# The 22 Greatest Pop Songwriters of All Time

> Folk poets, Motown craftsmen, Swedish hit machines and confessional pianists, all judged on the songs they put on paper. Some of these names never sang a note on the charts.

*By YPB Team · Published October 6, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-22-greatest-pop-songwriters-of-all-time*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Bob Dylan** — score 1000/1000
   Nobel Prize-winning songwriter whose 1960s lyrics redefined what a pop song could say.
2. **Kate Bush** — score 760/1000
   English songwriter who wrote Wuthering Heights as a teenager and Running Up That Hill.
3. **Lionel Richie** — score 669/1000
   Commodores and solo hitmaker who co-wrote We Are the World.
4. **Jimmy Webb** — score 598/1000
   Writer of Wichita Lineman and MacArthur Park, a songwriter's songwriter.
5. **Stevie Wonder** — score 542/1000
   Motown prodigy who wrote and produced a run of 1970s albums like Songs in the Key of Life.
6. **Leonard Cohen** — score 542/1000
   Poet-turned-singer whose Hallelujah has been covered hundreds of times.
7. **Neil Diamond** — score 542/1000
   Brill Building writer of I'm a Believer and Sweet Caroline.
8. **Paul McCartney** — score 542/1000
   Beatles co-writer behind Yesterday, Hey Jude and more charted songs than almost anyone.
9. **Brian Wilson** — score 478/1000
   Beach Boys leader who wrote and arranged Pet Sounds and Good Vibrations.
10. **Taylor Swift** — score 478/1000
   Writer or co-writer of every song on her albums, inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2026.
11. **Bruce Springsteen** — score 478/1000
   New Jersey storyteller behind Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A.
12. **Max Martin** — score 405/1000
   Swedish writer-producer with more US number-one singles than anyone except Lennon and McCartney.
13. **Joni Mitchell** — score 404/1000
   Canadian songwriter whose confessional 1971 album Blue set the template for personal pop.
14. **Prince** — score 404/1000
   Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist who wrote Purple Rain and hits for other artists under pseudonyms.
15. **Diane Warren** — score 404/1000
   Power-ballad specialist behind I Don't Want to Miss a Thing and Because You Loved Me.
16. **John Lennon** — score 319/1000
   Beatles co-founder who wrote Strawberry Fields Forever and, solo, Imagine.
17. **Paul Simon** — score 217/1000
   Writer of The Sound of Silence, Bridge over Troubled Water and the album Graceland.
18. **Dolly Parton** — score 217/1000
   Country star who wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You in the same day, she says.
19. **Bill Withers** — score 217/1000
   Late-starting songwriter of Ain't No Sunshine, Lean on Me and Lovely Day.
20. **Smokey Robinson** — score 217/1000
   Motown writer of My Girl and The Tracks of My Tears, once called America's greatest living poet by Dylan.
21. **Carole King** — score 0/1000
   Brill Building hitmaker who went on to write and sing the record-setting Tapestry.
22. **Burt Bacharach** — score 0/1000
   Composer of sophisticated 1960s pop such as Walk On By and Close to You.

Tags: pop, music, songwriters