Top 10 Best Metal Songwriters

The new more recent songs have even better lyrics with deeper meanings like war and religion. A Matter Of Life And Death has great lyrics from For The Greater Good Of God which is about how religion causes war to Lord Of Light which is about Lucifer, the fallen angel. I just went on Genius lyrics and read the explanations for a The Great Unknown lyrics and it was really deep. Best songwriter from the best band.
Honestly there should be a a lot of room between Steve and anyone else. The man is responsible for some of the best and most complicated metal known to music lovers.
The best one - three decades and still on top
Deep respect!
I would vote him twice if I could.. I would vote for him to president of the world

Dave Mustaine has such a unique style. Aggressive riffs (Holy Wars, Skin o My Teeth), grooving drum lines (Take No Prisoners, Wake up Dead), passionate lyrics (In my Darkest Hour, Sweating Bullets), awesome bass lines (Peace Sells, Poison was the Cure) and ripping solos (Hangar 18, Kick the Chair). Everything goes in tandem so well, and this is why Megadeth has created many masterpieces over the years.
Songs are metal and not about silly demons, religious stuff, mythology, death and crime but its about social, economical, political, ecological causes then its megadeth we are talking about.
Love his lyrics, they have a lot of passion in them, I suppose I should thank Metallica for making him angry.
I love his fusions of jazz and metal in both killing is my business and even more in peace sells.

just the favorite one. I love the ONE's lyrics that also terrifies and puts you in that situation... the loneliness. Nothing Else Matters is also nice. Enter the sandman is also one of my favorites. Fade to Black, The Unforgiven etc. are also nice...! DIVYANSHU requests you to vote it..!
Great but still can't beat Dave Mustaine and Steve Harris.
This guy. Come on the best rock god ever!
Hey field is doing Davy a favor!

Angel of death, Reign in blood, South of heaven, Disciple, Mandatory suicide. Quality not quantity.
We will miss forever your evil tunes RIP my great guitar player...
R.I.p. Jeff. You should be number one

Tuomas is often known as "Metal Mozart" clearly that means the music he writes is out of this world, honestly he should be in Hollywood that's how good he is.
A songwriting genius. Strongly influenced by film music composers such as Hans Zimmer and Ramin Djawadi. Holopainen is a master of melody and with his band Nightwish he has surrounded himself with outstanding musicians.
Nobody would beat the greatest songwriter in metal Tuomas Holopanien. He wrote great songs for Nightwish, and were great masterpieces regardless of who the singer is!
For me he's the best! The songs he wrote are just so amazing! I don't know what else to say. Songs like Romanticide, Higher Than Hope and Sleeping Sun are just so amazing!

This Swede is one of my favorite songwriters that I study. He's the primary songwriter of Opeth. Every riffs you hear in Opeth's discography (meaning hundreds) was made by him, every folk-style acoustic guitar melodies in Opeth's discography was made him. He's not the lead guitarist so he doesn't do the technical solos (That would be Peter/Fredrik's job) but writes and play the melodic solos (so about 60% of their solos?). He's the one who arranges these 10 minute songs full of different parts with diverse musical territory. Great lyricist. He IS Opeth. If you like metal/rock and want to improve your songwriting, I STRONGLY, STRONGLY recommend studying this genius.
Riffs are mind blowing, great acoustic guitar parts, lyrics speak for themselves, always has interesting transitions, always keeps it interesting with unexpected changes. He is not only an incredible songwriter, but a very diverse songwriter. The greatest songwriter in metal.
Should be the top of the list easy. No other music brings the same emotion and energy to the table consistently than Opeth. He's written fantastic music from death metal, to jazz and everything Mikael touches is basically certified gold
Not many people can write songs that have such a wide range of emotions while pulling off both ends of the spectrum so well. It does not get any better than Mikael.

My number one vote for greatest metal songwriter! He was spiritual and philosophical. He covered many subjects in psychology and science-based themes. Most other metal songwriters bands focused on death, war, the ends of the world, and even partying. Chuck Schuldiner changed the game for the better. His song structures were experimental and his choice of melodies was unique and anointed by some higher power to say the least. My favorite album "The Sound of Perseverance" focused on human struggle with life and death. He focused on mental, emotional, and psychological abuse in the song "Bite the Pain". He used his Jewish influences in songs like "To Forvive is to Suffer" and "Flesh and the Power It Holds". He knew how to construct the perfect solos and rhythms whether they were was chaotic like in "Scavenger of Human Sorrow" or melodic and beautifully ancient like in "Voice of the Soul". He never wrote a bad album and focused on mastering his craft and changing the game with each album ...more
Chuck wrote the greatest, most inspiring and symbolic lyrics in metal history!
Chuck made the most defining lyrics I've read.
Best songwriter ever

What? He is a genius he should be in top 5


Why isn't Dio at least top 10?

By far the best metal lyricist in the 90'. Just listen to Dante's Inferno, that will do it.

The best hands down. Before voting bands Metallica, iron maiden, and megadeth blindly. Take a minute to listen to tool and learn to appreciate the lyrics. They are about real meaningful stuff. I'd say the best songwriter of the last 20 years
His lyrics reach way beyond conventional and even rational thought. He plays on the psyche of every listener and pushes them to either learn more or question what is.
He's by far the best there is, whether you're talking about technical genius with his syllable coordination or overall story telling in every way this man is the greatest writer there is

His songs are so perfectly written that should be compiled in a "Songwriting Handbook" and studied carefully. Ritchie Blackmore knows how to write melodic metal stuff but it's classy melodic. Not cheesy melodic.
Try "Gates of Babylon" and "Stargazer" (Rainbow).




Incredible gift for riffs, solos and melodies.

Best by far and original.



Consider keeper of the seven keys song alone, he should be in top 10!


With each subsequent album, Sammet keeps writings great lyrics for both of his bands. Avantasia in particular requires very demanding lyrics since some albums follow a story, and he always delivers!
He writes music and lyrics for 2 active bands in parallel!

Great live performanced, touching songs.
Songs that are hard to preform.

This guy is brilliant, he's made many great albums, and has a very diverse discography too (unlike Slayer, Cannibal etc.), he just plays whatever he feels like, for instance with SYL he did some brutal & fast stuff, later on in his solo career he did some somewhat more psychedelic things like Accelerated Evolution and some spacy relaxed stuff like Ghost. Helluva musician
Easily the best. With an ability to write such diversified yet ever-mind blowing music he should undoubtedly be in the top 10 at least. Listen to the album 'Terria' and come back and tell me I'm wrong, no other songwriter here could write something so inventive and inspired.