{"podcast":{"title":"The Daily","slug":"the-daily-743229","podcast_index_feed_id":743229,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/54nAGcIl","website_url":"https://www.nytimes.com/the-daily","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/7f2f4c05-9c2f-4deb-82b7-b538062bc22d/73549bf1-94b3-40ff-8aeb-b4054848ec1b/3000x3000/the-daily-album-art-original.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"The New York Times","episode_count":2932,"summary":"This is what the news should sound like. The biggest stories of our time, told by the best journalists in the world. Hosted by Michael Barbaro, Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff. Twenty minutes a day, six days a week, ready by 6 a.m. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T20:18:13.372418+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-daily-743229"},"episode":{"title":"The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters","slug":"the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters","published_at":"2026-05-03T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-daily-743229/the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-daily-743229","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/the-daily","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pfx.vpixl.com/6qj4J/pscrb.fm/rss/p/nyt.simplecastaudio.com/03d8b493-87fc-4bd1-931f-8a8e9b945d8a/episodes/9180f736-fc34-4d0a-9e91-2c950688d797/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=03d8b493-87fc-4bd1-931f-8a8e9b945d8a&awEpisodeId=9180f736-fc34-4d0a-9e91-2c950688d797&feed=54nAGcIl","summary":"Roughly a year ago, a team at The New York Times Magazine set about tackling a nearly impossible task: creating a list of the greatest living American songwriters. But how to take the tens of thousands of songwriters working in this country and narrow them down to a digestible list? The answer involved thousands of voting ballots, hundreds of music industry insiders and a series of closed-door meetings among a small group of music experts. The result, The Times’s list of the 30 greatest living American songwriters, was published this week. Today, Michael Barbaro talks with Sasha Weiss, a deputy editor of The Times Magazine, who oversaw the project, as well as Joe Coscarelli and Jody Rosen, two members of the cadre of critics assigned with compiling the final list. They discuss the list-making process, what defines a great songwriter and why Billy Joel didn’t make the final cut. We also hear from some of the songwriters featured on the list, including Taylor Swift, Nile Rodgers and the songwriting team of Brandy Clark, Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne.","meta_description":"Roughly a year ago, a team at The New York Times Magazine set about tackling a nearly impossible task: creating a list of the greatest living American son…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2601,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-daily-743229/episodes/the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-daily-743229/the-30-greatest-living-american-songwriters.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}