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TopTen Current Singer/Songwriters

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Well here we go in no paticular order except Bob of course at no1. Bob Dylan,Tom McRae, Stephen Malkus, Mark E , Elliot Smith, Ron Sexsmith, PJ Harvey, Badly Drawn Boy, Lucinda Williams, Mark Linkous

― Kiwi, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark E= Are you talking abt Mark E smith. If you are then he is NOT a singer songwriter as the fall are a band (though I'm sure he's released solo stuff).

The rest= bo-ring.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sorry Im meant E as in the dude from the Eels,and yeah he only writes all the music, does all the singing, most of the playing(not drums), and all of the producing of his songs. Bo-ring,fair enough i guess my tastes are fairly mainstream , why dont you enlighten me with your wisdom oh guru (or am I not worthy?) and give us a few names...

― kiwi, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Names= Keiji haino search 'Affection' and 'Watashi Dake' as examples of the man's greatness.

Daimanda Galas as well.

The 'problem' has to be that they are too mainstream as in they just deal with songs whereas say Haino and diamanda pervert the song. They are not that straight. i must stress with diamnda I've only heard Screi X so I talk abt her in relation to that.

I liked Bob dylan when he went electric actually and I like his delivery too.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Tom Waits. maybe not "current" enough, but NO one other than dylan and perhaps pre-90s leonard cohen even belongs on the same stage... lucinda williams is not bad but the 2 or 3 live performances i've seen of her were uninspired

― Phong Wiedermeier, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Grand Salvo. A Melbourne performer. His album "1642-1727" you would not regret seeking out. Nick Drake meets Leonard Cohen meets Damon Gough.

― electric sound of jim, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

tom- did you get my '102 beats that' entry?

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Richard Thompson
Pat Fish
Robert Forster
Lloyd Cole

..Stuck in an "old school - but not old in the real sense, but old in the sense that none of them are new" mode.

― Dave225, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

NERD

― Bob Zemko, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

KEN STRINGFELLOW. his solo stuff is so slept on (and so fucking good) it isn't even funny.

and i just would not have Linkous on the list. i love his records, but he doesn't come to mind as a great 'singer/songwriter'. or Eels for that matter...i enjoy some of those records in spite of that guy's songwriting.

― al, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mark E. Smith IZ TOO a singer songwriter.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Robbie Fulks
Dolly Parton
Momus
Stuart Murdoch
( i know in a badn but hey)
Bob Dylan
Loretta Lynn
Ben Folds

― anthony, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ten who more or less fit the trad definition:
Amy Annelle
Graeme Downes
Bill Fox
Will Oldham
Edith Frost
Patrick Phelan
Stephen Duffy
Pedro the Lion
Kristin Hersh
East River Pipe

A few who stretch it:
Stephin Merritt
Cornelius
Momus
Eric Sanko
David Pajo
Takako Minekawa

I also like Dylan and Waits, the bo-ring Elliott Smith and Ron Sexsmith, plus the bo-ring Aimee Mann.

― Curt, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Outside of the bleep-bloop trappings, I can't think of many folks that are MORE traditionally singer/songwriterly than Stephen Merritt. (Does tradition = acoustic guitar troubadour? adherance to narrative structures? fancy lyricism? roots in blues / country / folk? Woody Guthrie?)

My entries (made w/ varying degrees of confidence): Bill Callahan (Smog), Franklin Bruno, Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide), Eric Bachmann (Crooked Fingers), Chan Marshall (Cat Power), David Kilgour, Ted Leo, Joe Pernice, etc. I reserve the right to include Kurt Wagner & Gillian Welch (& perhaps even Josh Rouse) at a later date.

― Daver, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Rufus Wainwright certainly should be up there, and David Garza, Tom Waits, Lyle Lovett, Arto Lindsay, Caetano Veloso, Carlinhos Brown, Joe Henry, the Jayhawks, definitely Neil Finn--not his last awful album though. Ron Sexsmith is great though--what an amazing songwriter. Womenside, Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Fiona Apple, Sam Phillips. They may not be super-exciting-cool, but they got the goods.

― Mickey Black Eyes, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'Current': Elvis is still top, just about. But Lloyd is as good as ever.

I have a feeling that Merritt may be almost all written out, but this could be totally wrong - just the result of his having done so much so quickly already. (They do tend to dry up...)

― the pinefox, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Kurt Wagner is a bunch of crap. His band can play but he can't write songs for toffee. That's the main problem with that band.

Ron Sexsmith is sadly uninspired. As said before, his name is the best thing about him. I wish he was better than he is.

― the pinefox, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Outside of the bleep-bloop trappings, I can't think of many folks that are MORE traditionally singer/songwriterly than Stephen Merritt

I only meant in that he often has others do the singer part. Momus is even less right for my "stretch def" list, which was merely an excuse for going over ten. And damn you for beating me to David Kilgour!

― Curt, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

No mention of Willie Nelson? Dearie me.

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

victoria williams / david pajo / will oldham / mark olson / jason molina / tim rutili / kelly joe phelps / gillian welch / stephin merrit / jim o'rourke / howe gelb / bill callahan / john darnielle / sam phillips / beck hansen

― olly 360, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Willie Nelson, ehhh you are the weakest link goodbye. Glad to see Neil Young/Lou Reed fans have woken up Nice one with Kilgour getting a mention, as with fellow Kiwi Neil Finn, others from downunder who go ok - Don McGlashanan, Chris Knox and Paul Kelly Really thought someone would mention Ryan Adams?

― kiwi, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The pinefox talks rubbish. God, I'm going back and I'm feeling drunk on Sainsbury's Cava and Bailey's but I can remember making some gross generalisations about mediocrity and popularity and the pinefox smugly pointing this out on Sinister and I might be thinking about this when disagreeing with him but, ahh, fuck it. Lambchop are the new MBV and when I sober up I'm going to explain this: please someone put me under duress to explain this, send me e-mails (0006335h@student.gla.ac.uk) so I can explain this. They are. God, I can't think right now, but alls I know is they are. It's oblique but they are. Sorry pinefox.

― powertonevolume, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And Ron, lay off Ron. I'm not sure I can explain this one but I might try. And also Ryan Adams: he's misunderstood. Fuck it hurts, has anyone ever loved someone and totally understood him and saw that he is utterly brilliant but everyone else isn't willing to try and just wrote off that person due to his over-whelming popularity on the back of his faux-sincerity or something? Have you, it hurts so much, I shouldn't care so much about music, but I guess music is the only thing that I truly care for, that and my girlfriend. Oh, fuck, sorry pinefox.

― powertonevolume, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Lambchop are the new MBV

They play one chord for half an hour at brain-punishing volume live? Dude.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nah that's not it, I wish I could tell you now Ned but I can't. But I will. :-)

― powertonevolume, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

...has anyone ever loved someone and totally understood him and saw that he is utterly brilliant but everyone else isn't willing to try...

yeah and he's so cute and I know I just know he kisses so good and his hair! I just love his messy haircut oh Ryan RYAN!!!

― Sean, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Brilliant, patronise the drunk guy. Well done, very clever.

― powertonevolume, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

All right, read it over, the quote you choose and the reply supplied fit in an squirmingly uncomfortable manner: it was badly phrased, sorry. I've not been out the house in 3 weeks and thus a few drinks tonight has sent me off the edge and resulted in me phrasing these thoughts that I have in an awkward and amateur way. I can but apologise.

― powertonevolume, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i mentioned this before but it seems odd that stephin merrit's solo album has received almost no attention here. there seemed to be loads of people on his wagon before, why the change? i have heard two songs from the album the stunning 'maria maria' and the silly 'ukelele song'. david scott deserves to be in the top ten, surely.

― keith, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

mason jennings.

― tyler, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Enrique Iglesias.

― Ally, Friday, 15 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this will get me laughed at but fuck it: Dean Wareham (Luna)

― M Matos, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Someone wants to diss Willie Nelson and give props to Ryan Adams? What fresh hell is this???

― Andrew L, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Pinefox is OTM abt Lambchop, btw, but he neglected to mention the horrible singing as well...

― Andrew L, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that's why you've got to see lambchop live. to see this tall, square-jawed, semi-muscular dude with a baseball cap -- who looks like he'd rather be watching football -- doing a sensitive falsetto is beyond classic. great stuff, but i def. don't see the mbv connection.

― geeta, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My top five Freedy Johnson. Tom Barman. Will Oldham (occasionally). George Michael. Mark Linkous.

― Nathalie, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

william arthur from the band glide was favorite songwriter ever

― jesse, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Andrew chill, of cousre Willie is the man but current, I dont think so. As for Adams I was just surprsied

― kiwi, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Perhaps the Lambchop/MBV thing is down to the records becoming ever more lush, layered and detailed. All that traditional instrumentation and verse-chorus-verse abstracted into the haze.

Whether Wagner is a great songwriter or not is too difficult a question for me to answer; he certainly does something that forms the basis for all the rich ornamentation the rest of 'em pile on top. Whether what he does can be measured against the efforts of others who allow their work to go out into the world with less clobber on, I've no idea. I'm always a bit suspicious of "ah, but take away all that [whatever] and what's left isn't up to scratch" arguments. I do like his voice and his odd little phrases.

I think I'll always be more persuaded by someone's ability to make a good record (Lambchop do this), than write a good song, perhaps because I'm a bit more confident of my abilities in spotting the former. I often can't tell whether the latter's had much bearing on my perception of the former. It involves a certain quantity of 'drilling-down'. Am I making sense?

Wagner's not that tall though. Taller than Merritt, obv.

― Michael Jones, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Joni Mitchell Lyle Lovett Tracey Chapman Bruce Cockburn Jonatha Brooke Neil Finn David Poe Duncan Sheik Dar Williams David Grey

― brian, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That cat from "Sadie Love"

― Jim Hargraves, Saturday, 16 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two words: Don Lennon

― Jay, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)


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