Andrew/Matthew Carolan
The art of songwriting is sometimes not recognised as well as it should be. After all, One Direction don’t magically just pop into the charts impromptu. It takes work (on the behalf of their writers). The ability to combine a distinct and memorable melody with interesting lyrics is vital in creating a hit. Forget your music videos and forget your tweets, this is what real music is about and here at Collegetimes, we are bringing you the best songwriters of our time (since 1988, a generation roughly). We will count down the top ten which we have scrutinised over for some time now with regards to style, lyrical content, melody, relevance, diversity and originality, continuing with Pharrell Williams).
By no means, the obvious choice, this 40 year old American does everything from producing hit records and singing on them to writing them. Throughout the '90s and '00s, his is a reoccurring name across a diverse range of pop and hip-hop records and for this reason, he makes our list.
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The Neptunes were a production group which consisted of our man, Williams and friend, Chad Hugo. Together, they worked on and produced a number of hit songs, mainly from the late '90s to the mid-'00s. Britney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U" was one of their credits back in 2001 and it became an international one; their first (universal, not first hit) in what would prove to be a fruitful career path. Work then rolled in and they put their minds to the likes of Jay Z's The Black Album, a number of Daft Punk songs and of course, N.E.R.D (basically an extension of their team with another member called Shay Haley). "She Wants To Move" was the smash hit from their second album Fly Or Die in 2004 and stands as testament to the unique blend of funk and hip-hop Williams brings to the game.
Williams went on to have a number of credits on an eclectic range of records himself, as well as with his friends. He worked on Madonna's Hard Candy and even on the Despicable Me soundtrack. More recently, he has featured on the two biggest hits of this year, "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk and "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, both of which he co-wrote. With songs like these, Snoop Dogg's "Drop It Like It Hot," "Beautiful" and the Swedish House Mafia's "One" under his belt, he will surely remain a force to be reckoned with in the future. He will reportedly next be working with One Direction. Remember folks, while he may not always be front and centre stage, he earns a truck load more money than the people who are.
We will be back in but two days with the #8 songwriter- here's a clue: it's not definitely not Nickelback.
