The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters artwork
The Daily

The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters

May 3, 2026 · 00:43:21

Roughly a year ago, a team at The New York Times Magazine set about tackling a nearly impossible task: creating a list of the greatest living American songwriters. But how to take the tens of thousands of songwriters working in this country and narrow them down to a digestible list? The answer involved thousands of voting ballots, hundreds of music industry insiders and a series of closed-door mee…