EWB's Top Fif -- er, Thirty-Three Influential Artists: THE RESULTS

[VerbalPuke]

Link Wray made a music list on EWB? There is hope for you guys yet!

But man, Link Wray. Fantastic guitar player in his own right, I'm sure most folks are well aware of him as being one of the original players of the power chord. Seriously, find his three disc compilation that spans most of his career, the "Big City After Dark" album is especially good. When I think of music that was ahead of it's time, he's right at the start of those thoughts.

[Skummy]

That was a pretty solid group - Link Wray is brilliant, basically one of the original rock and rollers, a real original punk icon - heck, one of his songs got banned from radio airplay for being too sexually explicit, and it was a fucking INSTRUMENTAL. That's hardcore. And, yeah, is generally credited with the invention, or at least with popularising, the power chord, so basically no Link Wray, no punk rock, amongst many other things. And just look at that photo, the man oozes cool.

Motörhead had better be higher than Metallica. I'm not a fan of thrash, or much of what Metallica have done, and while I won't doubt that they've influenced a lot of bands, they're not what I consider an "influential" band as influential to me goes hand in hand with innovation, which Metallica have never really done - what they did, with Kill 'Em All, was just remind people that, before all the glam and wanky guitar solos, metal could be tough and raw and fast, and then over time worked on that, but didn't really do anything new with it, they just reminded people, or opened people's eyes, to the music that had influenced them. So really, a vote for Metallica should be a vote for Motörhead, a vote for Diamond Head, a vote for Mercyful Fate, etc. etc....

I find Bob Marley interminably dull. I, for the most part, don't like reggae, and I find Marley, especially post-Wailers to be one of the least interesting exponents of it, lyrically and musically. I think he's another one that has been more influential culturally than musically - Bob Marley the cultural icon means a heck of a lot more than Bob Marley the singer. Unfortunately that cultural significance nowadays amounts to "Dude, he smoked weed, awesome". Grrr.

James Brown, fuck yes. Should be at least ten places higher. Crossed boundaries between soul, rock and roll, funk, gospel, even recorded a (thankfully never commercially released) country album, and with the exception of country, from what I've heard, pretty much excelled at a whole lot of it. When Michael Jackson's stealing your moves, and when every rock and roller in the country is wishing they had your stage presence, you know you're something special. Also, he's the only man that could take attention away from Jesus on Christmas Day. Even in death, he was stealing the show. Plus, he introduced the world to Bootsy Collins, which would've been awesome in itself just for Bootsy's stellar work with the J.B.s at the height of their talent, but that then lead on to Bootsy joining Parliament, the single greatest funk band to ever grace the Earth...and everything Bootsy's done since...why isn't Bootsy on this list, damn it? :@

I don't know a damn thing about Tupac.

[VerbalPuke]

Agreeing with Skummy yet again.

For those wondering which song of Link Wray's that was banned, it was Rumble. It's featured in the movie Pulp Fiction, yet for some reason I don't think it's on the actual soundtrack. I think one of my favorite covers is his cover of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day", he doesn't even put vocals on it but makes it a fucking great cover regardless. There would be no Who without Link Wray, Pete Townshend credits Link Wray as the reason he decided to pick up a guitar.

And yeah, I better fucking see Motorhead on this list.

[gunnar hendershow]

While I adore Bob Marley's music, I don't think he should be the likely Reggae representative on this list. It's hard to find the most important person in the transition from Ska to Reggae, but The Maytals, The Wailers, Lee "Scratch" Perry, and The Beltones all I'd say would be more "influential" than Bob Marley. But let's call it even, because Marley did "perfect" the Reggae sound during and after The Wailers.

Oh, and of course Tupac deserves to be on any list. As does James Brown. Metallica are popular, but I wouldn't really call them too influential. Don't know much about Link Wray other than his monumental influence.

Edited May 25, 2008 by damshow

[Iain76er]

I don't think Bob Marley, Metallica and 2Pac should be on the list. I'm taking influence on the same level as Skummy is, as in they should have changed/introduced/added to the genre of music they partake in. I suppose Metallica slowed thrash down a bit, but then other thrash bands haven't followed their example. I don't know too much about reggae, but Marley strikes me as the commercial epoch for reggae and while people like Lee 'Scratch' Perry were taking it in other directions Bob was peddling similar sounding stuff out. 2Pac introduced the idea that you can't become a criminal once you become a successful rapper, rather than the other way round, but his influence on music is less. Hip-Hop is a genre that is perhaps more reliant on the producer than the actual rapper who is getting the fame. If you wanted to throw in an influential 90s hip-hop person, Dr. Dre or Wu-Tang Clan (more specifically RZA) would have been better choices.

Link Wray and James Brown are both worthy contenders. I'm now off to see who I voted for (probably Metallica, Bob Marley, 2Pac and Frank Zappa).

[GoGo Yubari]

If you want to get technical, though, Dre is on the list. Anyway. Moving on!

20. Woody Guthrie (16 points)

19. Ray Charles (17 points)

17. The Stooges (18 points, appeared on four ballots)

17. The Smiths (18 points, appeared on four ballots)

16. Johnny Cash (21 points)

NEXT TIME: ... man, how the fuck did I forget to include Johnny Cash on my list. ALSO, the band whose presence will likely challenge REM's for Inclusion That Will Inspire the Most Derisive Responses! Be there.

[Sousa]

ALSO, the band whose presence will likely challenge REM's for Inclusion That Will Inspire the Most Derisive Responses! Be there.

Is it Creed? I hope it's Creed.

[MalaCloudy Black]

ALSO, the band whose presence will likely challenge REM's for Inclusion That Will Inspire the Most Derisive Responses! Be there.

Is it Creed? I hope it's Creed.

I'll go kamikaze on all you motherfuckers if it is.

[Skummy]

Righty...

No Woody Guthrie means no Bob Dylan. No Bob Dylan means the '60s would have been a heck of a lot different, ergo so would everything hence. He really ignited the idea, inherent in folk music for a long time before him, that music could make a difference, and could make a political message. THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS. And his autobiography, "Bound For Glory" is in the same category as "On The Road" by Kerouac would do some years later, in that countless people who read it acted upon its implicit message, or were in some way inherently changed by it, it was the original "on the road" story. Guthrie = the awesome, anyhow, and even though it's easy to do what I did and just use the influence he had on Dylan to dictate his importance, lest us not forget that he was fantastic in his own right, and many years ahead of his time.

Ray Charles, I know cock all about.

The Stooges, definitely. I think they should be higher, in fact. Filthy filthy proto-punk garage psychadelia, and without them music wouldn't be the same. Simple as that. Without The Stooges we wouldn't have had, or at least not as we know them; The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Birthday Party (and therefore Nick Cave), Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Mudhoney - need I go on? They forged the blueprint for what would become punk rock nearly ten years before punk broke, they were possibly the greatest garage rock band to ever walk the planet, and they showed intensity that's never been matched, all while achieving precious little in the way of commercial success during their initial time as a band. Rock, punk, metal, none of it would be the same without The Stooges.

The Smiths are one of my favourite bands, beyond a shadow of a doubt. They are my Beatles, the band that all other bands must compare to. Johnny Marr created a guitar sound that would be ruthlessly plundered by every band without a ten mile radius of Manchester for the next decade. And what can be said about Morrisey's lyrics, and Moz himself, that hasn't been said already? He presented a bizarre awkward pseudo-asexuality as far removed from the macho of punk as you could get, but without the mystical melodrama of the goth movement that was occurring around the same time, and basically gave a voice to a disaffected youth that had never really had one. The lyrics presented anger, but not in the direct anti-establishment manner of punk, more the anger of a shy, Northern gay man - essentially what he is - at a society that he doesn't feel accepts him, but that he obsesses over, and an anger at himself for his own flaws - and that had never really happened in pop music before; the lyrical style of "I'm sad, and it's MY FAULT", the idea of the protagonist being intrinsically flawed was a whole new concept. The way he spits out words like "gruesome" and "handsome" in "This Charming Man", and all the obscure or archaic queer and English cultural reference points inherent in that song, and so many others....all Moz's lyrics, in The Smiths at least, are so multi-layered with word play, references and double meanings, it's delightful.

As I've said plenty of times before, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" is the perfect love song - the shyness and avoidance of the phrase "I love you", leading to absurd equivalents and grandiose metaphor to try and get your point across. It's probably my favourite song of all time. It's easy for me to get caught up in obsessive rambling and lyrical analysis, but let's not forget that the whole band were fucking tight, and brilliantly talented, it's not all about Moz, or even just Moz & Marr, a quick listen to the intro to "The Queen Is Dead", that amazing rumbling drumbeat, will show you that Rourke and Joyce were just as integral to the sound.

Basically.....no Smiths, no Britpop, a drastically different emo, no twee, no "indie" as we know it (as, yes, while there were other bands singing the same kind of stuff as The Smiths at the same time, none of them really caught on, or did it quite as well).

Johnny Cash...well, I think we can thank Rick Rubin for him getting as high as this. I love Cash, but (especially in the UK) he was pretty much damaged goods and had been all but forgotten about until Rubin got his hands on him and worked his magic, rebranding him to an alt-rock audience with incredible success. Before that, the '80s had pretty much sounded the death of his career in everything but old country circles, and his influence and popularity would have waned drastically if Rubin hadn't got involved. Let's face it, how many of you, and how many of his fans today, only became aware of him through "Hurt"? It's only through those last few albums and his subsequent surge in popularity that he became, once again, the relatively mainstream figure he is today, revered by rock fans, rather than just another washed up old country star. I'm not saying his influence isn't significant, or that I don't like him - I've been a lifelong fan - but I think that without Rick Rubin and the interest he re-directed towards Cash, he'd never have made this list, nor would the majority of his young fans today have ever listened to him. Obviously that's no bad thing, how you discover a musician is irrelevant compared to the impact that musician has on you, but I think that it's due to the success of his later years that his "influence" has been somewhat overstated, especially since his death.

[MalaCloudy Black]

I dunno about that, I mean, maybe that's how it is in the UK but even without the American Recordings albums and all that Cash would've still been cited as an influence by a lot of musicians in the US (or at least in the southern part of the US). Off the top of my head I can name plenty of people - friends, family, etcetera - that have listened to him since they were little and still regard him as being the badass. I mean, my great uncle's been listening to the guy since.. well, it sure seems like the dawn of time. Has every album, DVD, single. That sort of deal. Hell, I've been listening to him since before I learned to walk or talk - one of my earliest memories is of listening to stuff like "A Boy Named Sue", "San Quentin", "Don't Take Your Guns To Town" and "Five Feet High And Rising" with my dad.

But then again, maybe I'm overstating things - I am from his home state and he's celebrated here like a hero with people travelling to his home town on the date of his death and the anniversary of his death almost always making the news at some point during the day. We're kind of like that with any famous native of the state. >_>

[DMN in the House]

Thats because no one willingly claims Arkansas as their home state, Cloudy. >_>

Johnny Cash deserves to be higher on the list. I'm in a similar boat to Cloudy, I've been listening to him since I was young. The prison recordings are a thing of beauty.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Thats because no one willingly claims Arkansas as their home state, Cloudy. >_>

Johnny Cash deserves to be higher on the list. I'm in a similar boat to Cloudy, I've been listening to him since I was young. The prison recordings are a thing of beauty.

Evanescence do. And so did Johnny Cash for a bit. :@ :@ :@

But really we're like the abused child that has to sleep in the cupboard and eats stale bread, when you give us a chance for attention we're gonna take that chance and hug it and love it and cuddle it and strangle it 'til it's dead.

[Clawson]

Is it blasphemy to think that The Smiths may have had a bigger impact on music than The Beatles?

[gunnar hendershow]

Great group, I could argue for all 5 of them being in the top 5. Especially Woody Guthrie, who is the biggest influence leading to Bob Dylan, the folk revival, and the 60's.

[GoGo Yubari]

ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!

15. The Ramones (28 points)

14. The Clash (33 points, appeared on five ballots)

13. Queen (33 points, appeared on six ballots)

12. Pink Floyd (37 points)

11. Nirvana (44 points)

NEXT: ... man, I will never not love that Nirvana video. Numbers 10 to 7, coming tomorrow.

[Sousa]

Oh, man, Skummy's gonna love this five.

[Guest Dr. Potato Head]

Queen should have been higher. I'll elaborate if anybody disagrees.

[Skummy]

FUCK Queen. Seriously, fuck Queen. What did they ever do? Make pompous over-indulgent camp rock? They have to be one of the most over-rated bands ever; they achieved so much, but DID so little. They've never had a good album, and their singles range from camp drunken singalong to grandiose bullshit, but bypass "good" along the way. Fuck Queen, they're rubbish, and if they ever did influence anyone to any real extent, I don't want to hear them, because they probably sound like Mika and The Darkness anyway. Seriously, name ONE band that's any good that can trace a direct Queen influence.

The Ramones are class, but misunderstood. Classic punk band, and fucking brilliant at it, but I hate that that's all they were for the most part; Johnny Ramone was a rigid conservative cunt who essentially forced The Ramones into uniformity and into repetition and the formula they created. They basically followed the path of The Stooges and created a formula for American punk that would be stuck to for years to come, but to me they could have been more; Joey, if he didn't LOOK LIKE Joey Ramone, would have been such a perfect pop star - he loved Phil Spector and The Ronettes, and he wrote beautiful teenage angst songs, and beautiful innocent love songs, and I find it a shame that he was caught in the trappings of a "punk" band, and of a diseased gangly 6'6" body, when he SHOULD, in a right-thinking world, have been a teeny-bopper pop star. Basically, anyhow, I love The Ramones, and they should be on this list. They should be lower than The Stooges, because with no Stooges there would be no Ramones, etc. etc., but their influence cannot be denied and they should definitely be up there.

The Clash, couldn't give a fuck any more. I like Joe Strummer, I love The Mescaleros, and I like a lot of songs he wrote for The Clash. For the most part, though, The Clash were all talk and no trousers. They spoke of the YEAR ZERO bullshit that surrounded punk, and of destroying rock and roll and starting anew, but for all their "innovation", they were basically a naff pub-rock band playing bastardised attempts at the music they knew, and playing up to the same tired rock and roll bullshit posturing as everyone they claimed to be superseding. Yes, Guns Of Brixton is a fucking brilliant song, and for the most part The Clash were a class band - they leave a lot to be desired. They're a band full of empty promises.

Nothing Pink Floyd did after Syd Barrett matters. Never before or since have a band gone so quickly from geninue foresight and genius to introspective pseudo-intellectual prog rock wank. Listen to A Piper At The Gates Of Dawn; that is influential ahead of its time mindblowing genius music - everything after that is cock. The Wall makes me physically ill.

I like Nirvana, and couldn't give a fuck that it's not cool to like them any more. They were fun, and they fucking rocked. They ripped off Killing Joke and The Pixies and plenty of others, but who cares, they did it fucking well, and they WERE influential, they allowed punk rock to BREAK the mainstream in America the way it had never managed before, they allowed a new kind of rock star onto a public forum, and paved the way for plenty of bands that should have made it on the strength of Nirvana's recommendation alone, but never did. Not the most innovative band ever - everything they did was done before - so they don't fit my definition, per sé, but they were fucking brilliant despite the bullshit and counter-arguments and character assasination that's come since. It was annoying, a while back, when everybody seemed to love Nirvana, hugely because of Kurt's death, but that seems (in my circles at least) to have died somewhat, which makes it easier to remember that they WEREN'T all about Kurt (no matter what that Unplugged bullshit might have you think), they WERE a great band, and even if they weren't the fucking SECOND COMING OF CHRIST that they were practically billed as, they were a great rock band, so fuck yes. Nowhere near my list, because there's plenty of bands that, if it weren't for them, Nirvana would've never happened, but my opinion isn't the same as everyone else's, and my definition of influential might not be the same as everyone else's, so fuck it.

In conclusion, fuck Queen. With rusty sticks.

[Benji]

Queen are the definition of making rock fun, name any half happy type band and they'll likely cite Queen as an influence. And that's just about all I have to say about that.

[Guest Dr. Potato Head]

Yeah, exactly. I'm not going to argue that Queen made some huge development to music as an artform, but even today, Queen songs are some of the first songs that kids just getting into music like.