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While the thought of great American songwriters may bring names like Cole Porter<\/strong> or Louis Armstrong<\/strong> to mind, a new list out on Tuesday just put a current twist on who is deemed “the greatest” at their craft.<\/p>\n Compiled by The New York Times,<\/a> the list, that was published in no particular order, was constructed by the outlet’s critics along with 250 music<\/a> industry insiders. Consisting of only living songwriters, each artist has made their impact on entertainment, whether their songs were released in the 1960s like Bob Dylan<\/strong> or their music was a soundtrack to a recent Super Bowl half time show like Bad Bunny<\/a><\/strong> or Kendrick Lamar<\/a>. <\/strong><\/p>\n Some of the celebrated songwriters, including Nile Rogers<\/strong>, were featured in a video interview, where they explained their approach to coming up with a hit.<\/p>\n “I can have a terrific idea, in my mind, to start with, by the time I finish with it, I’ve rewritten it three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times,” he said. “So that’s how I think of myself, that I’m an arranger, and because of my arrangements they become the foundation of the song.”<\/p>\n Taylor Swift<\/a>,<\/strong> for her part, said in her interview that her songwriting process is essentially a new venture every time. <\/p>\n “It’s still such a mystery to me,” she said of her music coming together. “I’ve been writing songs for so long and they never quite happen the same way and I still don’t understand how it works.”<\/p>\n Related: 1976 Classic Was a No. 1 Hit 50 Years Ago Today<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The list spanned genres from folk to hip hop and classic rock and was complete with mentions notable songs from each artist that made the cut.<\/p>\n See below for the full list.<\/p>\n Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n \ud83c\udfac\u00a0<\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0\ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Apr 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the thought of great American songwriters may bring names like Cole Porter or Louis Armstrong to mind, a new list out on Tuesday just put a current twist on who is deemed “the greatest” at their craft. Compiled by The New York Times, the list, that was published in no particular order, was constructed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2393999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[29332,467099,467100,391401,37703,357178,467098,23084],"class_list":["post-2393998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-bob-dylan","tag-cole-porter","tag-great-american-songwriters","tag-industry-insiders","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-louis-armstrong","tag-nile-rogers","tag-taylor-swift"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/New-York-Times-Reveals-Top-30-Living-American-Songwriters-Including.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2393998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2393998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2393998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2394000,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2393998\/revisions\/2394000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2393999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2393998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2393998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2393998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n