The other way to do it would be to start with the songs that most impressed/affected you, and find out who wrote them. It'd probably result in a very different list of names, and mst oifvthem not too well known.

The good thing with Song Challenges is the way they can kick start you into writing a song you wouldn't have thought of writing, and get your songwriting mucles to get working. Which is not unlike gettinmg a song writing commission.

Incidentally, I suspect that "write us ten songs about these things" would be more likely to produce some good songs than "write us ten new songs about anything you like" would.