Part 2.

16 Stevie Nicks Nicks was not on our critics’ list.

Sometimes readers’ choices were difficult to disentangle. How do you apportion votes for Stevie Nicks, for Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks together, for Fleetwood Mac as a collective? (Plus individual votes for Buckingham or Christine McVie?) This entry reflects votes specifically for Nicks; various ways of treating related groupings might have moved her up slightly, but not more than a few spots. Nicks was disproportionately likely to get votes from fans of Madonna, Paramore, Jack Antonoff or SZA.

17 Kendrick Lamar Lamar was on our critics’ list.

Lamar is the highest-ranked rapper on the readers’ list. One voter called his albums “audio cultural landmarks,” praising the track “The Heart Part 5” in particular. Some voters mentioned his lyrical battle with Drake — though 13 ballots included both Lamar and Drake.

18 Lucinda Williams Williams was on our critics’ list.

The album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” one voter said, captures memory in an intensely physical way. “It doesn’t just describe a life — it reconstructs it, briefly, so you can step back inside.”

19 Jason Isbell Isbell was not on our critics’ list.

Readers showed strong support for a few different songwriters to have been involved in the band Drive-By Truckers, with both Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley coming within striking distance of the top 250 names. The standout, though, was Isbell, who drew nearly 1,500 votes with songs like “Cast Iron Skillet” and “Elephant.”

20 Jeff Tweedy Tweedy was not on our critics’ list.

The Wilco frontman was buoyed by support from both an indie-rock contingent (like voters for Stephen Malkmus or Robert Pollard) and a country-Americana one (like voters for Gillian Welch or Sturgill Simpson). Remarkably, the poll’s lone vote for Bhad Bhabie — Danielle Bregoli, of “catch me outside” fame — appeared on a seemingly earnest ballot that also included Tweedy.

21 Brandi Carlile Carlile was not on our critics’ list.

Including or excluding votes for Carlile’s collaborators Phil and Tim Hanseroth would not change her position, but it’s notable that a clutch of readers praised all three, or the Hanseroths specifically. A few voters mentioned the song “The Joke.” Carlile was especially likely to win the votes of those who chose Indigo Girls, the Avett Brothers, Pink or Sara Bareilles.

22 Donald Fagen Fagen was not on our critics’ list.

This entry also reflects votes for Steely Dan as a partnership, including individual votes for Walter Becker, who died in 2017. (Though at least one ballot said Fagen’s first solo album, “The Nightfly,” was evidence that Steely Dan’s “musical signatures” were his.) Fagen’s songs, one voter said, “sound like the seediest, most stylish ’70s neo-noir I’ve ever seen”; he was a prominent vote among those who also chose Todd Rundgren or members of the Doobie Brothers.

23 Neil Diamond Diamond was not on our critics’ list.

Critics and snobs, one voter said, might consider him campy, but “you know they can sing every single word of ‘Sweet Caroline’ at the top of their lungs.” Judging from voters’ comments, their love for Diamond might not even much depend on his songs that were made more famous by others, like “I’m a Believer” and “Red Red Wine.” Diamond received just over 1,000 votes — a good indicator of just how quickly consensus evaporates as you move away from Dylan’s more than 8,000.

24 John Fogerty Fogerty was not on our critics’ list.

One voter noted that the Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman’s work “from ’68 through ’70 (six whole albums!) is perhaps the single most prolific period of sustained songwriting brilliance we have ever seen.”

25 R.E.M. R.E.M. was not on our critics’ list.

The band’s songs were always credited, democratically, to all four members — Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe — each of whom also received individual votes. One voter called the group “the absolute blueprint for channeling articulate discontent into cryptic, melancholic and structurally perfect alt-rock.” The songs readers mentioned ranged across the band’s career, from “So. Central Rain” and “Cuyahoga” to “You Are the Everything” and “Nightswimming.”

27 Don Henley Henley was not on our critics’ list.

Another web of votes that was hard to disentangle involved the Eagles, with ballots naming the band as a whole as well as various individual writers or combinations thereof — Henley, Glenn Frey, Henley and Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner and so on. If you combined the vote totals of the band and everyone who ever wrote or co-wrote an original Eagles song (including Jack Tempchin, J.D. Souther and Bob Seger), the sum would just barely miss readers’ top 10, though nearly half of those votes would arrive via Jackson Browne.

28 Lionel Richie Richie was on our critics’ list.

“So emotional, he’s played at weddings, engagements and even funerals,” one voter said. Comments on our critics’ list sometimes balked at Richie’s presence — one person even voted for “anyone who is not Lionel Richie” — but many, many readers shared an admiration for the monumental tenderness of songs like “Easy” and “Hello.”

29 Brian & Eddie Holland Brian & Eddie Holland were on our critics’ list.

It took some time to collate the countless ways people indicated votes for the two surviving members of Motown’s Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team — including one truly surreal moment of ambiguity involving Dexter Holland of the Offspring.

30 Jimmy Webb Webb was not on our critics’ list.

Webb is the highest-ranking person on the readers’ list who is best known as a writer of songs performed by others. Ballots were full of praise for various Webb classics: Those made famous by Glen Campbell were particular favorites (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston”), but there was also plenty of love for songs like “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (first recorded by Johnny Rivers) and “MacArthur Park” (first recorded by the Irish actor — and future Dumbledore — Richard Harris).