson, also Warn Defever of HNIA.

I think Billy Corgan is justly rated.

Eno is an underrated lyricist...the words on "Tiger Mountain" always struck me as very nice indeed.

Sir Mack Rice was good. Actually I always liked Chris Kenner as a lyricist in a nice self-referential and folkloric kinda way...at least as good as Ray Davies, cf. "They Took Money" and "Packing Up"...

Swamp Dogg wrote some nice words, "Understanding California Women" has some good lines.

All the usual guys, Dylan, Lennon, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed, Paul Simon--the people who used to be anthologized in all "rock is poetry" books...they had their moments. I prefer the soul guys myself.

That would be Luke Haines, listed among my favourite lyricists. All the innuendos in "The Art of Driving" are such utterly cheesy Carry On-type fare, that the whole thing is funny as hell.

Underrated: Bryan Ferry, Chuck Berry, Otis Redding, Curtis Mayfield, David Byrne.

Lou Reed is both: He wrote virtually no bad lyrics while in the Velvet Underground and virtually no good ones afterward.

Underrated: Robyn Hitchcock, Tod [A]shley

Overrated: Damon Albarn (frankly just Ray Davies/Difford-Tillbrook/et al riffing; not a personal voice in lyric writing, just going along with nostalgic ideas of Britain... c.f. all of 'The Great Escape' and most of 'Parklife'), Morrissey (in the sense of his latter year solo career, where he cannot help but re-tread... otherwise, he's a fine lyricist, but overpraised next to many... his influences of Wilde and Delagney are worn on the sleeve, but certainly well applied), Michael Stipe (can be evocative, yet too often unimpressively 'cryptic' & completely unspecific without clues... can also be sentimental in a bad way sometimes), John Lennon (not a bad lyricist, but his main gifts were singing and simply effective compositions).

Certainly not Overrated: Dylan... the man is irreprochable frankly, and I am no sort to hold a candle for any 'Rockism' or canonisation.
I am not saying every Dylan lyric is majestic, yet he manages it so often... 'Love and Theft' and 'Time Out Of Mind' took me aback by how much he seems to have left today... 'TOOM' contains lyrics like 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' and 'Not Dark Yet' particularly that blow me away; the man is rock/pop music's bard... a wise old wordsmith of incomparable experience and feeling for words. 'Highlands' was a masterly reflection on age and ailment that harks back to his early narrative pieces like those on 'Another Side of...' (His vocals were the most imposing they had ever been, as well, in TOOM) 'L&T' took me aback as being a Dylan album truly countenancing unabashed levity (well, 'Self Portrait' and 'Nashville Skyline' certainly fit this, as well as some early folk songs) and the man came across as winningly genial and in autumnal reflection upon matters sublime and absurd. And this is just the material of a man past 55... I wonder if any lyricist has written more words than Dylan... and he is up with the best for the choosing and ordering of all those words...

underrated: Van Dyke Parks, Robyn Hitchcock, Tom Rapp, Will Oldham

oh, and for the rekkohd...
Thom Yorke and Nick Drake...TOTALLY fuggin' overrated

Hahahhahahhaha. I knew you would say that.

best: meat puppets and elvis costello, mike patton, jon brion

overrated: stephen malkmus except on the phantasies ep

underrated: spazz

and in hip hop..

overrated: eminem/D12

underrated: roots manuva, princess superstar.

em can't be overrated because he is a genius. d12 maybe, but they're funny at least sometimes. i don't think anyone rates them too highly?
PRINCESS SUPERSTAR?! that's like listing paul barman. novelty humor rap is mediocre and generally rated as such. roots manuva is listenable, that's about it, and gets that much respect from critics have a grasp of rap music.

and in hip hop...

overrated: roots manuva, kool keith, antipop, black thought, everyone on anticon and rhymesayers except eyedea

underrated: odb though he may have lost his ability to speak, jay dee, dice raw

Best lyricist currently operating: Joe Pernice, by a country mile.

There's something about Kim Gordon's that makes me want to bash her head in.

I might catch some grief for this, but i think travis morrisson from the dismemberment plan has some great lyrics. some of the more emo songs I can do without but 'ice of boston' 'do the standing still' etc are good times..

BUCKLE MY SHOE???!

Whow rote this? A nine year-old?

WTF?!!

Hardly the best of all lyricists.

Whow rote this? A nine year-old?

I think you are making a "category mistake," using criteria intended for use in one field to judge an object residing in another. For surely this is not from one of the Maestro's myriad rock projects or jazz projects or classical projects, but rather from a "children's music" project.

I always liked Dylan's folk-period lyrics better than his most lauded stuff. I can't really get into the hyper-allegorical mystifying lyrics once he went rock. I still like the songs, but I prefer to be able to figure out what's going on in a song without needing a cipher.

Did anyone mention Mick Jagger as underrated, lyrics-wise? Some of those songs actually have pretty good words, for example "Gimme Shelter," "Salt of the Earth," even "Get Off of My Cloud."

overrated: Joni Mitchell much of the time, John Lennon in the Beatles

Still, this is speaking as someone who thinks he's one of the best songwriters working today.

1.Roy Orbison. Most underrated singer-songwriter ever. Much more than Pretty Woman. In Dreams, Borne on the Wind, Pretty One, Blue Bayou, Only The Lonely, I'll Say It's My Fault, Indian Wedding, Blue Angel ---- if you haven't heard them, please do yourself a favor and listen.
The way he could turn even an elementarilly simple lyric and pull all of the power and emotion that hung inside was sheer genius. Their is no substitute for Orbison. He's Elvis for wallflowers.

2.Mac Macannaly

3.Steve Earle. But I've only heard four songs (Copperhead Road, Guitar Town, Jerusalem, and The Devil's Right Hand - by The Highwaymen)

4.Merle Haggard. He's not as hokie as some might think. Maybe a little 'wrap around the flag', but what's wrong with patriotism?

5.OutKast. Can't agree with a lot of it (can agree with a lot of it, too) but they're trying to say something. They do something other hip-hop artists don't. Create ART. They carry on the experimental traditions of rap's mother genre, funk, to new levels of sophistication. Other rappers sample other rappers. OutKast samples Rogers And Hammerstein. By leaps and bounds, the veritable Beatles of rap.

6. George Harrison, at his best. Taxman, Old Brown Shoe, All Things Must Pass, While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Don't agree with his philosophies, even in some of the lyrics, but his was master songcrafting when it was on.

7. Marvin Gaye. Get What's Goin' On, if you don't already. 75% of the songs are classically well written. Save the Children is a little trite, and love is not God (although God is Love), but What's Happenin' Brother, Flyin' High In The Freindly Sky; all wonderful. It doesn't hurt matters that the production job on Inner City Blues is years ahead of its time is terms of sound quality.

8. Lynnard Skynnard. A little rowdy for my tastes, but Simple Man is better than either Freebird and Sweet Home Alabama. And who hasn't heard those songs?

9. Steve Martin. OKAY, I know he's not a lyricist. But anyone who can play the banjo like that while doing a decent job as a poor man's Woody Allen deserves at least a little underrated credit.

10. Paul McCartney.

Overrated

1. Coldplay. Great musicians, though.

2. Eminem. This is not the voice of lower middle class white america.
It's the voice of a tortured soul who needs Jesus Christ, no matter how hokie that seems. Some of his stuff is thought provoking, but I've met white lower class america. They're some of my best freinds. Jim Croce, Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash--- these guys do a much better job of filling the role of their spokesperson.

3. Jagger/Ricards. The difference between the Stones and the Beatles
is the difference between materialism and the human story. Humanity wins. If the Beatles had just left Alestre Crowley off of Sgt. Pepper's cover(and put Ghandi on instead, as Lennon suggested) I'd call it the best album ever. But they didn't, so I'll have to go with Willie Nelson's Stardust.

4. Almost all pop-country singers today. They betray country music, bluegrass, folk, southern rock, and southern Gospel in much the way many rappers betray soul, funk, rock, and raggae.

5. Jackson Browne. I mean, he's ok, but, why listen to Browne when you've got Bruce?

6. Bono. I like U2, but Bono has moments where i just go 'okay, that was nice, but i've heard you better.' Kind of like Paul McCartney. It's either great or just okay.

You know there's a lot that you said that's wrong here, and we've debated a lot of it to death so I'll just start with the simple: Rap's mother genre is not funk. I guess it's influenced by funk and there's a lot of funk samples, but it really came more out of DJ toasting from Jamaican culture.

Also, you think Coldplay are good musicians.

Because their songs aren't even remotely similar?

"What became of the working class?/ Nike Air, Reebok, Adidas/ Pitbulls, scratchcards, ecstacy/Hooray for the 21st century...

Bob Dylan- Good lyricist? Yes. Best ever? Don't think so. Maybe I just don't get it.

Bono- Also decent, but he gets too much credit. He is just a salient artist making bold, political claims, hence, all of the attention.

Kurt Cobain- Another example of a pop star getting a little too much credit. Never said too much that I would call "profound."

Underrated:

Robert Plant- It's not all "Hey Hey Mama" stuff. Especially when you get into his solo career. Check his album "Fate of Nations" if you haven't already.

Chris Cornell- I've enjoyed him through Soundgarden, in his solo career and in Audioslave. He is very keen when it comes to describing emotions of desperation.

Just Straight Up Amazing:

Freddy Mercury

On a final note, I really like Dave Mustaine, but I don't think I'd put him in an elite category.

Axl Rose
Madonna

I'm surprised that wasn't already said.

Man, if great lyrics were food, I could subsist for years on the lines those two have written. And that's my awkward metaphor for the day.

"Lying in the carpet when we're feeling close knit
deeply eternal like a secret sanskrit
bodies twitching, so bewitching
it's a fact that I react everytime that we make contact
feel'n free like grafitti
fall asleep with paradise dreams of tahiti"

best: katy davidson (dear nora), worst: i don't know -- thurston moore?, most overrated: blake schwarzenbach, most underrated: daniel johnston

Underrated: Ian Brown
Overrated: Morissey

Worst: Without a shade of doubt that guy from the Scorpions. Hilarious.

Louis OTM about Matt Johnson, btw. So under-rated that I completely forgot he existed, but, yes, he's good.

The most underrated lyricist must be Clark Datchler of 80s band Johnny Hates Jazz. The band are seen as sort of throwaway by most "experts", but the guys did in fact write some truly great lyrics.

I love Geir.

I'd like to say Sting is an underrated lyricist. He has taken a lot of negativity for his "politically correct" lyrics, but I am still a big fan of the statements in lyrics such as "Russians" and "They Dance Alone". He was right, after all.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, November 22, 2004

WTF?!?

Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I still believe the Russians don't love their children like we do.

indeed. and, now that i think about it, how can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer's deadly toy?

(that would make more sense if i had a son, instead of a daughter. but sting's lyrics work in mysterious ways)

Underrated: Mike Watt and D. Boon

These guys were unique in their language, their subjects, their ability to be serious and goofball and poetic and conversational simultaneously. Watt has kept it up on the solo albums--the way the multiple layers of narrative on Contemplating the Engine Room weave together is all kinds of amazing.

Underrated: Pete Loeffler (Chevelle), Maynard James Keenan (TOOL), Keith Buckly (Every Time I Die), James Mercer (The Shins)
Overrated: Bob Dylan

*Keith Buckley

james mercer is, in fact, quite properly rated, at least by me, as a bit shite

dudes in dillinger four, against me!

are underrated, I mean

i wouldnt call buckley underrated because people that listen metalcore (?) seem to really love his stuff and its not that larger audiences think his lyrics suck, they just arent familiar with them

Best: Peter Hammill.

Best: Tom Waits
Worst: Manu Chao
Overrated: Robert Smith
Underrated: Jackson C. Frank

I suppose the proper term for buckley would be "overlooked" then and it's mainly because of the genre I think. His lyrics are pretty incredible though. I think everyone, even if they don't like the style of music, should read the lyrics. I think james mercer has some amazing lyrics. If you really look for a deeper meaning it is there, rather than other abstract lyricists. (Jon Mess, Jonny Craig's Dance Gavin Dance work). I don't know the guy's name but the guy who does lyrics for Brand New is quite good as well. I kinda find the underrated/overrated thing meaningless actually except for the really highly praised lyricists who are often overrated (BOB FUCKING DYLAN)

And killah priest, yeah they are metalcore with a touch of southern rock influence. But I still find it amazing that even though Keith Buckley is an amazing lyricist the band name is so horrid.

Underrated: Gary Numan
Overrated: Thom Yorke (I love Radiohead, BTW)

Agree with Waits as a suggestion for best.

Dylan almost seems kinda overrated to me. May be just because his exaggerated use of symbolism makes his lyrics kinda hard to follow.

Never paid any attention to Dylan's lyrics as I find his music pretty boring.

Glen Johnson of Piano Magic is underrated.

his exaggerated use of symbolism makes his lyrics kinda hard to follow.

That phase only lasted a couple years and a few albums out of a 50-year career.

Those albums were musically amongst his very best though.

But, sure, I do agree "Saved" wasn't very symbolic. It wasn't any lyrically good either though....

chap, man. dylan's music is the best thing about him. eg the gypsy-glam stuff on live 1975.

Sorry, tried stuff from a few of his eras, and it just doesn't grab me. Think I'm allergic to his voice or something.