I wanted to get a general feel of who this forum considers avid lyricists in the music realm. Lately I found that Beck's new CD is loaded with excellent lines as well as anythin Brandon Boyd has ever written. Yet what is it that makes a lyric or its writer stand out as unique?

Superfly

Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth and Daniel Gildenlöw of Pain of Salvation are two excellent lyricists.

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"I'm playing so fast, the tubes can't reproduce all the notes!"
- Marcus Paus

in my opinion, the three best are:

Roger Waters
Hansi Kursch
Jon Scaffer



and a close fourth is Steve Harris

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To improve technique and of course trying to keep all as clean as possible. I know my own limits and speed limits and so on I never play anything I'm not capable of. That wouldn't make any sense. After three years of playing I tried to play everything as fast as possible and that sounded, I would say, like ****, and I didn't realize that if I'd play bit slower things than I was capable of playing then everything would sound much better.

--Aleksi Laiho - Advice to Play By

I'll second the vote for Roger Waters. Anything by Pink Floyd post-Waters is so cliched and cheesy...

Also:
Bono
Jewel
Neil Young/CSNY

Neil Peart (Rush) is supposed to be good, but it's not my style...

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... and that's all I have to say about that.

ALL generalizations are WRONG

[/sarcasm]

Eddie Vedder, Scott Stapp, Layne Staley and Robert Plant are all great!

Tori Amos, Jewel, Ryan Adams (not Bryan)

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"How wondrous familar is a fool!"
Ahab
www.soundclick.com/msholly

Roger Waters...Amen to that.
also: I dunno who writes their lyrics, but Hammerfall have awesome lyrics. Cat Stevens. Bono. Bob Dylan. Mike Patton from Faith NO More. and Raine Maider from Our Lady Peace are aslo excellent.
And Opeth must be one of the best bands ( music+ lyrics ) in the world