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March 28, 2024, 08:53:09 AM

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Effortless pop songwriters

Started by Nice Relaxing Poo, August 11, 2019, 10:28:06 PM

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I'm talking about people who just seem to know how to craft a tune, even their filler stuff is still nicely put together and hummable or singalong. With these people, only their very best songs are acknowledged when even the cast offs are very competent and would make any budding songwriter proud:

Carl Newman- New Pornographers
James Mercer- The Shins
Ginger Wildheart
Andy Partridge/Colin Moulding


The Culture Bunker

Holland-Dozier-Holland had a spell of a few years when they were knocking out hit singles for fun.

chveik

the Brill Building people:

Leiber/Stoller
Pomus/Schuman
King/Goffin
Bacharach/David
Mann/Weil
Barry/Greenwich

etc.

McChesney Duntz

Great thread idea. The late, great Scott Miller (Game Theory/Loud Family) deserves mention in this category, I think (he and Carl Newman had something of a mutual appreciation society going, and "You Tell Me Where" off the NP's Brill Bruisers is Newman's self-confessed attempt at writing a Milleresque number). Dudes such as Kurt Ralske (Ultra Vivid Scene) and Ward Dotson (Liquor Giants) also cranked out pop that popped with consistency. As does/did the Lilys' Kurt Heasley, when he bothered to (Better Can't Make Your Life Better and The 3-Way are both near-perfect pop elpees). And I'm sure I'm forgetting a whole bunch of verse-chorus-verse savants and have readied my open palm to make contact with my forehead repeatedly as this subject progresses.

non capisco

Around the time of his 'Day Of the Dog' and 'Perpetual Motion People' albums a few years ago Ezra Furman had the ability to seemingly pluck melodies from the ether that already felt like classic standards e.g.. 'My Zero', 'Lousy Connection', 'Teddy I'm Ready', 'Cherry Lane', 'Haunted Head', 'Ordinary Life', 'Love You So Bad', 'Anything Can Happen'. All of those were forceful rebukes to any thought you may have had that all of the best songs have already been written.




Golden E. Pump

Hall & Oates
Prince
George Michael

non capisco

Quote from: Golden E. Pump on August 11, 2019, 10:55:47 PM
Hall & Oates
Prince

Yes and yes.

EDIT: that makes it seem like I've got something against George Michael. I haven't, but I looooove the other two. Hall and Oates' current live show is a two hour plus non-stop barrage of !!!FUCKING HELL I LOVE THIS ONE!!!

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on August 11, 2019, 10:37:14 PM
Holland-Dozier-Holland had a spell of a few years when they were knocking out hit singles for fun.

And under pseudonyms outside Motown. One of my favourites is Honey Cone's Take Me With You. Credited to Edith Wayne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZKWBkwTQHg

Stoneage Dinosaurs


Neil Hannon (only just starting to get into the Divine Comedy so this is something gradually being revealed to me)

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: non capisco on August 11, 2019, 10:53:10 PM
Around the time of his 'Day Of the Dog' and 'Perpetual Motion People' albums a few years ago Ezra Furman had the ability to seemingly pluck melodies from the ether that already felt like classic standards e.g.. 'My Zero', 'Lousy Connection', 'Teddy I'm Ready', 'Cherry Lane', 'Haunted Head', 'Ordinary Life', 'Love You So Bad', 'Anything Can Happen'. All of those were forceful rebukes to any thought you may have had that all of the best songs have already been written.

Couldn't agree more. I don't know how he does it, but he manages to write great original songs based on classic pop/rock templates. You can detect his influences, but his songs are never specific rip-offs of anything in particular. He may be some kind of genius.

I'd also add Michael 'Mike' Nesmith to the list. The Girl I Knew Somewhere, You Just May Be The One, Nine Times Blue, Different Drum, he was just so adept at writing instantly memorable pop melodies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9qsDgA1q8Y

timebug

Whilst I despise his blandness and 'professional' personna, there is no getting round the fact that old (and  prematurely ginger!)
McCartney knows how to knock out a good tune.Lyrically,hit and miss, but the music is usually instantly 'whistleable' and sticks in your mind. Love him or hate him, you got to give the bloke credit for that.

Cuellar


pupshaw

Quote from: timebug on August 12, 2019, 09:54:22 AM
Whilst I despise his blandness and 'professional' personna, there is no getting round the fact that old (and  prematurely ginger!)
McCartney knows how to knock out a good tune.Lyrically,hit and miss, but the music is usually instantly 'whistleable' and sticks in your mind. Love him or hate him, you got to give the bloke credit for that.

That bloke that wrote those songs for the Beach Boys is quite good too.

Absorb the anus burn

Jeff Lynne.
Andy Partridge.
Graham Gouldman.
Carole King.

Jim_MacLaine

Jimmy Webb obviously
Bacharach and David seconded
Paddy McAloon

purlieu

Ian Broudie
Neil Hannon
Martin Newell
Andy Partridge

sevendaughters

I listened to Jesus of Cool by Nick Lowe for the first time this weekend and I bet my arse that he counts.

mrpupkin

Ron Sexsmith. Should-be-classics coming out of his arse for about 25 years now.

alan nagsworth

The Mael brothers, better known as Sparks. An utterly bonkers and wonderfully flamboyant charm oozes out of a great majority of their music, spanning 23 studio albums across almost 50 years. There might've been a lull in the middle years but the fact that 30 years into the game they can write something as bafflingly odd and brilliant as Li'l Beethoven, and just two years ago come out with an album that stands proud with their greatest work of all time, is mightily impressive. I absolutely fucking love Sparks, they're one of the best bands who ever lived.

I'd also like to mention Kevin Barnes, primary songwriter of pretty much all of the music of the band Of Montreal. Have there been disappointing moments in his career? Without a doubt. But as a transformative whack job who reinvents himself either slightly or drastically for each new release, the ride has been dazzling and fascinating throughout. Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? is one of those albums where I just can't comprehend how faultless it is as a freak pop album. The hooks are totally bizarre but they're compelling and magical at every turn. Satanic Panic In The Attic is also a firm favourite, total psychedelic masterpiece that often feels so dizzied like you're about to fall off a carousel in a fever dream but, again, just weird hit after weird hit.

Nowhere Man

70s Stevie Wonder
Hank Williams
Elliott Smith
Elvis Costello wrote an endless sea of great tunes in a four year period.

Lordofthefiles


Endicott


This will sound to strange to some, even to myself, but Brandon Flowers fits the prompt.

TheMonk

Neil Finn. No idea why he's getting around as a Lindsey Buckingham stand in.

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: TheMonk on August 13, 2019, 07:55:41 AM
Neil Finn. No idea why he's getting around as a Lindsey Buckingham stand in.

Half a Buckingham stand-in in fact.

Bennett Brauer

Todd Rundgren might qualify, certainly for his 1970s stuff. I think he still has the chops now, but he seems to have got mostly bogged down in EDM and run-of-the-mill collaborations.

famethrowa

Quote from: TheMonk on August 13, 2019, 07:55:41 AM
Neil Finn. No idea why he's getting around as a Lindsey Buckingham stand in.

Well if you were asked to be the frontman for a huge tour by one of the the world's biggest bands, what can you say?

(I also have a theory he joined to get a break from his large adult son's untalented playing)

sardines

Alex Chilton. Seemed to spend half his career fighting his natural pop instincts.

Jockice

Mentioning no names (I think people are already aware of my tastes) but several of those mentioned on here are in my view very effortfull pop writers. It's like they somehow think pure pop is beneath them but attempt to do it in a clever-clever way so people will think they're subversive or something.

But as I said, mentioning no names. Neil Hannon. He's the king of it. But he's not alone. Certainly not on this thread.

Johnny Textface

Julian Casablancas is up there for me. Effortless while perhaps trying to cover that up a little recently. Also John Maus I think along with Ata Kak.