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1950-2000: The 10 Greatest Songwriting Teams

The attribution of songwriting credit in the popular music industry is fraught with all manner of swindling and cheating. Royalty checks are sent as often to pretenders and usurpers as they are to the true creative parties. I am not going to attempt to untangle the twisted and arcane competing stories underlying the extant listed publishing rights. With regard to just one band, The Beach Boys, there is an entire cottage industry of books devoted to arguing the minutiae of “who really deserves credit” for the band's most celebrated recordings.

So here, with the above caveat, is my list of the 10 greatest songwriting twosomes of the last half of the 20th Century.

1. John Lennon/Paul McCartney
2. Boudleaux Bryant/Felice Bryant
3. Burt Bacharach/Hal David
4. Gerry Goffin/Carole King
5. Kenneth Gamble/Leon Huff
6. Benny Andersson/Bjorn Ulvaeus
7. Ronald Dunbar/Edythe Wayne
8. Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller
9. Mick Jagger/Keith Richards
10. Jimmy Page/Robert Plant
tweakgeek

Showing 2 responses by tok20000

tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
Simon and Garfunkle were pretty good.
I think they should be on any top 10 list.

KF
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
True Tweakgeek, but together they were great. Apart... well... Paul has been good, but I think he lost something when they broke up. Call me strange, but I own none of Paul Simon's albums (even Graceland which I know is pretty good). I own ever studio album that Simon & Garfunkle put out. Sometimes it takes a team to be successful, and I think the two (had they stayed together) would have been much more successful than either did on their own.

KF
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