100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)

Echoes · **Joined:** Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:43 am **Posts:** 4564

pave wrote:

lets not go overboard. The Rolling Stones may not have been innovators, but they were the kings of the rock world for a span in the late 60s and early 70s. their musical impact is off the charts imo. they sure as hell don't belong below The Who/Zeppelin. really, only Ray and MJ seem like candidates to be moved into their 5th slot. influence is only one part of the criteria.

That is totally subjective.

What we need is a more objective way to messure each criteria and establish parameters.

For example, for each category The Beatles and Elvis are at the very top. They are #1 and #2 in terms of popularity, influence, musical impact and cultural impact. So the parameter should be them. I mean for example, if The Beatles and Elvis are #1 in cultural impact they should get 5 points. The Rolling Stones have huge impact but they are not at the level of The Beatles or Elvis so they get 4 points.

What I am trying to propose is something like this:

The Beatles
Popularity: 5 points
Influence: 5 points
Musical Impact: 5 points
Cultural Impact: 5 points

Total Score in points 20 points.
Final Score (%): 100%

Rolling Stones:
Popularity: 5 points
Influence: 1 point
Musical Impact: 4 points
Cultural Impact: 2 points

Total Score in points 12 points.
Final Score (%): 60%

Echoes · **Joined:** Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:43 am **Posts:** 4564

J.B. Trance wrote:

The Stones spearheaded the blues-based spectrum of the British Invasion in 1964 and were seminal in re-introducing the blues to mainstream American audiences and maximizing R&B and blues to the British people.

As their popularity grew, they were seen as a menace to society by parents and the established order at large and made headlines with their series of controversies, targeted by civil rights groups, feminist groups, religious media, anti-rock and morality figures, and others, whether it was songs such as "Sympathy For the Devil," "Brown Sugar," "Some Girls," and "Street Fighting Man" to their drug busts, overindulgence, and supposed black magic/Satanism connections, among others. Again, while controversy is not a new thing to rock music, this is the type of impact they've had on culture, which is far from poor.

While not really cultural impact, they were given the title "The Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World," especially after The Beatles broke up, to being pinned the major rivals of The Beatles.

They have notable impact on a wide array of figures. A few examples:

Pete Townshend: "I'm really an absolute stone fan of the Stones, and always have been. Their early shows were just shocking, absolutely riveting and stunning and moving and they changed my life completely...(The) Stones will always be the greatest for me. They epitomize British rock for me"

John Lennon: "I always admired them because I like their funky music and I like their style"

Muddy Waters: "They stole my music, but they gave me my name"

Allen Ginsberg: "The Rolling Stones are one of Britain's major cultural assets, who should be honored by the kingdom"

A number of R&B/soul artists forged friendships with them, and people like Stevie Wonder, Etta James, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Black Uhuru, Ike & Tina Turner, and others thanked them for helping to keep them current and exposing them to much wider audiences through their tours. They became lifetime friends with R&B/soul artists such as Billy Preston, Bobby Womack, and others, and were able to find an R&B audience with a few of their songs.

I agree, but their cultural impact I think is like 40% at best of what artists like The Beatles of Elvis achieved.

Also, some of those elements you are mentioning are part of musical impact.

Echoes · **Joined:** Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:43 am **Posts:** 4564

Eric Wood wrote:

In Cultural Impact they were the anti-Beatles. That's a HUGE deal, because the Stones' image, and not the Beatles' image, was the one which became predominantly adopted by other rock bands from that day to this. Doors, Zep, Skynyrd, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Van Halen, GNR, Nirvana, Beasties, just to name a few obvious top 100 candidates; the image of all of them starts with the Stones. They acted meaner and more menacing; they didn't wear coordinated outfits and increasingly moved towards wearing what looked like ratty street clothes; they created the whole image of the wild rock star lifestyle. So once again, they're probably in the top 10 all-time in this category, scoring similarly to Dylan, MJ or Madonna.

I think all of that is musical impact. The bad boy attitude (however, I think that someone like Townshend could be also responsible for the bad boy attitude).

How much of the bad boy attitude has transcendent into popular culture and how much of that can me attributed to The Rolling Stones? Hard to say, so that is why I am giving them 2 points.

pgm · **Posted:** Sat May 19, 2012 6:57 pm

Negative Creep wrote:

pgm wrote:

The nadir of the DDD lists (11-16-03 thru 11-20-03):

6. The Doors
9. Elvis Presley

I can't even believe how someone could arrive at that conclusion. :eek:

I am quite possibly the biggest Doors fan on this planet, they were the first band I ever loved, and had an indescribably profound impact on me. But come on....that's far from credible. :lol:

At least Elvis beat out AC/DC (barely).

pgm · **Posted:** Sat May 19, 2012 7:04 pm

Brian wrote:

ClashWho wrote:

Brian wrote:

That's right, the impact has to occur soon after the music is released.

Are you saying that The Velvet Underground have negligible musical impact?

Yes, or at least, not very much. They were revered by many later artists, but weren't well enough known to make much of an impact among their contemporaries.

Yes. Although, there were a couple contemporaries who were fans (off the top of my head, The Rolling Stones).

Eric Wood · **Joined:** Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:22 pm **Posts:** 122

Echoes wrote:

What we need is a more objective way to messure each criteria and establish parameters.

For example, for each category The Beatles and Elvis are at the very top. They are #1 and #2 in terms of popularity, influence, musical impact and cultural impact. So the parameter should be them. I mean for example, if The Beatles and Elvis are #1 in cultural impact they should get 5 points. The Rolling Stones have huge impact but they are not at the level of The Beatles or Elvis so they get 4 points.

What I am trying to propose is something like this:

The Beatles
Popularity: 5 points
Influence: 5 points
Musical Impact: 5 points
Cultural Impact: 5 points

Total Score in points 20 points.
Final Score (%): 100%

Rolling Stones:
Popularity: 5 points
Influence: 1 point
Musical Impact: 4 points
Cultural Impact: 2 points

Total Score in points 12 points.
Final Score (%): 60%

Elvis and the Beatles would come in a pretty close #1 and #2 in commercial impact and in peer recognition.

However, Elvis I think wins by a pretty wide margin over the Beatles in cultural impact.

And in influence, I don't think Elvis and the Beatles are #1 and #2. They're both extremely strong, and possibly both top 5. But I think James Brown is #1 and Chuck Berry is #2 in influence.

Anyways, I don't think this type of actual numerical scale would work that well, but I agree with the spirit of it. Because a lot of the these four criteria breakdowns are kinda dumb, making serious comparisons of two artists in an area where neither does very well in comparison to the top artists in that area. If one artist is 50% as popular as Elvis and a second artist is 40% as popular as Elvis, it is proclaimed a "close win." But then the second artist has 2% of the cultural impact of Elvis, and the first artist has no cultural impact, and it is declared a "landslide."

Bruno · **Joined:** Fri Nov 25, 2011 8:00 am **Posts:** 3702

Brian wrote:

Whitney does appear to compare favorably to McCartney, probably beating him in both popularity and influence. So she is likely to be added.

Good choice.

Brian, how many artists you're thinking of adding in the top 100?

Johnny · **Joined:** Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:13 am **Posts:** 149

Eric Wood wrote:

And in influence, I don't think Elvis and the Beatles are #1 and #2. They're both extremely strong, and possibly both top 5. But I think James Brown is #1 and Chuck Berry is #2 in influence.

There is no way in hell that James Brown or Chuck Berry are more influential than The Beatles.

Bruno · **Joined:** Fri Nov 25, 2011 8:00 am **Posts:** 3702

Johnny wrote:

Eric Wood wrote:

And in influence, I don't think Elvis and the Beatles are #1 and #2. They're both extremely strong, and possibly both top 5. But I think James Brown is #1 and Chuck Berry is #2 in influence.

There is no way in hell that James Brown or Chuck Berry are more influential than The Beatles.

Yeah. But the four are top 5.

Brett Alan · **Joined:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 3:17 pm **Posts:** 6333

Echoes wrote:

That is totally subjective.

What we need is a more objective way to messure each criteria and establish parameters.

For example, for each category The Beatles and Elvis are at the very top. They are #1 and #2 in terms of popularity, influence, musical impact and cultural impact. So the parameter should be them. I mean for example, if The Beatles and Elvis are #1 in cultural impact they should get 5 points. The Rolling Stones have huge impact but they are not at the level of The Beatles or Elvis so they get 4 points.

Taking one's conclusions and translating them into numbers does not make them more objective.

Bruno · **Joined:** Fri Nov 25, 2011 8:00 am **Posts:** 3702

The Grateful Dead is not too high?
I mean, they are one of the biggest names in the Psychedelic's style, but are not as influential and not do well in popularity, though they are highly acclaimed for their live performances.

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 6:21 pm **Posts:** 13572

Johnny wrote:

Eric Wood wrote:

And in influence, I don't think Elvis and the Beatles are #1 and #2. They're both extremely strong, and possibly both top 5. But I think James Brown is #1 and Chuck Berry is #2 in influence.

There is no way in hell that James Brown or Chuck Berry are more influential than The Beatles.

Are you serious?
Brown invented funk for God's sake. He single-handedly invented a genre, and not just any genre, but a huge one. His influence goes from soul to funk and all the way through to hip-hop, where countless artists have sampled his songs.

And I think you're underrating Berry's titanic influence. He's the entire FOUNDATION for rock guitar, not to mention the rock style of songwriting in general.

pave · **Posted:** Sun May 20, 2012 2:39 am

funk isnt really THAT big of a subgenre....

stylistic innovation isn't the only type though. multi-track layering + doubling the vocal tracks and flanging, recording techniques for drums and bass, additional orchestration, extended length of hit singles, feedback (to some extent)... all things we take for granted now that were either innovations of the Beatles or popularized by them.

the thing about The Beatles' influence is that it is sewn into the fabric of popular music today. its not as simple as pointing out subgenres. music as a whole would sound very different without them.

Negative Creep · **Joined:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 6:21 pm **Posts:** 13572

I agree but I think music would sound just as different without James Brown.
All of those things that you cite for the Beatles' influence are certainly true, but I think you're slightly overstating it (they were nowhere near the first to use double-tracked vocals, for instance).

But it's not like Brown is gonna top the Beatles anyway, so it's a moot point I guess.

Johnny · **Joined:** Sun Aug 21, 2011 8:13 am **Posts:** 149

I know they are super influential. But not to the point of the Beatles. And I know Chuck Berry was the foundation of Rock guitar, but I personally think that Jimi Hendrix became the most influential guitarist with later generations. And The Beatles have also been sampled by a bunch of important rap artists (Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, etc). One bad thing, though, is that I think no band has ever covered a Beatles' song.

The Beatles were the first to have guitar feedback on record (Have any other artists ever used feedback in guitars? I think quite a few of them have). The ywere one of the first (I'm not sure if the first, but the most notable at least) to use "weird instruments" like sitar in a rock context. They were one of the first rock bands (if not the first) in using tape loops which is basically sampling. They influenced their peers to the point of creating competition that led to one of the most prolific times in modern music history. For example, not only was Brian Wilson influenced by 'Rubber Soul', but 'Pet Sounds' was a direct answer to it. And that is one of the best albums of all time. They were definitely influential within the psychedelic rock thing, since they made direct or indirect reference to drugs in their lyrics, and other stuff I mentioned before (exotic instruments, feedback, etc). They changed the standards of pop music forever, you just have to listen to pre-beatles music and you will notice. And they have definitely been influential not only in 1, 2 or 3 genres, but in probably a million of them (U2, Oasis, Nirvana, ELO, Byrds). Songs like 'Helter Skelter' influenced genres like heavy metal. They used backwards recording in "Rain". Not to speak about how important they were in the "British Invasion" of America, opening doors for many other bands. The influence they had in their live presentations (They played to the biggest crouds ever, like Shea Stadium 55,000 people, which was basically the start of rock in big arenas). They also influenced by their looks. They used "long hair", which was a big deal back then and their haircuts were used by manymany bands. But their "good boys" image led The Rolling Stones to go the opposite way as a marketing technique. So one of THE biggest rock bands in the world owes the foundation of their "bad boy" image to The Beatles, they were influenced by it and found that the only way to compete with them was to act the opposite.

So, they influenced others in terms of marketing, lyrics, looks, instruments, production techniques ('flanging' was a term supposedly coined by Lennon) and throughout all eras and to some of the biggest/most important bands ever. And I think I can go on forever with how the Beatles have influenced music. Sure, James Brown, Chuck Berry are also huge and are right up there in the elite of influence, but I think they're 1 step below Beatles.

100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)

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