This is an even more awful list they made.
The 40 Worst Lyricists In Rock — #40 to #31 - Blender
If that is not a blatant troll than it makes me really depressed that people like this are not being murdered right now.
First off. Ian Anderson, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel are awesome lyricists, so f*ck off.
Jon Anderon's lyrics I don't really have an opinion on, they are ridiculously cryptic and hard to understand but they're not even all that noticable. Corgan's lyrics can be a little annoying but I think he's still a pretty good lyricist for the most part. David Crosby? What? Anthony Kiedis isn't as bad as people say he is IMO, he can be a pretty decent lyricist when it's not stuff like "slippity diggity doggy doo".
Robert Plant and Jim Morrison aren't great lyricists but they're not as bad as people make out either, Morrison has some cringeworthy lyrics but also some really great ones. And Plant has some decent stuff as well but whatever, that's like the least important aspect of Zeppelin anyway, and hard rock in general for that matter.
Bernie Taupin is pretty hit and miss, not at all worthy of this list. KRS One? What the f*ck? And Greg Graffin is one of few not so bad punk lyricists, what is he doing there? Neil Peart has some cringeworthy ones but has some great ones as well, he's a decent lyricist, second worst? Really?
And Sting is number one? I wont deny that his solo work has produced some rather rancid stuff but I actually consider him a great lyricist, mainly for his work with The Police.
There's very few I agree with, Tom Marshal definitely deserves to be in there but even Phish knows their lyrics are stupid. Paul Stanley is a good call. And Fred Durst and Scott Stapp are the most obvious choices.
Some of the exclusions are inexcusable. Where is Greg Lake and Dennis DeYoung? If you guys are gonna diss on prog rock as much as possible (which is like beating up an old man for something he did 30 years ago and probably doesn't even remember) then you could at least add guys who actually are pretty sh*tty lyricists.
In general they just seemed to pick as many acclaimed songwriters as possible just to be controversial. Again, no real thought process at all, it's sad that these people probably shat this out in like 5 minutes and all the while insulting people who actually put effort into their work. Fred Durst is more of a good lyricist than these guys are good writers.
What REALLY pisses me off about this list is how they constantly give off reasons like "songs about fantasy/science fiction/hinduism". So the f*ck what? Are songwriters restricted from writing songs about certain subjects that they are interested in? What is so terrible about these things in particular? Or do you bother not to explain anything because you expect your most loyal of pseudo-hipster c*nt readers to know it all?
THANK GOD this magazine isn't around anymore. It's disgusting just to think about how many trees were cut down to put this sh*t on paper.