Most influential by decade

[Adamixoye]

After a point in the Robert Trujillo thread, I got to thinking: what person or band was the most influential on music in each decade over the last several decades? I thought of a list from the 50s to the 90s, but it's merely a list to give an example, i.e., I don't necessarily stand by it. Here it is.

 

50s Elvis

60s The Beatles

70s I drew a blank here. I was going to say Hendrix, but I don't know exactly when he was at his peak, or when he died, and feared that he was more late 60s than 70s.

80s Metallica

90s Nirvana

 

Like I said I do not necessarily stand by this list, it's just for starters to see what people think.

[Cowbell]

For 70's, I would imagine that Led Zeppelin would be most influential. After all,they pretty much are the fathers of all the crap that is out today.

 

For 80's, I feel like saying U2 because The Edge brought a whole new perspective to guitar playing. And I just don't like Metallica.

[Selecter]

I have a two part answer for the 70's: CAROLE KING and Peter Frampton! Carole for the first half 1971 and Frampton for the second half 76.

 

Tapestry was the biggest selling album of the decade and she along with James Taylor kicked off the whole singer songwriter era with that album. Many poeple dont like to give her her props but I'm not one of them. Some of that material is dated now but most of it is immortal music. Frampton had the biggest live album ever and he was a monster rock act for the rest of the decade. He screwed his career up royally when poeple started telling him he should go into acting but he was still great until 79 or so when you started seeing more of him on TV than on stage.

 

Besides that Charles Larkey who played bass on Tapestry and Music CK albums is a bass hero of mine, one of many. His playing is what I call tasty. It tastes great and there's LESS FILLING. HAR. ( sorry )

[LizzyD]

Originally posted by CowbellAllen:

For 70's, I would imagine that Led Zeppelin would be most influential. After all,they pretty much are the fathers of all the crap that is out today.

 

For 80's, I feel like saying U2 because The Edge brought a whole new perspective to guitar playing. And I just don't like Metallica.

I absolutely agree with this! Metallica wasn't even HUGE in the 80's...but U2 really hit their stride and a lot of people emulated them.

 

In the 70's, Led Zeppelin were it hands down.

[LizzyD]

Oh, and the other decades seem right-on to me, as long as we are strictly talking about rock music. Other genres would be a different story...

[Adamixoye]

I guess I was talking about rock.

 

Led Zeppelin was a good idea. I should have thought about that.

 

U2 over Metallica I can accept for the reasons that were mentioned, though it's still debatable. Metallica's 80s stuff, even though they hadn't hit it big, was and still is hugely influential.

[_Sweet Willie_]

What about Run DMC (or maybe Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, or the Sugar Hill Gang) for the 80s? Maybe we need to look at folks like the Last Poets and Gil Scott-Heron in the 60s and 70s for their influences on hip-hop, as well as some of the Caribbean artists that influenced rap? Look what rap music has done in terms of influencing music since then.

 

I think I'd go with Run DMC for the 80s. I think REM could go in there with U2, though.

 

This is a tough thread. We haven't even mentioned any Stax or Motown artists yet. What about James Brown, and all the funky, groovalicious music that he inspired?

 

Hmmm.

 

(Edit: Ooooops, just read the clarification that we're talking about rock. I might still leave in Run DMC, but definitely a good argument for U2 or REM, though.)

[Adamixoye]

Sweet Willie, I think we posted at the same time. As I said, I didn't mean to think "only rock", it just happened--must be my own personal bias. I welcome suggestions from other genres, of which you'd supplied some good ones.

[Adamixoye]

And you edited as I posted again. Awesome. How about that there internet!

[PETE_COMBS]

For the 70's I would say KISS, because they made too much of an impact to not influnce any band in that time frame,and the 80's VAN HALEN,or any influencing guitar player.Cant name any for the 90's.

[...]

Originally posted by PETE_COMBS:

For the 70's I would say KISS, because they made too much of an impact to not influnce any band in that time frame,and the 80's VAN HALEN,or any influencing guitar player.Cant name any for the 90's.

KISS?!?!??! Please. Maybe for stage shows and live performance, but musically speaking they did nothing ground breaking.

 

My list (for a strictly rock setting) would be:

 

50s Elvis

60s The Beatles

70s Led Zeppelin

80s Metallica

90s Nirvana

 

While I do agree that U2 did a lot of very influential stuff during the 80's, Metallica is looked at as being the pioneers of current metal. They took over what Black Sabbath started and made a huge influence on an entire genre of music. There is not a metal band out there today that can say the 80's Metallica wasn't an enormous influence on them.

 

I'm not so sure about the 90's and Nirvana. Yes, they did fuel the whole Seattle sound explosion; but Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains were all a huge part of that as well. All the psuedo-punk bands that are popular now (and during the 90's) aren't doing anything that the Ramones, Misfits, and Sex Pistols didn't already do in the late 70's and early 80's. They just have better gear and production on their albums.

 

In fact, with the amount of rap/metal or nu-metal, or whatever the hell it's called, music.. I'd be tempted to throw out Rage Against the Machine as the most influential band of the 90's. They did something very new that a LOT of people copied, and are still copying right now.

 

It's all very subjective obviously. There are so many different categories that you can break music into that it's really impossible to put a finger on one band in particular. This is compounded by the fact that the 90's haven't exactly been over for all that long.

 

OK, I'm done. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[jeremy c]

How about bass players?

 

40's Jimmy Blanton brought the bass to the foreground

50's Willie Dixon played on all the classic blues records as well as with Chuck Berry

60's James Jamerson 'nuff said

70's 1st Half--John Paul Jones RAWK ON

70's 2nd Half--Jaco Pastorius and the ball game changed.

80's Marcus Miller

90's Victor Wooten

00's too soon to tell.

 

or groups:

50's Chuck Berry

60's Temptations

70's Sly and the Family Stone

80's Cameo

90's Prince

00's ?

[Scoot]

Originally posted by Sweet Willie:

(Edit: Ooooops, just read the clarification that we're talking about rock. I might still leave in Run DMC, but definitely a good argument for U2 or REM, though.)

Might have to leave in Run-DMC for spawning the now-bastardized Rap-Rock w/ those washed up rockers in '86. Whatever happened to those two ugly guys that did "Walk this Way" w/ then anyway?

 

My list:

 

50's Elvis

60's Beatles

70's Zep

80's Van Halen

90's Nirvana (closer-than-you-might-think second place to KoRn)

 

Any predictions for this decade? Incubus maybe? I hear a lot of them in newer stuff.

[Scoot]

oops, double post

[ibescotty]

Kudos To Jeremy mentioning old Chuck!! I've been meaning to get down to Blueberry Hill to see him. He still performs every now and again.

 

"Won't you play with my ding a ling..."

 

As for rap metal wouldn't you have to credit the Beastie boys with that one? I guess they leaned more towards the rap side but they had that feel.

 

Of course you could really go back to the Aerosmith/RunDMC remake of walk this way too...

[getz out]

Let's see:

 

50's: Elvis

60's: The Beatles

70's: Led Zepplin

80's: Michael Jackson (runners up, Run-DMC and U2)

90's: Rage Against the Machine (runners up, Stone Temple Pilots and Dave Mathews Band)

 

As far as being influencial, EVERY ARTIST copped Michael Jackson back in the 80's. I think that would be the definition of influencial. I agree with Sweet Willie that Run-DMC might just fill in that 80's spot; look at how much rap is in rock music nowadays. And, Run-DMC had guitar solos. And those guitar solo's kicked ass. Plus, they put out a great movie, Tougher Than Leather. U2 would also be on my list. Metallica? It's hard to be influencial when you don't get any airplay. There are more bands that sound like U2 than Metallica, even today (think of all the Fuel, Matchbox 20, Filter, and other assorted chick-rock).

 

As far as the 90's go, Rage Against the Machine has effectively changed the musical landscape. They took riff-rock metal, with rap, and some elements of hardcore, and mished them together with EXTREMELY competent rock musicians and a very, very angry man who liked to scream. That sums up the majority of bands that were coming out in the late 90's and today. My second choice for the 90's would be Stone Temple Pilots, since they, while not as "out front" as Nirvana, have single-handedly managed to save straight-ahead hard rock. I would give Nirvana the nod, but I still content that more people copped the Stone Temple Pilots' sound as time when on in the 90's. The third pick would be the Dave Matthews Band; look at the the trouble they started. Crap, he even has a stunt double (John Mayer) that gigs, but never in the same town, just in case there's an earthquake or something.

[Adamixoye]

Originally posted by Bumpcity:

While I do agree that U2 did a lot of very influential stuff during the 80's, Metallica is looked at as being the pioneers of current metal. They took over what Black Sabbath started and made a huge influence on an entire genre of music. There is not a metal band out there today that can say the 80's Metallica wasn't an enormous influence on them.

 

...

 

In fact, with the amount of rap/metal or nu-metal, or whatever the hell it's called, music.. I'd be tempted to throw out Rage Against the Machine as the most influential band of the 90's. They did something very new that a LOT of people copied, and are still copying right now.

The point about Metallica was the one I was trying to make. I don't think U2 had nearly the same influence on as many bands, and certainly not as far as completely defining a genre.

 

As far as Nirvana goes, I knew there might some dispute. My reasoning went like this: grunge was the most significant rock phenomenon of the 90s. And Nirvana popularized it. They didn't create it, but they made it cool. Remember the "Third Wave of Ska"? That was reactionary towards grunge, so you could even argue that Nirvana was very influential in that. But to point out that there were a lot of other bands with significant musical influence nearing that of Nirvana (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, etc.) is quite fair.

 

The Rage Against the Machine point is a good one too. It may be a little early to tell. Certainly I'd give Nirvana/grunge the edge in the 90s, but the long-term effects are yet to be determined. If Rage were to win out, it would be in the same way that Metallica wins the 80s: they may not have been the biggest band, but they influenced everyone in the long run.

 

And once again, I feel quite stupid about Zeppelin. Hey, when was Hendrix around, exactly? Does he even challenge Zeppelin?

[Adamixoye]

I also meant to mention, based on the responses in the concurrent Tool thread, that I thought some people might argue for Tool for those same reasons as Rage, i.e., that "everyone is trying to sound like them". I don't know that I would agree with that, but I'm just wondering if that might be the case.

 

And for the 2000s, well, if it's too early for the 90s, it's certainly too early for the 2000s. I wouldn't pick Incubus; right now, I think the popular nu-metal/rap-metal poster child is Linkin Park (who, despite the disdain that exists by a lot of people, I'm a pretty big fan of). By the way, I dislike those terms (nu-metal and rap-metal), but I can't think of anything better.

[Cowbell]

For the 90's, Nirvana and Blink 182 are both pretty good contenders. Sadly,their music isn't any good to my ears.

For the 60's Miles Davis with "Kind of blue" revolutioned the jazz scene and not only, he revolutioned the way of playing all stiles.

For the 70's Miles Davis again with the line up of "in a silent way" and "bitches brew" he started what was the fusion movement, from there on the music changed another time (and still not only in his genere but was a change it spreads over every stile of music). I would say also Jaco Pastorius with his first record, he changed the way of palyin bass....the others follow the way he opened

For the 80's i would have many grops in many different generes, from iron maiden and metallica, to michael jackson and prince or toto an weather report, with the introduction of MIDI sintethyzers effects and allthe other stuff it's hard to say who experimented and influenced more.

For the 90's jamiroquai, U2, the boy bands and the nu punk bands (this two i admit have been very influential ... but i don't like them at all)

For the new millenium I think electroic music is the one wh's experimentig new fields in music but there are also the various ricky martin j-lo and others that (unfotunately!!!) rule....

[...]

Originally posted by Adamixoye:

And once again, I feel quite stupid about Zeppelin. Hey, when was Hendrix around, exactly? Does he even challenge Zeppelin?

Jimi was the mid-late 60's, he died in 1970.

 

The bulk of his work was released in (I believe) 1967-69, but some of the cats in this forum who actually were alive and layin down the low end around this time will be able to correct me. Certainly a HUGE influence on damn near everyone who has picked up a guitar since his first single, "Hey Joe" was released and got recognition. Truly an amazing talent and very sad that he died so young.

[Ren.]

What about influential bass players in the PoP Culture?

 

90s: Flea.

80s: Sting.

70s: Bootsy.

...

...

...

...

 

...I don't know... is 6 a.m. in the morning and I'n in classes, so .... don't know what I'm by this point...

[rumpelstiltskin.]

not to take away from nirvana, but if rage against the machine is a good vote, then the red hot chili peppers are an even better vote. without the chili peppers, there would be no avenue for fusing rap with metal. of course, without fishbone, there would have been no chili peppers in the mainstream, so what's my point?

 

seriously, i think the red hot chili peppers were more influential in the long term sense than nirvana. nirvana made great music, but i think the chili peppers, being more of a musician's band, will have a greater influence on music of the future than will nirvana.

 

robb.

[Mark Zeger]

While it's hard to argue about Chuck Berry or Elvis in the '50s, I would offer Les Paul or Leo Fender as most influential.

 

No electric guitars, no electric bass, no rock & roll.

[dcr]

50s: Rosie & the Originals

 

"Angel Baby" spoke for a whole generation, folks. Plus, they inspired that song on "Houses of the Holy" that no one knows how to pronounce.

 

60s: Dave Clark Five

 

Always original, never derivative.

 

70s: Elvis

 

Two words: hunka hunka.

 

80s: Air Supply

 

And I'm still all out of love.

 

90s: Some band whose name has three words in it, & one of the words was a number.

 

Did for the 90s what Dave Clark Five did for the 60s, only with flange & overdrive.

 

00s: Lisa Marie

 

Too early to tell? My eye! That woman can sing.

 

And most influential song? Well, let's just say the beat goes on, baby. La de da de de.

[Cup]

I find it hard to believe that people are mentioning R.E.M, Nirvana and U.2 (as much as I love these bands) without naming a band that all these groups and more call influential...THE VELVET UNDERGROUND!

 

And what about the Haight-Ashbury scene of the late 6o's. Maybe The Grateful Dead, Big Brother' or Jefferson Airplane don't wet your whistle music wise but those hippie folk knew how to organise Rock N Rolls first gigs, look, attitude etc.

 

CupMcMali...this monkey's gone to heaven

 

ohh, that reminds me, The Pixies!

[Jay J.]

50's: Elvis

60's: Beatles

70's: it gets a little broader here because there are a few different style emerging I would say Led Zeppeling, Black Sabbath and the Clash.

80's: a lot of bad hair metal and I think the real mainstream emergence of rap/hip hop deserves mention. RUN DMC

90's: Nirvana and more rap stuff, Dr. Dre I know there are probably not many rap fans here myself included but it really is the newest music and has seen the most growth of anything in the last 15 years.

[LaCosaNostradamus]

It depends on what you lisen to and/or what you play. As influential as the Velvet Underground may have been to rockers, they didn't influence jazzmen, country or classical players, for example.

[dcr]

Anyone care to wager on how long before some tool says The Ramones?

 

(Actually, they'd probably say, THA RAMONEZ!!)

[Kooky Mogessi]

Originally posted by dcr:

Anyone care to wager on how long before some tool says The Ramones?

 

(Actually, they'd probably say, THA RAMONEZ!!)

//sarcasm-mode on// well with all the punk bands around today i.e. Simple Plan, Bowling for Soup, and especially Good Charlotte i would have to say the Ram Ones (i think thats their name) were quite an influence to everyone //sarcasm-mode off//

 

that was too much fun