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 ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by eoinh
word, dylan admitted johnson blew him away (as well as w. guthrie)Quote:
Originally Posted by Roo69
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 :( .Quote:
Originally Posted by Macy
Excuse me if Im wrong, but is Mike Pickering not the man behing M People?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary
ur not excused ;)
Yeah he was, where did it all go wrong? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary
I think Noby's got 3 of the five pretty close here.Quote:
Originally Posted by noby
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?
Cool. Do I win something?Quote:
Originally Posted by green goblin
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.
And ABC. The Lexicon of Love is an utterly marvelous example of perfect 80's pop and I'll defend it to anyone. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Conor74
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.
The respect of your peers. I'd take that over supper for two in Lawlor's.Quote:
Originally Posted by noby
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by noby
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
That's my point. It seems more and more as time goes on.Quote:
Originally Posted by green goblin
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?
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.
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Conor74
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 :)
Dylan
Velvet Underground
The Ramones
The Smiths
New Order
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).
Clearing out your bedroom are you? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Conor74
Buy that man a pint! :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Iorfa
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! ;)
Cant believe no one has mentioned Louis Armstrong for jazz.