Lead singers who didn't write shite or very little.

[AlexVonHaig]

Ozzy is an obvious one here but there are others.

[HueyRamone]

Eric Adams
Roger Daltrey
Vince Neil

[Nate S Axel]

Chris "Izzy" Cole

[BiggusDickus]

Arnel Pineda
Ray Gillen

[HueyRamone]

Ripper Owens

[Tommy2Tone84]

Paul Di’Anno and he was still better than most of the clowns worshipped around here.

[roxxxtar]

Sebastian Bach

[kytepunches]

Geddy Lee of Rush and Tom Araya of Slayer come to mind.

[Borges]

Joey Belladona
Corpsegrinder from Cannibal Corpse

[Dave Muffstaine]

Belinda Carlisle

[Traxan]

Nightwish's revolving door of singers.

[Anthrax442]

Ripper Owens

There's a reason for that. Listen to his solo album Play My Game, where he has co-writes on every track. It's...something.

[Van Ailin']

Arnel Pineda
Ray Gillen

Gillen wrote quite a bit in Badlands.

[HueyRamone]

Ripper Owens

There's a reason for that. Listen to his solo album Play My Game, where he has co-writes on every track. It's...something.

Now youre making me want to!

[Van Ailin']

Geddy Lee of Rush and Tom Araya of Slayer come to mind.

Geddy Lee wrote almost all of Rush's music. He just didn't write the lyrics.

[GoodJudge]

Sebastian Bach

Hey! He wrote some all-important screams. Skids'd never have been so successful without those

Michael Monroe when in Hanoi Rocks.

[keyofgee]

most modern country artists. The more i learn about Nashville...It's like santa claus. FAKE>

[JinglesTheChristmasMouse]

Robin Zander.

[TravisBicklesMohawk]

Ozzy is an obvious one here but there are others.

Fun when Sharon thinks he wrote Mamma I'm Coming Home just for her. Uh, no.
Lemmy wrote the song and it definitely wasn't written for that hideous bridge troll.

[Rocker4Real]

Sebastian insisted on co-writing a few songs on Slave and Subhuman.

[Nate S Axel]

most modern country artists. The more i learn about Nashville...It's like santa claus. FAKE>

Name some names; I would say most of the biggest names on the charts and a lot of the newest artists at least co-write some of their songs. For the “fossils” like Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan or Blake Shelton now, they have no need to (even though Aldean and Bryan have a few co-writes on their last albums), but when I’m looking at the credits of most country songs, most artists at least have a co-writing credit.

[LurkingAtWork]

Bob Catley from Magnum. The guitarist wrote everything.

[CrankerBait]

Roger Daltrey is the most obvious answer. Brad Delp, Robin Zander and Liam Gallagher are lead singers with a few credits or co-writes to their names, but like Daltrey, were also in bands where the lead guitarist wrote the lion's share of the material. Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode is another: Martin Gore wrote almost everything on his own. Robbie Robertson got most of the writing credits for The Band, but wasn't one of the three main singers.

[VinnieVincentsVag]

Geddy Lee of Rush and Tom Araya of Slayer come to mind.

Not a Slayer fan….who wrote the lyrics?

[Borges]

Geddy Lee of Rush and Tom Araya of Slayer come to mind.

Not a Slayer fan….who wrote the lyrics?

Mostly King and Hanneman on the early albums. Araya wrote a big chunk of lyrics from South of Heaven onwards, mostly in songs where the music was written by Hanneman. Araya (and Hanemann) lyrics were usualy better written and mostly about war/serial killers, King's lyrics were about satanic/anti christian/tough guy topics and usually cruder and dumber. If I recall correctly the last album was almost all King.

[Kid-Wicked]

there are 3 parts to song writing.
music
lyrics
melody
MOST singers contribute to writing the melody.

[Van Ailin']

An obvious one missed: Elvis Presley.

[keyofgee]

most modern country artists. The more i learn about Nashville...It's like santa claus. FAKE>

Name some names; I would say most of the biggest names on the charts and a lot of the newest artists at least co-write some of their songs. For the “fossils” like Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan or Blake Shelton now, they have no need to (even though Aldean and Bryan have a few co-writes on their last albums), but when I’m looking at the credits of most country songs, most artists at least have a co-writing credit.

Nashville has a unwritten songwriting rule of thumb. Its just expected and no one cares I guess, whomever is in the writing secession gets a writing credit even if they didn't add one word. They were there. they sat in. they may have made suggestions and it didn't work. they are still in. I have been able to float around the aldean writing ppl team and others of his league and seen it first hand to name drop one. there are others. And if I was submitting a song for someone that huge to possibly track? I would give them main songwriting credit because it would be a good revenue stream since that name carries weight. I have sat in writing sessions where I wrote all the music, split the lyrics between three of us combined and since others were there sayin "sounds good" or that doesn't fit right", they were included in the song writing credits. And due to the potential of one of mine getting picked up, i gave up 50% of the writing credit. The ppl that have it can do more with it than I could ever do..so there you go...
George strait, 44 #1 hits. Didn't write a lyric. Coolio. Gangsters paradise. Sampled a Stevie Wonder song. Stevie demanded 70% of writing credit for it and got it. There were 13 writers on that song. Coolio made his performance money and had to split the song sales that many ways. He may have made money but he lost a ton with that many writers.
Nashville has a unwritten songwriting rule of thumb. Its just expected and no one cares I guess, whomever is in the writing secession gets a writing credit even if they didn't add one word. They were there. they sat in. they may have made suggestions and it didn't work. they are still in. I have been able to float around the aldean writing ppl team and others of his league and seen it first hand to name drop one. there are others. And if I was submitting a song for someone that huge to possibly track I would give them main songwriting credit because it would be a good revenue stream since that name carries weight. I have sat in writing sessions where I wrote all the music, split the lyrics between three of us combined and since others were there sayin "sounds good" or that doesn't fit right", they were included in the song writing credits. And due to the potential of one of mine getting picked up, i gave up 50% of the writing credit. The ppl that have it can do more with it than I could ever do..so there you go...
George strait, 44 #1 hits. Didn't write a lyric. Coolio. Gangsters paradise. Sampled a Stevie Wonder song. Stevie demanded 70% of writing credit for it and got it. There were 13 writers on that song. Coolio made his performance money and had to split the song sales that many ways. He may have made money but he lost a ton with that many writers.

most hiphop country these days sounds like its the same writer/s on a lot of them. I have not dug into it to confirm, but they all have the same fingerprints.