I whole-heartedly agree with all the mentions of Oingo Boingo and Queen made so far. Why Danny Elfman didn’t become the biggest rock star with his voice and those songs, I’ll never understand. 'course, he’s got a pretty good thing going, already.
My contributions:
**No Doubt ** made an incredible pop album with Tragic Kingdom. While maybe not considered genuis level, this one was fun, creative, and surprisingly well-rounded. Everything since has been good, but hasn’t captured the same magic as this one.
They Might Be Giants make great pop tunes. True, not for everyone, but you can’t deny their talent when it comes to The Art of Writing the Perfect Pop Song.
Weird Al Yankovic–this man has the best job in the world. He can do whatever he wants, regardless of style, and no one will ever criticize him for ‘artistic credibility.’ He manages to not just copy another artist’s song/style(anyone can play a cover), but he manages to capture the essence of what made the original so good/popular/fun/etc. His own songwriting has improved dramatically over the years–the originals starting from the mid-90s on always blow my hair back.
Okay, I shouldn’t have said I was interested in specifically pop music. I don’t want to miss out on an artist just because he or she might not be deemed to produce pop music. I’m really just interested in finding contemporary musicians whose musical compositions are brilliant. So I guess we can feel free to expand our repertoire into other non-pop genres. And why not? Great music is great music.
By God, I’ve even been known to pop Captain Hume’s Poeticall Musicke into the CD player on occasion!
Truer words were never spoken on this board. If there was any justice in the world, XTC would have been the biggest thing since The Beatles. Damn you Richard Branson!
Let me add Rockpile to the list - Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. Both brilliant songwriters.
I guess we’re talking about quality and consistency of original song composition? I won’t duplicate others’ nominations, so I’ll just add Elvis Costello, Ian Anderson, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd era), Patti Smith, David Byrne, Elton John/Bernie Taupin, Leonard Cohen, John Fogerty, Randy Newman,
Ones I considered but rejected for various reasons like lack of diversity, lack of originality, or group rather than individual effort were Neil Young, Michael Stipe, David Bowie, The Doors, Van Morrison, Cream, Led Zeppelin.
I’m a huge Robyn fan, but I don’t necessarily think he’s a musical genius the way a lot of the artists mentioned here are. Lyrically (and stage-patter-wise), he’d definitely make the list. But I don’t think he’s all that innovative composition- or arrangement-wise. He’s great, to be sure. But I wouldn’t put him in the same league as Lennon/McCartney.
Even if we agreed on this, it does not follow that without the Beatles, none of the musicians I listed above would have written great (using the word in the OP) music. I’ll agree that many might or would have writte different music, but that’s not the same thing. And in any case, one can be influential without ‘composing truly great music’ (the OP’s words) or demonstrating ‘musical and compositional creativity and innovation’ (mine). This is where I certainly feel the Beatles fall short.
Dude, TOTALLY different thread. In fact, you should start it. I mean, Scott Walker is a musical genius in a completely different way than, say, Kenny Edmonds.
Yeah, agreed. The critics seem way to eager to show that they can appreciate popular R&B and rap. But really, the top artist and top album lists are very good. And they are the combined opinion of hundreds of professional critics, not just the random opinion of some guy on a message board.
I have myself now listened to all the top100 albums from the list, and even if I don’t personally like all of them, I can see that almost all of them are probably very good musically.
My choice would be Scott Miller, who fronted Game Theory and Loud Family. His songs are dense, wildly creative, beautiful and brainy. Never got a whiff of pop success, because he’s just too good.
Hey I’m the Soft Boys fan here* . I’ve lost touch with Hitchcock’s more recent work but I’d think you’d have trouble including him in a list of songwriting geniuses (which he’d top with Dylan, Lennon and Syd ) because of his unconventional (to say the least) lyrics, they’re just offputting to a lot of people. The general public have a limited appetite for songs about sea creatures.
So Robyn doesn’t quite make it.
Anyhoo I’d include Syd, Pete Townshend and Paul Simon(tho’ I’m not really a fan).
Some days I prefer Can of Bees to Moonlight, but basically it’s all good*
**except maybe School Dinner Blues, that’s just unnecessary.
I wouldn’t quite call him a genius, but Stew, a singer-songwriter who sometimes performs alone and sometimes with his band the “Negro Problem”, has been compared to Cole Porter for some of the witty, inventive, yet poppy melodic/lyric pieces that he sometimes puts out.