Posted April 18, 200520 yr comment_1755549 Discuss. Complain. Question placement, etc. 1) The Beatles 2) Bob Dylan 3) Elvis Presley 4) The Rolling Stones 5) Chuck Berry 6) Jimi Hendrix 7) James Brown 8) Little Richard 9) Aretha Franklin 10) Ray Charles 11) Bob Marley 12) The Beach Boys 13) Buddy Holly 14) Led Zeppelin 15) Stevie Wonder 16) Sam Cooke 17) Muddy Watters 18) Marvin Gaye 19) The Velvet Underground 20) Bo Diddley 21) Otis Redding 22) U2 23) Bruce Springsteen 24) Jerry Lee Lewis 25) Fats Domino 26) The Ramones 27) Nirvana 28) Prince 29) The Who 30) The Clash 31) Johnny Cash 32) Smokey Robinson and the Miracles 33) The Everly Brothers 34) Neil Young 35) Michael Jackson 36) Madonna 37) Roy Orbison 38) John Lennon 39) David Bowie 40) Simon and Garfunkel 41) The Doors 42) Van Morrison 43) Sly and the Family Stone 44) Public Enemy 45) The Byrds 46) Janis Joplin 47) Patti Smith 48) Run-DMC 49) Elton John 50) The Band 51) Howlin' Wolf 52) The Allman Brothers Band 53) Eric Clapton 54) Dr. Dre 55) Grateful Dead 56) Parliament/Funkadelic 57) Aerosmith 58) Sex Pistols 59) Louis Jordan 60) Joni Mitchell 61) Tina Turner 62) Etta James 63) Phil Spector 64) The Kinks 65) Al Green 66) Cream 67) The Temptations 68) Jackie Wilson 69) Carl Perkins 70) The Police 71) Frank Zappa 72) AC/DC 73) Radiohead 74) Hank Williams 75) The Eagles 76) The Shirelles 77) Beastie Boys 78) The Stooges 79) The Four Tops 80) Elvis Costello 81) The Drifters 82) Eminem 83) N.W.A. 84) James Taylor 85) Black Sabbath 86) Tupac Shakur 87) Gram Parsons 88) Miles Davis 89) The Yardbirds 90) Carlos Santana 91) Ricky Nelson 92) Guns n' Roses 93) Booker T. and the MG's 94) Nine Inch Nails 95) Lynyrd Skynyrd 96) Martha and the Vandellas 97) Diana Ross and the Supremes 98) Roxy Music 99) Curtis Mayfield 100) Lee "Scratch" Perry
April 18, 200520 yr Author comment_1756064 One of the most influential blues artists ever... Bio from AMG... In the history of the blues, there has never been anyone quite like the Howlin' Wolf. Six foot three and close to 300 pounds in his salad days, the Wolf was the primal force of the music spun out to its ultimate conclusion. A Robert Johnson may have possessed more lyrical insight, a Muddy Waters more dignity, and a B.B. King certainly more technical expertise, but no one could match him for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits. He was born in West Point, MS, and named after the 21st President of the United States (Chester Arthur). His father was a farmer and Wolf took to it as well until his 18th birthday, when a chance meeting with Delta blues legend Charley Patton changed his life forever. Though he never came close to learning the subtleties of Patton's complex guitar technique, two of the major components of Wolf's style (Patton's inimitable growl of a voice and his propensity for entertaining) were learned first hand from the Delta blues master. The main source of Wolf's hard-driving, rhythmic style on harmonica came when Aleck "Rice" Miller (Sonny Boy Williamson) married his half-sister Mary and taught him the rudiments of the instrument. He first started playing in the early '30s as a strict Patton imitator, while others recall him at decade's end rocking the juke joints with a neck-rack harmonica and one of the first electric guitars anyone had ever seen. After a four-year stretch in the Army, he settled down as a farmer and weekend player in West Memphis, AR, and it was here that Wolf's career in music began in earnest. By 1948, he had established himself within the community as a radio personality. As a means of advertising his own local appearances, Wolf had a 15-minute radio show on KWEM in West Memphis, interspersing his down-home blues with farm reports and like-minded advertising that he sold himself. But a change in Wolf's sound that would alter everything that came after was soon in coming because when listeners tuned in for Wolf's show, the sound was up-to-the-minute electric. Wolf had put his first band together, featuring the explosive guitar work of Willie Johnson, whose aggressive style not only perfectly suited Wolf's sound but aurally extended and amplified the violence and nastiness of it as well. In any discussion of Wolf's early success both live, over the airwaves, and on record, the importance of Willie Johnson cannot be overestimated. Wolf finally started recording in 1951, when he caught the ear of Sam Phillips, who first heard him on his morning radio show. The music Wolf made in the Memphis Recording Service studio was full of passion and zest and Phillips simultaneously leased the results to the Bihari Brothers in Los Angeles and Leonard Chess in Chicago. Suddenly, Howlin' Wolf had two hits at the same time on the R&B charts with two record companies claiming to have him exclusively under contract. Chess finally won him over and as Wolf would proudly relate years later, "I had a 4,000 dollar car and 3,900 dollars in my pocket. I'm the onliest one drove out of the South like a gentleman." It was the winter of 1953 and Chicago would be his new home. When Wolf entered the Chess studios the next year, the violent aggression of the Memphis sides was being replaced with a Chicago backbeat and, with very little fanfare, a new member in the band. Hubert Sumlin proved himself to be the Wolf's longest-running musical associate. He first appears as a rhythm guitarist on a 1954 session, and within a few years' time his style had fully matured to take over the role of lead guitarist in the band by early 1958. In what can only be described as an "angular attack," Sumlin played almost no chords behind Wolf, sometimes soloing right through his vocals, featuring wild skitterings up and down the fingerboard and biting single notes. If Willie Johnson was Wolf's second voice in his early recording career, then Hubert Sumlin would pick up the gauntlet and run with it right to the end of the howler's life. By 1956, Wolf was in the R&B charts again, racking up hits with "Evil" and "Smokestack Lightnin'." He remained a top attraction both on the Chicago circuit and on the road. His records, while seldom showing up on the national charts, were still selling in decent numbers down South. But by 1960, Wolf was teamed up with Chess staff writer Willie Dixon, and for the next five years he would record almost nothing but songs written by Dixon. The magic combination of Wolf's voice, Sumlin's guitar, and Dixon's tunes sold a lot of records and brought the 50-year-old bluesman roaring into the next decade with a considerable flourish. The mid-'60s saw him touring Europe regularly with "Smokestack Lightnin'" becoming a hit in England some eight years after its American release. Certainly any list of Wolf's greatest sides would have to include "I Ain't Superstitious," "The Red Rooster," "Shake for Me," "Back Door Man," "Spoonful," and "Wang Dang Doodle," Dixon compositions all. While almost all of them would eventually become Chicago blues standards, their greatest cache occurred when rock bands the world over started mining the Chess catalog for all it was worth. One of these bands was the Rolling Stones, whose cover of "The Red Rooster" became a number-one record in England. At the height of the British Invasion, the Stones came to America in 1965 for an appearance on ABC-TV's rock music show, Shindig. Their main stipulation for appearing on the program was that Howlin' Wolf would be their special guest. With the Stones sitting worshipfully at his feet, the Wolf performed a storming version of "How Many More Years," being seen on his network-TV debut by an audience of a few million. Wolf never forgot the respect the Stones paid him, and he spoke of them highly right up to his final days. Dixon and Wolf parted company by 1964 and Wolf was back in the studio doing his own songs. One of the classics to emerge from this period was "Killing Floor," featuring a modern backbeat and a incredibly catchy guitar riff from Sumlin. Catchy enough for Led Zeppelin to appropriate it for one of their early albums, cheerfully crediting it to themselves in much the same manner as they had done with numerous other blues standards. By the end of the decade, Wolf's material was being recorded by artists including the Doors, the Electric Flag, the Blues Project, Cream, and Jeff Beck. The result of all these covers brought Wolf the belated acclaim of a young, white audience. Chess' response to this was to bring him into the studio for a "psychedelic" album, truly the most dreadful of his career. His last big payday came when Chess sent him over to England in 1970 to capitalize on the then-current trend of London Session albums, recording with Eric Clapton on lead guitar and other British superstars. Wolf's health was not the best, but the session was miles above the earlier, ill-advised attempt to update Wolf's sound for a younger audience. As the '70s moved on, the end of the trail started coming closer. By now Wolf was a very sick man; he had survived numerous heart attacks and was suffering kidney damage from an automobile accident that sent him flying through the car's windshield. His bandleader Eddie Shaw firmly rationed Wolf to a meager half-dozen songs per set. Occasionally some of the old fire would come blazing forth from some untapped wellspring, and his final live and studio recordings show that he could still tear the house apart when the spirit moved him. He entered the Veterans Administration Hospital in 1976 to be operated on, but never survived it, finally passing away on January 10th of that year. But his passing did not go unrecognized. A life-size statue of him was erected shortly after in a Chicago park. Eddie Shaw kept his memory and music alive by keeping his band, the Wolf Gang, together for several years afterward. A child-education center in Chicago was named in his honor and in 1980 he was elected to the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In 1991, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A couple of years later, his face was on a United States postage stamp. Live performance footage of him exists in the CD-ROM computer format. Howlin' Wolf is now a permanent part of American history.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1761143 You know, I've seen a lot of lists, and obviously there's always some place on it that you'll disagree. That being said, this seems like a decent list to me. Of course, I'd have the Rolling Stones at #2.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1761914 They were influential in the early 90's. The changed the face of music and got it away from all the 80's pop/rock bands like Warrant, Poison, Motley Crue, etc. They were the first mainstream "Seattle" band and they got huge popularity wise. They made it "cool" to watch MTV again. Unless, of course, you're asking why they weren't higher. In which case I suggest it had to do with them not having all that much talent. At least as far as lyrics and a singer go.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1764963 I'm trying to figure out how to say this without sounding fly-by-night. RS has an obvious bias for the music of the 50s, 60s and 70s, and an obvious bias against music of the 80s, 90s and 00s. Granted, popular music has not been as good for the past five years as it was at one time, but there's still good music being made on a regular basis. You just have to look harder for it. I'm also not sure I fully understand the criteria. If it's based on talent, Madonna is probably out of place. If it's based on record sales, tour revenue, etc., she should probably be higher, and Radiohead really shouldn't be here at all. I'm confused.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1765100 RS hasn't been worth reading for several years. Their lists are pretty meaningless in my opinion.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1766160 Nirvana and U2 over The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Who, Black Sabbath, The Doors, AC?DC and The Stooges? Bullshit. If it weren't for those bands, Nirvana and U2 probably wouldn't have even came about.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1766430 And Michael Jackson should be in the top three, really, behind only Elvis and the Beatles. #35 is a disgrace when he had just as much impact as they did.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1766618 Shit, Loss, I didn't even realize that. I would actually put Jackson above Elvis, but that's just me.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1767773 Here is the difference with regards to artists from the 50s-70s. The ones who are truly significant, there music has stood the test of time. Thriller was a monumental album but it is dated. Take a Dylan song like "Masters of War" or "Blowin' in the Wind" and it still means something today. The Stones, the Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, etc. don't budge. They remain in our consciousness, and until the baby boomers fade from our society, they will contiue to do so. Also, were the artists influential in a good way or bad way. The Bee Gees were influential but I wouldn't necessary call disco a good thing even though the Brothers Gibb wrote some great songs. In 20 years, we'll reflect on the artists of the 80s and 90s and see where their real place in music history is. The older groups are already there.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1767959 Do you think the average 13-year old on the street is more likely to be able to name five Michael Jackson songs or five Bob Dylan songs? Or the average 30-year old, for that matter. Beatles? Yeah. Elvis? Yeah. Stones? Yeah. I don't see Dylan's appeal, and I never really have.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1767986 The Bee Gees were influential but I wouldn't necessary call disco a good thing even though the Brothers Gibb wrote some great songs. It's not exactly a critically acclaimed genre, but without disco, pop music as we know it today would be radically different. Good or bad, it's been incredibly influential. There would be no dance music if there was no disco music. Sure, the fad completely died a miserably death in the early 80s, but Michael Jackson and Madonna basically recessitated it, only with a new name (dance pop) and they've both had more copycats than just about anyone in the last 50 years. I don't know that more time is needed to make that case.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1768068 Dylan's impact lies more in his lyrics than his songcraft, so he doesn't really fit into my personal taste, as I tend to take in the music before the words. His influence as a lyricist, though, is indelible and, at the time that he was popular, the music had yet to completely overwhelm the words as it does with some modern music. They weren't thinking in soundscapes back then and, if they were, the dreams were fleeting or just extraordinary and not commonplace as they are in the industry today. For Dylan, the music itself is just a means to an end, with his vocal "style" and words being the real draw. I may be generalizing but, after listening to most of the stuff on your CD, I'm not surprised that you're not a big fan, Loss.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1768092 Do you think the average 13-year old on the street is more likely to be able to name five Michael Jackson songs or five Bob Dylan songs? Nowadays? Neither Or the average 30-year old, for that matter. Beatles? Yeah. Elvis? Yeah. Stones? Yeah. I don't see Dylan's appeal, and I never really have. I could name 20 from both and I am 30! Once again, you really have to understand the history of music and the culture surrounding the folk movement to understand Dylan's appeal. He is also a master wordsmith unlike any other. Not only the actual words but the way he puts them together and plays on the meaning. No one writes lyrics better than Dylan at his peak and that is hard for me to say. It's not exactly a critically acclaimed genre, but without disco, pop music as we know it today would be radically different. Good or bad, it's been incredibly influential. I don't disagree that it was influential. I admitted as much in my post. My point is that there are clearly negative influences and positive influences. Disco falls in the former. Just because it is influential does not mean it is a progression. It could be regressive and get credit as such. That doesn't mean that we should sing its praises just because it is influential. Sure, the fad completely died a miserably death in the early 80s, but Michael Jackson and Madonna basically recessitated it, only with a new name (dance pop) and they've both had more copycats than just about anyone in the last 50 years. Disco and the pop from the 80s are radically different. They are both forms of the dance genre but are not alike. That is like saying the Motown sound is the same as the Stax sound because they both play R&B.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1768111 Dylan's impact lies more in his lyrics, than his songcraft, so he doesn't really fit into my personal taste, as I tend to take in the music before the words. His influence as a lyricist, though, is indelible and, at the time that he was popular, the music had yet to completely overwhelm the words as it does with some modern music. They weren't thinking in soundscapes back then and, if they were, the dreams were fleeting or just extraordinary and not commonplace as they are in the industry today. For Dylan, the music itself is just a means to an end, with his vocal "style" and words being the real draw. I may be generalizing but, after listening to most of the stuff on your CD, I'm not surprised that you're not a big fan, Loss. ^What he said.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1768165 I can respect Dylan's place in history for what he was, even if I'm not really a huge fan of it. And yes, MiB, the CD is a pretty accurate representation of my tastes, but there are some songs with some great lyrics on there as well. But yeah, if it didn't sound good, I wouldn't give two shits about the lyrics, because to me, music is about just that -- sound -- more than it is about anything else. As for the differences between 80s pop and disco, I'm not sure they're so drastic. Madonna and Donna Summer, for example, basically had the same sound. Cyndi Lauper, on the other hand, was more of a watered down for mass consumption new wave sound. Tina Turner was still Tina Turner. Michael Jackson modernized his style, but he was still doing the same type of music on Thriller that he did on Off The Wall.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1768214 I wouldn't necessarily cast aside Disco as a positive influence, as it helped create the "club music" culture that is still very prevalent today. You see, Disco is great for what it is, but it was made to be more much than it should have been back in the 70's, when the genre was responsible for a seemingly interminable stream of releases that were complete garbage. Disco was made to be completely disposable music, but that doesn't mean that people want to go out of their way to hear it on the radio or buy albums of it. So, in that sense, Disco is a bad influence, as it influenced the promotion of lousy music just for the sake of satiating a fad or making a buck...but that's really more an indictment of the musical culture of the 70's than anything else, in my opinion.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1768325 And yes, MiB, the CD is a pretty accurate representation of my tastes, but there are some songs with some great lyrics on there as well. But yeah, if it didn't sound good, I wouldn't give two shits about the lyrics, because to me, music is about just that -- sound -- more than it is about anything else. Right. This is also why Dylan has remained relavent. His songs are good. It is also one of the reasons why so many people cover his songs. It is also not uncommon for people to like Dylan covers more than the original because of Dylan's voice. As for the differences between 80s pop and disco, I'm not sure they're so drastic. The difference is pretty drastic. It is the reason people embraced that pop sound in the 80s and KC and the Sunchine Band couldn't get a gig. Ultimately, the connection in both is that they are both designed to get you to dance... but so were the early R&B records of the 50s and 60s. Also, this may be you and me going around in circles because I also think Madonna was a negative influence on music and you are a Madonna fan. We may just have to agree to disagree on this one.
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1768427 Madonna has her downfalls in terms of influence that I won't argue -- she doesn't have a particularly great voice, she didn't write some of her biggest hits and she spent more time crafting the perfect image than she did the perfect pop song. She spawned a legion of Paula Abduls and Britney Spearses so big that I don't think anyone even remembers them all. (Samantha Fox, anyone?) That said, if she didn't make good songs that were fun listens, she wouldn't have lasted as long as she has. Her music has often been the least important part of her persona, or at least it was in her early years, but she at least knew how to make the music coincide properly with her persona and she is good at figuring out what the next big trend is going to be, hopping on it so it seems like she created it and staying relevant as a result. She's more of a marketing and business legend than she is a music legend. She's been helped by the fact that she's a tremendous concert performer, she takes long breaks between albums and Hollywood is obsessed with her. Yet somehow, as calculating as she is, as fake as she is, she manages to make her whole act fun in spite of itself, and she is probably the most famous woman in the world. She's far from my favorite artist, but I'm a fan of hers, because as pretentious as it all can be, you never know what she's going to do next, and within her genre, she's probably better than anyone. That said, her music isn't much different than that of Donna Summer.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1768565 I agree with everything you just said.... Except the Donna Summer part
April 19, 200520 yr comment_1768747 Fuck this list. They need to break these lists down by category. Pop Rock Metal Punk Ska Rap Musical influence is the *only* thing I could see as the basis for how this list was ranked. Otherwise, I'm left scratching my head. These jumble lists are so bad. So very, very, very bad. Music acts can't be bunched together like movies can when ranking like 100 or so of these things.
April 19, 200520 yr Author comment_1768873 Even that wouldn't solve the problem. People would be arguing about what is considered metal or punk (does Green Day get in?) and if they trasncend genres, do you list them in both (Beastie Boys)? Musical influence is the *only* thing I could see as the basis for how this list was ranked. I think this was the idea.
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