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View Full Version : Who are the Top Five Bands/Individuals to Influence the Course of Poular Music



eoinh
21/01/2005, 3:55 PM
Me it would be

Elvis
The Beatles
The Byrds
Bob Marley
Bob Dylan

tetsujin1979
21/01/2005, 4:08 PM
Pixies
Beatles
David Bowie
Sex Pistols

gustavo
21/01/2005, 4:12 PM
nirvana

Gary
21/01/2005, 4:40 PM
1. Sinatra (and the other guys in the Ratpack)

His voice made jazz the timeless music that it is.

2. The Beatles

Not a fan, but they were the worlds first super group. The first group to make it on both sides of the atlantic.

3. Elvis

Looked down on because people felt he introduced 'sex' into music. When performing on television, the cameramen had to keep the camera above waist level.

4. The Prodigy

The first band to bring dance music out of the arehouse and into clubs. The track Charley is both loved and despised for this reason, and led to other 'toytown' rave tracks such as 'Trip to Trumpton', 'Sesam-e Street', 'Roobar and Custard' etc etc etc.

5. The Doors

Many reckon Jim Morrison created a hype for the Doors which other blindly fell for, others say he was the greatest songwriter/showman of his time. The Doors were the first band to really push the boundaries to see what they could get away with (though it must be said, this was purely down to Morrison himself). Famously used the word "high" in the song "Light My Fire" on live TV, causing consternation throughout the US, not to mention the entire song - "The End" being banned in most States of America.

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Ruairi
21/01/2005, 4:48 PM
Dont forget hendrix... paved the way for countless guitarists....

dcfcsteve
21/01/2005, 5:32 PM
ELVIS
Created Rock n Roll and is at the root of the tree of popular music

THE BEATLES
The first mega-band. Strode the 60's like a musical colossus. Lead popular music from its very straight-forward 60's formula into much more experimental territory. The business of music was never the same after these guys.

SEX PISTOLS
Shook the world out of the saccaharin-dull 70's complacency that it had fallen into. Only a band so shocking, over-hyped and inherently untalented as the Pistols could have succeeded in doing that - anyone else would've been/was ignored, or would have been sucked into the 70's nonesense themselves.

STONE ROSES/(HAPPY MONDAYS)
Created Indie music, which has since spawned college music, Nu Rock etc, and was a major influence on grunge. Also helped create/contribute to the early-doors evolution of dance music when they progressed onto a fusion dance/Indie sound. Showed there was a different path away from the New Romantics, big hairdo sh*t that had dominated the 80's.

NIRVANA
Did to a much lesser extent did what the Pistols did. Took the inspiration of Indie and fused it with metal to create grunge. Helped hammer the musical nails into the coffin of the 80's. Grabbed the attention of a whole generation of kids and saved them from boy bands...

Lots of other bands influenced the above (e.g. Joy Division/New Order with the Happy Mondays, Metallica and a lot of metal bands with Nirvana etc) but for me influence isn't necessarily about being the very first to do something. It's about changing what everybody/ lots of poeple did after you. Elvis, the Beatles, and the Pistols certainly did this. Since the late 80's popular music has fragmented dramatically away from having one dominant sound to instead having lots of individual very different sounds co-existing alongside each other (and often feeding off each other), so it's much more difficult to be truely influential on the direction of popular music these days as it is so fragmented. Therefore, difficult for the Stone Rioses and Nirvana to claim to have dramatically changed everything that happened after them, but they certainly had a big effect...

dcfcsteve
21/01/2005, 5:55 PM
Like this bunch?

;)

http://megadeth.rockmetal.art.pl/pic/metallica_band02.jpg

Yes ! As much as I liked soft-rock (and quite a lot of the hard stuff) when I was a nipper in the 80's, they were mostly just men in drag playing very basic metal (Poison, Def Leppard, Europe, Whitesnake, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Ulster's own Mama's Boys etc etc). I still like Van Halen, Aerosmith etc, but thank feck somebody moved the musical world on from all that. (The Darkness anyone....? ;)

Gary
21/01/2005, 10:08 PM
Hmmm, reckon artists like Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa and other early rap artists must make the list, great at the time, who would have thought it would all descend into the RnB crap that dominates the charts.

Absolutely spot on. But to be fair, Hip Hop is beginning to turn a corner again, veering away from teeny bop RnB drivel heard in every crappy pub in every crappy town. Kanye West is a good example here.



And Kevin Saunderson, Steve 'Silk' Hurley, Frankie Knuckles et. al for practically inventing house, the first truly pioneering sound in music since someone thought of rigging a guitar up to electricity.


Well i suppose you would have to include Tony Colsten Hayter (a promoter, not a producer) Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and a few others for pioneering house/acid this side of the Atlantic. Add in a guy like Laurent Garnier, and you have Europes early dance scene nailed. It was their clubs which kicked off Oibeeefuh, Ministry etc. (gotta find you a copy of ALTERED STATES Conor).

piratemousey
21/01/2005, 11:57 PM
bob dylan

Crosby stills nash young ( ill put theese folks into one catagory)

R.E.M.

Leonard Cohen

Nina Simone


my 5 for the argument

patsh
23/01/2005, 1:01 PM
Can't believe Buddy Holly hasn't been mentioned, the man who invented the pop song.

CollegeTillIDie
23/01/2005, 4:54 PM
ELVIS... Made rock'n'roll a household thing
BUDDY HOLLY... Invented the modern pop song
THE BEATLES... first group to contain more than one songwriter.
THE NEW YORK DOLLS... inspired the Pistols
JAMES BROWN....Inspired the funk movement that followed
GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE...Social commentary rap into the charts for the first time.
THE KINKS..... half invented heavy metal
GRAM PARSONS.... invented country rock

thecorner
23/01/2005, 5:32 PM
would nearly say that the bee gees helped influence the club scene of today

SligoRoversfan
23/01/2005, 5:38 PM
alota new bands startin to sound like early U2,killers guitarist says alotta his stuff is influenced by The Edge

ken foree
23/01/2005, 8:53 PM
my heart wants to include the beach boys (they were as revolutionary as the beatles until the big smile meltdown) but the big three would likely be beatles, dylan, and elvis. beatles' commercial success is really only the first third of their story, the second third is their revolution, reinvention, experimentation. the last third would be their almighty legacy which every modern band struggles with, whether they know it.

i don't think the byrds would make my top five for influential, though amazing at times. j. brown basically laid down the sh*t but instead we would have to include a jazz great (coltrane?) and i believe a blues great (robert johnson?) since most pop music - you could argue - diverged from these (and early gospel/slave work songs).

questions like these also suggest further questions and clarifications. influential as in musical style? promotion and the business end? i think with the big three up there you can clearly see an amalgamation of both these qualities so they'd be top ten for sure anyway.

Lionel Ritchie
24/01/2005, 5:05 PM
RAMONES

Woody Guthrie

Lonnie Donegan

Pink Floyd

Jimi Hendrix

Abba

James Brown

noby
25/01/2005, 12:35 PM
The Beatles - For reasons stated several times already. Also for song writing innovation - breaking the rules, and doing things that seem 'normal' today: Straight into a chorus at the start of the song, fading in to a song. And their more experimantal recording techniques later in their career.


The Who - When Jimi Hendrix decides he wants to play guitar like Pete Townshend, there's gotta be something there. Often credited with popularising (if not 'inventing') the guitar power chord

Chic (or Nile Rogers/Bernard Edwards) both as musicians and producers. Sugarhill gang,Madonna,Duran Duran,Blondie,Diana Ross,David Bowie (can you even imagine 'Let's Dance' without Rogers' guitar) to name but a few.

Ramones (good call, Lionel) The 'true' god-fathers of punk. Their influence reaches far beyond late 70's punk.

Bill Haley - The Pioneer of pop music

Macy
25/01/2005, 1:56 PM
Well i suppose you would have to include Tony Colsten Hayter (a promoter, not a producer) Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and a few others for pioneering house/acid this side of the Atlantic. Add in a guy like Laurent Garnier, and you have Europes early dance scene nailed. It was their clubs which kicked off Oibeeefuh, Ministry etc. (gotta find you a copy of ALTERED STATES Conor).
Not forgetting Mike Pickering and Graeme Park in the Hac....

1) Tony Wilson/ Factory. Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Hacienda.

2) E/pills/disco biscuits

3) Bob Dylan

4) CBGB's - Punk through to the Besties.

5) Hendrix

ken foree
25/01/2005, 3:30 PM
David Bowie (can you even imagine 'Let's Dance' without Rogers' guitar) to name but a few.


*VERY PEDANTIC ALERT*, sorry just to mention stevie ray vaughan also played guitar on that track, i think he takes the solo. agree the guitar is class on that (great) song!

eoinh
25/01/2005, 3:53 PM
At the start i gave the following

Elvis
The Beatles
The Byrds
Bob Marley
Bob Dylan


These were my reasons. All five I would term "Introducers" in that they introduced and developed popular music to the masses. None of them invented Rock or what ever you want to call it but they did innovate.

Elvis - He brought Rock 'N' Roll to the white masses in America. Before that it was ghetttoised with Black Musicians. It existed, but Elvis made sure that "Popular Music" was there to stay.

The Beatles - As a Band they changed hugely from begining to end. At the start of their careers they were either performing covers or simple love songs. On their musical journey they they contributed so much to the music of today. No musician following them was left untouced wether they knew it or not. From simple rock n roll to folk, experimentation in the studio, psychedelic etc they covered it all. They were also using various influences such as avant garde, clasical, music hall and incorporating it into their output. The early Beatles Song "I call your name" has a ska break for instance. "Ob-la-di, ob-la-da" has a reggae rhythm. Most listeners were being introduced to a world of music which they didnt even know existed at the time.


The Byrds - Although towards the end of their career the Byrds quality of output went down they did in the end have a very influential legacy. Often they married social commentary to lush jangling guitar music especially when covering bob dylan numbers. Any post punk indie band is a direct heir to the byrds (eg REM). However they also married folk rock, country rock and psychedelic rock together t produce some wonderful numbers and albums. They were often racked by internal conflict and personnal changes but they were in many ways the american answer to the Beatles.


Bob Marley - Probably to most people, reggaes towering figure. Reggae is also the most influential form of music on "rock, pop, whatever" from outside the "developed world" (how i hate that term). Popular music continues to borrow from Marley in all its forms.


Dylan - Put politics into music. Also he helped spark several different genres of songwriting and influenced numerous other individuals and groups. Helped move lyrics in songs from simply personal concerns like love to encompass the whole human experience. Also helped make it possible for those artists without a "conventional" singing voice to be heard.



Most of the above artists wouldnt be among my personal favourites (except the byrds) but i chose them because of their infleunce on the development of popular music.

Roo69
25/01/2005, 4:01 PM
Dont forget hendrix... paved the way for countless guitarists....

and who paved the way for Hendrix ? The one and only Robert Johnson. The single most important person in guitar history.

ken foree
25/01/2005, 7:11 PM
The Byrds - Although towards the end of their career the Byrds quality of output went down they did in the end have a very influential legacy. Often they married social commentary to lush jangling guitar music especially when covering bob dylan numbers. Any post punk indie band is a direct heir to the byrds (eg REM). However they also married folk rock, country rock and psychedelic rock together t produce some wonderful numbers and albums. They were often racked by internal conflict and personnal changes but they were in many ways the american answer to the Beatles.

Most of the above artists wouldnt be among my personal favourites (except the byrds) but i chose them because of their infleunce on the development of popular music.

your devotion to the byrds is admirable! i think i haD two of their records, sweetheart and another one. 'wasn't born to follow' although over-played in certain quarters is an amazing song. i feel the same way about the beach boys; some people think they're just this surfy, fluffy nonsense. these people know nothing! :D repeated listening to 'good vibrations' is sometimes required ;)

ken foree
25/01/2005, 7:12 PM
and who paved the way for Hendrix ? The one and only Robert Johnson. The single most important person in guitar history.

word, dylan admitted johnson blew him away (as well as w. guthrie)

Gary
25/01/2005, 10:22 PM
Not forgetting Mike Pickering and Graeme Park in the Hac....



I actually couldnt remember Pickering. I knew Park was very influential in the Manchester scene, along with someone, but couldnt for the life of me remember his name :( .

Excuse me if Im wrong, but is Mike Pickering not the man behing M People?

thecorner
26/01/2005, 4:20 AM
Excuse me if Im wrong, but is Mike Pickering not the man behing M People?


ur not excused ;)

Macy
26/01/2005, 9:11 AM
Excuse me if Im wrong, but is Mike Pickering not the man behing M People?
Yeah he was, where did it all go wrong? :confused:

green goblin
26/01/2005, 10:08 AM
Chic (or Nile Rogers/Bernard Edwards) both as musicians and producers. Sugarhill gang,Madonna,Duran Duran,Blondie,Diana Ross,David Bowie (can you even imagine 'Let's Dance' without Rogers' guitar) to name but a few.

Ramones (good call, Lionel) The 'true' god-fathers of punk. Their influence reaches far beyond late 70's punk.

Bill Haley - The Pioneer of pop music

I think Noby's got 3 of the five pretty close here.

Looking far, far , farfurther back, I'd say The Carter Family are the actual grandparents of all pop. It's probably thanks to them that we have white folks playing guitar rather than autoharp or something, and that we have that uptempo 4:4 foot tapping beat made so popular, rather than polkas or waltzes. Without them you'd have no Bill Hailey, no Elvis, no Johnny Cash, no Nashville, and therefore no rock and roll. At least as we know it.

On the other side, then surely Robert Johnson, king of the Delta Blues must be the other side of the family. He took his guitar down the crossroads where a stranger in a white suit tuned it for him, in return for his soul.

James Brown, the godfather of soul. And the Beach boys, too. Brian Wilson's genius drove the Beatles to become more experimental, even though he was coming from a 4 part harmony barbership tradition rather than from the skiffle roots of the fab 4. And while on skiffle, then Woodie Guthrie must get a mention for giving pop a political voice before anyone, and to Lonnie Donnegan for making it popular before there was rock'n'roll in Britain.

Sugar Hill Gang, anyone?

noby
26/01/2005, 10:39 AM
I think Noby's got 3 of the five pretty close here.


Cool. Do I win something?

I guess there are several ways of looking at it. There is the historical aspect, and also there is the more direct influence, i.e. Wilson - Beatles, Pixies - Nirvana type thing.

Someone mentioned Bob Marley, but you could probably trace his influences back to some of the producers on the island, like Duke Reid, Coxonne Dodd, Lee Perry etc. Perhaps another big influence on his career was the heat wave in Jamaica in the mid-60's, when ska slowed to rocksteady, then to reggae.
Would the wailers as a ska outfit have been as big?

Sadly, in the last twenty years or so, the biggest influence on pop music is the producers, from Rogers/Edwards, Trevor Horn, SAW right up to Simon Cowell, and what sells.

green goblin
26/01/2005, 11:57 AM
Hey, he produced Yes, Simple Minds, Bryan Ferry, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys etc. etc. Leave Trevor alone.

And ABC. The Lexicon of Love is an utterly marvelous example of perfect 80's pop and I'll defend it to anyone. :)

I think we're looking at singers/musicians here rather than influential people, in which case we'd need to count people like Ed Sullivan, for hosting the show giving rock and roll natial TV exposure, and so on. Or John Peel, bless him.

Kraftwerk. I blame them them for every record made with a synthesiser. And blame Robert Moog, too.

green goblin
26/01/2005, 12:05 PM
Cool. Do I win something?


The respect of your peers. I'd take that over supper for two in Lawlor's.

noby
26/01/2005, 12:18 PM
Lads, lads. Calm down
Ok, I shouldn't have said 'sadly'. My point was, more and more the 'influential' people in the pop industry are producers, agents, marketing people; not even dj's and tv hosts. So much so, that it's not obvious who pop bands are influenced by these days.

There are many great producers, Horn included, but they weren't the be-all-and-end-all of the musician. That sems to have changed, in certain genres anyway.

green goblin
26/01/2005, 1:02 PM
Lads, lads. Calm down
Ok, I shouldn't have said 'sadly'. My point was, more and more the 'influential' people in the pop industry are producers, agents, marketing people; not even dj's and tv hosts. So much so, that it's not obvious who pop bands are influenced by these days.

There are many great producers, Horn included, but they weren't the be-all-and-end-all of the musician. That sems to have changed, in certain genres anyway.

It's an interesting one though, isn't it, would the Fab 4 have been that good without George Martin? Without him, would they have been just another group of loveable scally moptops. How far is the producer/writer/promoter the true prime mover, when compared the actual recording artiste?

Phil Spector played individual people like instruments. They'd do exactly what he told them to, even if it meant going without sleep for days, and if they still didn't get it right, then he'd pull a gun on them. Joe Meek was another (tragically less prolific) figure, who, although not playing the actual instruments or singing, was wholly responsible for the records he made. I think it's (kiiiiind of) OK to see these people as musicians in their own right.

Peter Waterman, though... I personally find the records he puts out to be awful, but is he really doing anything different? OK, he doesn't have a fraction of the talent mentione above, but at the heart of it, that's what he's doing.
And without him, Kylie's career may have ended in 1988... :o

I

noby
26/01/2005, 1:51 PM
How far is the producer/writer/promoter the true prime mover, when compared the actual recording artiste?



That's my point. It seems more and more as time goes on.
Who were boyzone influenced by? Was it Cat Stevens? The Temptations? Barbershop? or was it Louis Walsh or the size of Take That's fame/bank balance?

noby
26/01/2005, 2:18 PM
Ok, Ill try this once more.
Image, production, allthese things were, and always will be very important in pop music. But, as I said "more and more" this side is outweighing the talent/musical side.

I mean, you can't speak of elvis/beatles or anyone, and ignore image & production. But they also had talent.

The sex pistols were a 'boy band' who favoured image over talent, weren't they? Just ask Glen.

Bluebeard
26/01/2005, 2:46 PM
Producers have always been big in the music industry post 1960s - to name but two examples in teh 60s and 70s think of Phil Spector in Motown and Brian Wilson when still lucid on his own work; then in the 1970s there are great examples in Bowie on Mott the Hoople and Lou Reeds albums, and Brian Eno on Bowie's German stuff.

True, there are the SAW relics, and William Orbit going overboard on stuff after his impact on Madonna and All Saints, but there are some good co-creative examples. The absence of one good producer working on it all to unite ideas is obvious on the Gwen Stefani album.

I suppose the difference is ultimately that a good producer enhances the feel of an album - expands an artists vision into something that is a continuation of it, but also an extension. I would certainly rate a good producer as a good musician, the same way you would rate a top conductor.

green goblin
26/01/2005, 5:06 PM
As for Peter Waterman, SAW had some good stuff amongst the dross, like Dead or Alive's 'You Spin Me Right Round' ....

Oh, good call. :) :) Absolute diamond of a record. I had no idea SAW were bvehind it, or if I did then I wa sin denial. No, I'll forgive them pretty much eberything for that.

Well, apart from The Reynolds Girls. And Big Fun. And Sonia.

Still, this is th eman who brought us Steps, and if we didn't have them then it would've been a tragedy. :o :)

Iorfa
31/01/2005, 4:07 PM
Dylan
Velvet Underground
The Ramones
The Smiths
New Order

Closed Account 2
05/02/2005, 5:08 AM
Most of the major ones have been listed already

Bruce Springsteen (great rock guitarist very much ahead of his time, followed by other legends like John Cougar Mellencamp, and I'd argue Sting - later stuff). Rod Stewart (made some great music early on - in the late 70 early 80s defined the European Rock Star mullets et al. - but then his desire for fame and women took over his life, and now he has zero credibility). Elton John (simply put, one of the best songwriters in the history of post 60s music). Chris Rea, (a pioneer of what I would call 90s/80s café rock). Nas (I dont like rap, but some of his early stuff was good, but now his music's drifted into the cliché of Women/Drugs/Money).

Schumi
07/02/2005, 1:23 PM
just trying to rid the world of the worst music collection ever... :D ;)
Clearing out your bedroom are you? :D

corkharps
07/02/2005, 5:10 PM
Dylan
Velvet Underground
The Ramones
The Smiths
New Order

Buy that man a pint! :cool:
I can't believe that The Velvet Underground weren't mentioned untill the third page of this tread, four hail Marys and one Our Father for all of you! ;)

joey B
07/02/2005, 5:20 PM
Cant believe no one has mentioned Louis Armstrong for jazz.

Closed Account 2
10/02/2005, 3:00 AM
Im sure Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen should get a mention somewhere in this thread.

CollegeTillIDie
11/02/2005, 12:02 AM
Im sure Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen should get a mention somewhere in this thread.

Check out the Don Henley cover of that song on his Actual Miles Greatest Hits CD... :D

Closed Account 2
14/02/2005, 3:59 AM
^ thats a find alright, right up there with Jimmy Nail :D