After the huge discourse started from The New York Times’ 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters feature from this week, I thought it would be fun to apply that same structure to the K-pop scene today.

While I didn’t have a super-long deliberation process or send out an industry-wide survey (maybe next year?), what I did come up with are the 30 American-born creatives in K-pop today who have contributed the best in songwriting and compositions. Just like the NYTimes, the requirements had to be that the songwriters were American born (which is why no Max Martin or Joni Mitchell on their list and no EJAE or RM on this one) and every entry gets five representative tracks (I included a link to the first song — and will hope you’ll check out the rest on your own :)

This list gives slightly greater emphasis to critical acclaim over commercial success, with consideration also given to the songwriter’s overall body of work and how much of it contributed to the K-pop world. Plus, I’ve included social links for all of them so you can follow as well.

Reply or comment with your thoughts, but without further ado… here are K-pop’s 30 greatest living American songwriters today.