QuotePixies
Beatles
David Bowie
Sex Pistols
Me it would be
Elvis
The Beatles
The Byrds
Bob Marley
Bob Dylan
Last edited by eoinh; 26/01/2005 at 9:40 PM.
Pixies
Beatles
David Bowie
Sex Pistols
nirvana
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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If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
Dont forget hendrix... paved the way for countless guitarists....
Whatever it was I am sure it was better than my plan to get out of this by pretending to be mad. I mean, who would have noticed another madman around here?
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...
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....?Originally Posted by Conor74
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.
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).
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
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
Can't believe Buddy Holly hasn't been mentioned, the man who invented the pop song.
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
would nearly say that the bee gees helped influence the club scene of today
alota new bands startin to sound like early U2,killers guitarist says alotta his stuff is influenced by The Edge
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.
RAMONES
Woody Guthrie
Lonnie Donegan
Pink Floyd
Jimi Hendrix
Abba
James Brown
" I wish to God that someone would be able to block out the voices in my head for five minutes, the voices that scream, over and over again: "Why do they come to me to die?"
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
Ceci n'est pas une signature
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
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
*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!
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.
Last edited by eoinh; 25/01/2005 at 2:56 PM.
and who paved the way for Hendrix ? The one and only Robert Johnson. The single most important person in guitar history.
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