I don't mind Adele occasionally, though I tend to listen to music from her first album. 21 is a good enough album but it was hyped so much in the press that I lost my liking for it, sadly.

I mean no disrespect to her, she's a talented lady. 21 just isn't something that I listen to anymore.


I don't mind her version of that song, but I prefer the original by The Cure.

Hmmm, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Morrissey, early Bryan Ferry, Joni Mitchell, Phil Lynott, Van the Man, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Bono, Steve Earle, Tracy Chapman, Mary Chapin Carpenter...the list goes on and on... and all great lyricists and working in different 'genres'.

Sure will.

Am missing her being away but it's good she's spending time with ehr partner & baby!!! Hopefully she'll be back when she's ready

Add Paul Simon & Alanis Morissette to that list. lol

One of those comments where you have to look twice to see if you have read it correctly. Unfortunately on this occasion I did read it correctly the first time

Good lyricists not great ones.

Bob Dylan is the legendary one in your list.

It's true. Not saying there are many. It's rare to find a great lyricist.

Yes, I had to run it past myself more than once

I'm so sure you even know about any great Hip-Hop lyricists

Obviously do not.

This is a decent lyricist. Relies on story telling a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qggxTtnKTMo

"Obviously" you know nothing about me, so let's leave the sweeping (not to mention incorrect) generalisations there, shall we.

There as many great lyricists in rock as in Hip Hop just as there is as many shite ones. The genre doesn't make the lyricist, Often the better the lyricist the lower mass appeal due to the subjects they cover and the depth of their words. Most people want "I love you/You love me/" as they can immediately relate to the basic nature of it. Not many immediately relate to something like "He not busy being born is busy dying."

Nope. If we're talking about artists whose main focus is lyrics, but they are rare, anyways. Hip-Hop is mainly lyrics.

I don't actually prefer Hip-Hop. I'm more a fan of Jazz, Blues, Folk.... then Blues Rock....then Hip-Hop.

but I've listened to thousands of albums and the best Hip-Hop albums usually have the best lyrics of all.

My opinion but for me a great lyrical song is one that can be read and appreciated.

I can't believe all these weight jabs. She's really attractive facially, and she's hardly obese is she?

I think her success is deserved tbh, she's put out two incredibly solid albums. Daydreamer and Rolling In The Deep are my particular favourites from her.

I fear for the other pop girls' careers when she releases. (Which I've heard is SOON.)

Elegant and glamorous.

Yes but she is a big woman, she knows it we know it

I wouldn't waste time listening to Mahalia Jackson, Patti Labelle, and Aretha Franklin if that mattered to me.

I listen with my ears not my eyes.

So do I, wasn't Barry White popular before he died from a weight related illness?

Yeah...sold 100+ million records...

But he was black... ain't nobody want to hear a fat white singer lmao

I don't care but still.... lol

Clearly my friend you don't know what a great lyricist is.
Do you know any Mary Chapin Carpenter? Or Steve Earle? Or Neil Young? Joni Mitchell?
I could add Ian Curtis, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Johnny Cash, Jonathan Richman, Loudon Wainwright, even Mark E Smith?!?

It's a nonsense to limit great lyricism to Hip Hop...

A lot of fat people are good singers. Mama Cass was as was Demis Roussos

Pavarotti wasn't too shabby either so I hear

That's not great lyricism, that's good story telling. They are not the same thing at all. That's a different aesthetic.

Listen to Springsteen's 'Brilliant Disguise', how he describes the story of a marriage and the existential angst of the realisation of a wasted life in 4 lines at the end.

'Tonight our bed is cold
Im lost in the darkness of our love
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of'

That's lyricism.


A great lyric is one that expresses a depth of emotion, insight and understanding. An aesthetic close to poetry but it can/should complement the music it sits within. I'm not dishing hip hop but quantity of lyrics is not enough. Dylan, Lou Reed, Gil Scott Heron, were great street poets long before hip hop artists were.

They are words to a song and is considered it's own kind of poetry.

He's a good lyricist. Not on Bob Dylan's level though (I'm a DylanStan).

I would say that (for me at least) it's a real "break up" album and you can really connect with it if you're going through heartbreak yourself, but I'd like to think that wasn't true of 26 million people!

It's a song with great lyrics, that's what it is.

None of which alters your original nonsense that there were no great lyricists outside Hip Hop. It's arguable there aren't that many great lyricists in Hip Hop!

(Admittedly the subject of this thread, Adele, isn't Hip Hop or a great lyricist.)