The Great Eight

Take a look at this:

Great Songwriters: Who Are They, and Why Haven't There Been Any for the Past 20 Years? 

I just stumbled upon this very well reasoned and detailed blog post about songwriters, by Evert Cilliers (aka Adam Ash). Cilliers comes to the conclusion that there are only 8 great songwriters in the 20th century (Paul McCartney, Richard Rodgers, John Lennon, Jerome Kern, Bob Dylan, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin), but 200 almost-great ones, and no great ones writing today. I find his reasoning interesting, and agree with most of it. To get his "great eight" he focuses on quantity as much as quality.

With that reasoning, you can understand why McCartney and Rodgers come out on top. It makes perfect sense and it's tough to disagree with that. But this approach also relegates many worthy songwriters to the almost-great 200 list. For example, he looks at Jimmy Webb's output, finds only a half-dozen great songs, and says that's that. Now, I'd look at Webb's output and find a dozen great ones, but the quanity qualification still holds; Webb hasn't written near as many memorable tunes as Paul McCartney or George Gershwin or Irving Berlin.

Where Cilliers fails, IMHO, is with Bob Dylan and Burt Bacharach. He looks at Dylan and sees dozens and dozens of great songs. I look at Dylan and, while recognizing his tremendous influence he had on songwriting in the 1960s and beyond, only see a dozen or so truly great songs that have made it into the public consciousness. I have to look at the music as well as the lyrics, and Dylan is more of a lyricist than a composer. Also, even though the poster might like a large number of Dylan tunes, not that many (again, probably about a dozen) have made it into the lexicon and are well known to the general public.

Bacharach, on the other hand, truly is a great composer. (Not a lyricist, of course.) His melodies are legendary, he writes songs you can hum and remembers days and years later. And I can name several dozen Bacharach tunes that everybody and their brother knows, many more than I can name from Bob Dylan. Based on this combination of quantity and quality, that would put him in the great eight for me -- bumping Dylan, unfortunately.

But these are quibbles. I find this an interesting way to evaluate the songwriters of the 20th century, and admire the poster for comparing both pre- and post-rock songwriters, which is seldom done. You really can't argue much with his choices.

Anyone care to chime in?