The Best Melodic Writers

[StarCalledSun]

I'm trying to do some study on writing melodies, and wonder if anybody has suggestions on some great writers to check out. I'm pretty well up to speed on The Beatles, Buddy Holly, The Beach Boys and Elvis Costello, but just need to expand my horizons. (I should mention I'm focused more on pop writing in the last 50 years, but I'll take anything older, as well.)

Thanks for any thoughts you might like to share!

[Venus]

Google: Diane Warren. There really is no other comparison.

[LarryByrd]

Mark Knopfler is absolutely phenomenal! His latest album 'Get Lucky' was awesome! Robbie Roberston if you want to check out some old stuff. He wrote most of the stuff for The Band. The Band has great lyrics! Check out The Saga Of Pepote Rouge and Ophelia. Those two are my favorites.

[TheDoorknob]

You name few band from the 60's but I miss The Kinks in there. Ray Davies wrote some great melodies.

Mark Knopfler is absolutely phenomenal! His latest album 'Get Lucky' was awesome! Robbie Roberston if you want to check out some old stuff. He wrote most of the stuff for The Band. The Band has great lyrics! Check out The Saga Of Pepote Rouge and Ophelia. Those two are my favorites.

I like knopflers ideas and melodies guitar wise, but I can hardly hear his melodies when he sings them himself.....

[MikeRobinson]

Johann Sebastian Bach. No, I'm not kidding. He was a great keyboard writer. The classics are chock-full of phrases and ideas and the old ones are all public-domain now. They get cabbaged all the time.

A "good melody" isn't just a melody, though. It's an arrangement. Rare is the melody (Bach's dum-de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-DUM-dum-dum dum-dum-dum-dum ... yeah, you know the one; of course you do. Or, Pachebel's Canon...) that it alone is an unmistakable motive in just a single line of notes.

[Hyardacil]

For good melodic, but also at times cross genre and experimental music, I'd suggest Mike Oldfield.

His music is definitely mostly melody-oriented throughout his very eclectic career and his guitar playing and composing has a certain feel to it that you can always tell: "Ah! This is Oldfield!"

So that's definitely worth looking into.

J.S.Bach already had a mention, so I am satisfied.

[thepopeofpop]

Since you're already up to speed on the greats - such as The Beatles and Elvis Costello - I'm going to go a bit left-field and suggest Kate Bush and Steely Dan.

A lot of the other suggestions already mentioned are worth listening to as well!

[KennyChaffin]

Check out some Musicals, that's what I'm doing at the moment. There are classic melodies and lyrics.

Sound of Music

South Pacific

Hair

West Side Story

I'm also reading about Johnny Mercer and studying his lyrics:

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Lyrics-Johnny-Mercer/dp/0307265196/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296906540&sr=1-1

Great book, but a little pricy..

Edited February 5, 2011 by KennyChaffin

[beatpoet]

For someone more modern, check out Fran Healy of Travis. Not a popular band anymore, but he's great with melodies.

[Gijs]

Johann Sebastian Bach. No, I'm not kidding. He was a great keyboard writer. The classics are chock-full of phrases and ideas and the old ones are all public-domain now. They get cabbaged all the time.

A "good melody" isn't just a melody, though. It's an arrangement. Rare is the melody (Bach's dum-de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-dum-dum de-DUM-dum-dum dum-dum-dum-dum ... yeah, you know the one; of course you do. Or, Pachebel's Canon...) that it alone is an unmistakable motive in just a single line of notes.

Yeah, if your are looking for amazing melodists I can recommend listening to

Bach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faJrlrRJa9A&feature=fvst),

Beethoven (

),

Chopin (

),

Mozart (

)

For every example I gave there are certainly 100 other examples of astounding melodies by every single composer I mentioned. Besides that I didn't mention Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Lizst, Debussey and many many others how also wrote an insane amounth of unbelievable melodies ALL great melodists from our age drew there inspriration from.

Really, there has been written an insanly amount of incredible music in the past 300 years. You cut yourself short like a midget to a T-rex if you neclect all this, because it 'doesn't sound 'cool' or for what ever reason you can think of.

Edited December 27, 2011 by Gijs

[ShayneR]

I've always been fond of a great melody. I find that the Cars' Rick Ocasek always had a great feel for a good melody within his genre. Elton John, Christopher Cross, Brad Delp of Boston R.I.P. Kurt Cobain was great at melody, Eddie Vedder, Peter Cetera.

One of my favorite melody writers is Bruce Hornsby. Maybe because of the piano, but the melody he puts into play with his songs is very soulful and haunting, which stick with you. I think a good melody will stick with you for a while, even after the song has ended. Not in the annoying can't get that damn song out of my head way, but the kind of stick with you that makes you run for the CD after work with the same fervor as if having to urinate upon holding it for far too long.

That's how music affects me. I have to have it. When I hear a good melody, in fact, the words are pointless to me. You could sing about raping pigs and if you put it to a good melody, I 1. wouldn't even know your were raping pigs, and 2. wouldn't care and I'd sing right along with you about raping pigs. Bruce Hornsby could sing about raping pigs.

The B52's. Not only do they write some pretty catchy melodies, their blond singer has the sexiest voice I've heard in a long time. She makes the melody really pop. Anyway, I digress.

These are my choices for great melodies. Then again, if it gives you chills, it must be good.

[Farina]

Brian Wilson(Beach boys),  Lennon/Mccartney, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson.  Today, Jason Isbell, Phillip Phillips, and Lumineers, oh and take a listen to Rusty Truck.  Man, it might take a minute to name the greats.

Edited March 6, 2013 by Farina

[bunuelista]

I came across this post because I was looking for some new songwriters to listen to myself, but I joined the site to reply because Elvis Costello, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys are among my favorite melody writers. (Buddy Holly wrote some great stuff, too, but he was usually working within a pretty conventional 12-bar blues format.)

 

I agree with several of the other responses: in addition to Elvis, Lennon/McCartney, and Brian Wilson, my top-ten list of great melody writers would definitely include Ray Davies (particularly on Village Green Preservation Society), Billy Joel (even though his lyrics are usually terrible and half of his songs are pretty half-assed musically), Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story), and Richard Rodgers (Sound of Music, etc.). Along the same lines, I think that Kate Bush is a pretty good recommendation, too, although I wouldn't quite put her in the same league as those other guys.

 

Other recommendations mystify me: for instance, I *love* Robbie Robertson, Leonard Cohen, and Stevie Wonder, but none of them is a particularly notable melody writer -- at least not in the sense that the other people you mention are, in terms of melodic and harmonic complexity. (Stevie Wonder is a musical genius, but his imagination is more contrapuntal, rhythmic, and textural than straightforwardly melodic.)

 

Okay, so, if I'm working from a list that includes Elvis, Lennon/McCartney, Brian Wilson, Ray Davies, Billy Joel, Bernstein and Rodgers, then, to me, there are two notable omissions: David Bowie (in the '70s, at least; by his own admission, he pretty much stopped trying to write memorable melodies in the late '80s) and Burt Bacharach (don't let the cheesy arrangements fool you!).

 

Not quite in that top tier but close behind, I'd also recommend XTC, Aimee Mann (particularly on Bachelor No. 2), Michael Penn (particularly his first album), and, a kind of oddball pick, I know, Thomas Dolby (particularly Golden Age of Wireless). I also think Joe Jackson at his best is as good as anybody, but unfortunately, he was rarely at his best.

 

Finally, if you like Elvis, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles, you might also dig my stuff, since I was heavily influenced by all three of them: hopefulmonsters.org/beta/majordealinlife.html.

[bunuelista]

Oh, I should also add Carl Newman, both with the New Pornographers and in his solo stuff (as A. C. Newman). I don't know why I forgot about him. As a melody writer, I'd probably rate him a couple rungs above some of the people I mentioned in my previous post.

[James Anderson]

for great melodies vocal or guitar driven   i think yngwie johann malmsteen  swedish guitarist  is king  check him out

[jenifferhope]

Diane Warren is Good

[Rudi]

Thelonious Monk.

 

In fact, his wife called him 'Melodious Thunk'. So there's hard evidence for ya.

[glennarN]

I am personally a fan of a bit of cheese and bombast in my music so this might not go down well with everyone, but Nobuo Uematsu is my god of melodies:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsAG6TrlJk&list=SP1D6BA7E4FFE22EE5

 

Nobuo is a video game composer but this is an orchestral rendition of one of his pieces, might be more accesible to some. As silly as it may sound, I think video games (especially older ones from the 8-bit and 16-bit era) are home to some of the most memorable melodies in my opinion, I'd check it out if you are not already familiar with video games of that era. That said, they might not make good vocal melodies but if you are just interested in melodies in general, I think they are worth checking out.

[Dasvon]

Many of my faves are already mentioned. 

I'd suggest an area you could research of writers who really applied music theory into creating that "new sound" yet still had a bead on what would be popular were those that resided in the  "Brill Building"

Search "Brill Building" for information that would take you from the 40's up through the 70's for writers like Neil Sadaka, Laura Nyro, Carol King, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach and others. 

There is where you got those jazzy chord harmonies of the 5th Dimensions and other groups.

Speaking of  musicals as referenced in a post above, HAIR is an excellent choice to review for harmonies and music theory application.





 

[kedyangel]

Diane Warren!