Paste's online version of the Dylan blurb I wrote for their best-living-songwriters issue back in '06 gets rid of the paragraph breaks, to the piece's detriment. So I'm reprinting here.
By the way, Dylan might well make my top ten but it was Paste who put him at the top. I'd probably have chosen Jagger-Richards (Paste's #12), or maybe Johansen-Thunders (not on their list). A still-living James Brown (#56, behind such titans as James Taylor, Sufjan Stevens, Ryan Adams, etc.) would have been in my top five and I'd have trouble defending my not ranking him number one (the designation being "best," not "favorite"). As for this decade, Timbaland and Collipark and Eminem and Simpson-Shanks-DioGuardi and Max Martin would all be contenders (none on the Paste list, of course), though for the last couple of years I'd say the spot is empty.
Whom would you guys choose?
( #1 Bob Dylan )
By the way, Dylan might well make my top ten but it was Paste who put him at the top. I'd probably have chosen Jagger-Richards (Paste's #12), or maybe Johansen-Thunders (not on their list). A still-living James Brown (#56, behind such titans as James Taylor, Sufjan Stevens, Ryan Adams, etc.) would have been in my top five and I'd have trouble defending my not ranking him number one (the designation being "best," not "favorite"). As for this decade, Timbaland and Collipark and Eminem and Simpson-Shanks-DioGuardi and Max Martin would all be contenders (none on the Paste list, of course), though for the last couple of years I'd say the spot is empty.
Whom would you guys choose?
( #1 Bob Dylan )