DDD Forum :: View topic - 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)

That's why when I said the list should be scrapped and started over, it wasn't a knock at all against Brian, who does a great job, or anyone else, but my problem is when you start with a list already in place, the analysis centers around the rough groupings of artists already ranked and trying to simply move them up or down a few spots based on that original placement, and that's just the wrong way to do it, because now we're saying something like "we're looking at 7-9 and here are the candidates"

when in reality EVERY artist should be looked at equally, there should be no preconceptions about who is being considered.

That's what Brian will eventually do. It takes time and effort. He's not going to focus on the Top 30 rock artists and then just play musical chairs for the rest of the artists. Instead of telling him to completely scrap the project and start over, how about congratulating him that he's improving the old list and to encourage him and give helpful suggestions when analyzing the subjects at hand?

However, I also I don't think Whitburn's rankings are completely reliable, not because they credit artists for long careers, but because I think they excessively credit artists for long careers. According to Whitburn's Top Pop Albums book, David Bowie is a slightly bigger album artist than Michael Jackson. (Actually, the issue isn't exactly length of career but number of entries.) I think the rankings in his guides for the top 40 are more accurate than those in the books for the entire charts, because by excluding low peaking albums from consideration, the bigger albums get more proportional credit.

BTW, and this might not be relevant to the analogy that was made earlier, but the primary reason why DiMaggio > Kaline is that Joe was a better defensive player.

Have to agree with Bruce here (true I'm a native Detroiter)...but Al Kaline was a multiple gold glove winner...and NOBODY in baseball had a better arm from the right field position during Al's career.

StuBass wrote:

What about Clemente?

Bruce wrote:

StuBass wrote:

What about Clemente?

Yes...Clemente also had a GREAT arm. Tidbit...my cousin, Sam Nover was a popular sportscaster in Pittsburg from the 70's on. He did the very last television interview with Roberto, just days before Clemente's tragic death.

My basis for popularity is 80% US and 20% UK. It would be ideal to consider the whole world, but I think that's a logistical nightmare. I don't consider estimates for worldwide sales to be reliable, and without that, how would one determine worldwide popularity in a consistent way? The US and UK combined make up a pretty big chunk of the worldwide rock market anyway.

Just for the hell of it, what would your guys' own personal top 5 be like, off the top of your head?

Mine would probably be like this..

1. Elvis
2. Beatles
3. Brown

*^those 3 are cemented, order them however you want*

4. Dylan
5. Little Richard

Author:	J.B. Trance [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Sampson wrote: That's why when I said the list should be scrapped and started over, it wasn't a knock at all against Brian, who does a great job, or anyone else, but my problem is when you start with a list already in place, the analysis centers around the rough groupings of artists already ranked and trying to simply move them up or down a few spots based on that original placement, and that's just the wrong way to do it, because now we're saying something like "we're looking at 7-9 and here are the candidates" Working on an artist lists (or any list for that matter) is quite a task. People have different ways of constructing lists that make it easier for them. Brian has his own way, Brett Alan has his way, I have my way, you have your way. There really isn't a one-way ticket here. As long as the goal is to be objective as possible and to have at least studied the targeted area thoroughly and look at other variables, that's what really matters. The very criteria implemented here are broad, which we're all guilty of. For example, are all criteria weighted equally? What's the breakdown for each item being analyzed? What actually constitutes "popularity" through the editor's eyes? An editor uses "musical impact" to mean something else, while the casual visitor would have a different definition, like meaning some type of impact on the music world. The casual person looking at our lists aren't even given a breakdown of the rankings (although that would be more work on ours and Lew's part). Even a simple "Aretha wins here, James Brown wins here" would at least get the ball rolling and not leave visitors completely in the dark. There's always improvements to be made, and we're still learning new things. And we're all guilty of preconceived notions, whether that's having a rock-centric mentality or how much of a critical thinker we are. Quote: when in reality EVERY artist should be looked at equally, there should be no preconceptions about who is being considered. That's what Brian will eventually do. It takes time and effort. He's not going to focus on the Top 30 rock artists and then just play musical chairs for the rest of the artists. Instead of telling him to completely scrap the project and start over, how about congratulating him that he's improving the old list and to encourage him and give helpful suggestions when analyzing the subjects at hand?

Author:	Sampson [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
J.B. Trance wrote: That's what Brian will eventually do. It takes time and effort. He's not going to focus on the Top 30 rock artists and then just play musical chairs for the rest of the artists. Instead of telling him to completely scrap the project and start over, how about congratulating him that he's improving the old list and to encourage him and give helpful suggestions when analyzing the subjects at hand? I wasn't criticizing him, Brian puts in more time and effort at DDD than almost anyone and I always respect his work. Not only is he very conscientious, but he's also incredibly nice and tolerates a lot of crap that would drive most people crazy. But regardless of who is doing a list, him, me or you or anyone else, I just don't like seeing any list go up and be commented on (and potentially influenced by those comments, even subconsciously) while it is still being worked on. It's like letting people move into a house before the walls and roof are installed, you're gonna get wet when it rains. Everybody does things differently though and I've tried doing it a bunch of different ways and I've found through experience that the best way, by far (for me at least) is to just ignore the list that existed before and do everything from scratch, treating every analytical question as if it had never been asked before.

Author:	Brian [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Thank you Sampson for you kind words. There's a lot that has been posted here the past couple days that I'd like to comment on, and I'll try to comment in the days to come on what has been posted, but for now I'll address the question of how I'm using the criteria, as that applies to everything that comes up. My basis for popularity is 80% US and 20% UK. It would be ideal to consider the whole world, but I think that's a logistical nightmare. I don't consider estimates for worldwide sales to be reliable, and without that, how would one determine worldwide popularity in a consistent way? The US and UK combined make up a pretty big chunk of the worldwide rock market anyway. As far as albums v. singles, for each artist my primary consideration is whichever format that artist does better in. Sometimes in comparing two artists I'll just compare them in each, especially if they're about equal in one and one has a clear advantage in the other. But since albums weren't very important before 1965, for earlier artists, I base it mostly or almost entirely on singles. I go mostly by total popularity for an artist's entire career, with peak in popularity considered, but to a much lesser extent. However, I also I don't think Whitburn's rankings are completely reliable, not because they credit artists for long careers, but because I think they excessively credit artists for long careers. According to Whitburn's Top Pop Albums book, David Bowie is a slightly bigger album artist than Michael Jackson. (Actually, the issue isn't exactly length of career but number of entries.) I think the rankings in his guides for the top 40 are more accurate than those in the books for the entire charts, because by excluding low peaking albums from consideration, the bigger albums get more proportional credit. For cultural impact, the whole world is eligible for consideration. For musical impact, the US/UK vs. world question doesn't really arise because it's about the impact of the music on an artist's peers, and there's no need to divide up the artist's peers by nationality anyway. The same is somewhat true of influence, with one difference being that one consideration for influence is the popularity of the music that an artist influenced, so for that, one has to ask, popular where? For that too, I would say 80% US, 20% UK. BTW, and this might not be relevant to the analogy that was made earlier, but the primary reason why DiMaggio > Kaline is that Joe was a better defensive player.

Author:	pgm [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Brian wrote: However, I also I don't think Whitburn's rankings are completely reliable, not because they credit artists for long careers, but because I think they excessively credit artists for long careers. According to Whitburn's Top Pop Albums book, David Bowie is a slightly bigger album artist than Michael Jackson. (Actually, the issue isn't exactly length of career but number of entries.) I think the rankings in his guides for the top 40 are more accurate than those in the books for the entire charts, because by excluding low peaking albums from consideration, the bigger albums get more proportional credit. One of those guides is sitting on the shelf next to me in the library. I'm studying with my girlfriend and the only available table was stuck in this section. I have Whitburn's guide, a book about surf music, a book about soul music, etc. on my right and I have the UN Yearbook for 2005, American Foreign Policy Current Documents from 1990, and a book on the League of Nations to my left. [/random]

Author:	Bruce [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:18 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Brian wrote: BTW, and this might not be relevant to the analogy that was made earlier, but the primary reason why DiMaggio > Kaline is that Joe was a better defensive player. Stick with music, Brian. The primary reason that DiMaggio was better than Kaline is because he was a much better offensive player. CAREER OPS+ Dimaggio - 155 Kaline - 134 DiMaggio was 55% above average as a hitter, kaline only 34%. Al Kaline won 10 gold gloves, including one as a CFer. According to defensive WAR Kaline was a much better fielder than DiMaggio. CAREER DEFENSIVE WAR Kaline - 16.3 DiMaggio - 4.7

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Author:	StuBass [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Have to agree with Bruce here (true I'm a native Detroiter)...but Al Kaline was a multiple gold glove winner...and NOBODY in baseball had a better arm from the right field position during Al's career. 18 time All Star 10 time Gold Glove winner

Author:	Bruno [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:29 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Thanks for the replies, Sampson. Like the explanations of Brian and JB Trance on the work of making a list and on your criteria. The truth is only one, we all have different thoughts about how each artist scores on certain criteria. We must learn to balance that and be as fair as possible to the historical artist. And as Sampson said, I agree to get the list from scratch, but of course, based on the excellent work done by Brian so far.

Author:	Bruce [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:37 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
StuBass wrote: Have to agree with Bruce here (true I'm a native Detroiter)...but Al Kaline was a multiple gold glove winner...and NOBODY in baseball had a better arm from the right field position during Al's career. What about Clemente?

Author:	StuBass [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Bruce wrote: StuBass wrote: Have to agree with Bruce here (true I'm a native Detroiter)...but Al Kaline was a multiple gold glove winner...and NOBODY in baseball had a better arm from the right field position during Al's career. What about Clemente? Yes...Clemente also had a GREAT arm. Tidbit...my cousin, Sam Nover was a popular sportscaster in Pittsburg from the 70's on. He did the very last television interview with Roberto, just days before Clemente's tragic death.

Author:	Bruce [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
StuBass wrote: Bruce wrote: StuBass wrote: Have to agree with Bruce here (true I'm a native Detroiter)...but Al Kaline was a multiple gold glove winner...and NOBODY in baseball had a better arm from the right field position during Al's career. What about Clemente? Yes...Clemente also had a GREAT arm. Tidbit...my cousin, Sam Nover was a popular sportscaster in Pittsburg from the 70's on. He did the very last television interview with Roberto, just days before Clemente's tragic death. That stupid fuck Cousin Brucie interviewed Roberto Clemente Jr, like 10-15 years ago, and started with, "So how's your dad?"

Author:	Negative Creep [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:52 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Just for the hell of it, what would your guys' own personal top 5 be like, off the top of your head? Mine would probably be like this.. 1. Elvis 2. Beatles 3. Brown ^those 3 are cemented, order them however you want 4. Dylan 5. Little Richard

Author:	Classic Rock Junkie [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:59 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Brian wrote: My basis for popularity is 80% US and 20% UK. It would be ideal to consider the whole world, but I think that's a logistical nightmare. I don't consider estimates for worldwide sales to be reliable, and without that, how would one determine worldwide popularity in a consistent way? The US and UK combined make up a pretty big chunk of the worldwide rock market anyway. The US and UK make up just as much, if not probably less than the hundreds of thousands (yes hundreds of thousands, well, maybe not that many) of rock bands throughout Asia, many of which were heavily influenced by plenty of the US/UK rock artists that toured there, or just had popular airing time (for example Beatles and Elvis in Japan and the rest of Asia, Deep Purple also has a relatively large following in Asia believe it or not), so is worldwide influence also being taken into account or is it also restricted to US/UK artists? I understand popularity restrictions, since it's hard to have accurate numbers, but where do we cut this off? You said cultural impact is considered worldwide, but I'd then say that Sabbath has much more of a combined worldwide cultural impact than Sly, though Sly may have a larger musical impact due to broad influences in many musical worldwide genres (funk, R&B, hip-hop, etc. combined would be more than metal). Considering Europe (especially Scandinavia's) absolute love for Sabbath (and it's not just indirect influence through metal, they directly love sabbath over there), and including Asia, who I also know Sabbath has existed as a part of their metal community, and I would safely assume to have more cultural impact in Asia than Sly does, though I could be wrong but I doubt anyone could prove it. And there's the issue, we, being mainly in the US/UK, are restricted to certain views from just what we have available. I travel the world a lot, and I mean a lot, and spend probably as much time in Europe and Asia as the US. However their modern music history and culture is not ingrained into me the same way the western rock artists are, and I don't have a full understanding of some of their artists too. I'm sure there are extremely popular international acts in Asia, that due to Asia's really large population, probably are more popular by sales, and have a much larger cultural and musical impact in Asia than many artists on this list will throughout the world, and probably if counting number of bands in asia influenced by said artist, probably more influential worldwide as well. However we don't live there and most of us don't know the languages well enough to get the information anyways. So of course there's a limit on non US/UK bands (the exceptions probably being only ABBA as far as I know, if we consider Ireland to be part of this US/UK description), but then what about US/UK bands who we can find pretty obvious evidence for their impact on other countries. It's clear this list is mainly restricted to US/UK artists, since they are the ones we are familiar with and understand, but I think it's impossible to make an objective and fair list if we say that some criteria only apply to US/UK and some apply internationally, which really is not fair if an artist happens to be obviously more popular internationally, but not as cultural impactual as say another artist, and we chose to cutoff a good chunk of evidence for one's rating and add on additional evidence for another. I understand it's hard to measure international popularity, but to a degree how are we going to measure international cultural impact any differently? And sometimes it's just obvious. There is enough evidence that suggests that Sabbath is more popular than Sly worldwide, enough evidence that you probably don't need that many super accurate numbers, there is plenty of info on European BS sales and Asian as well. But we're just going to cut that out? And then have other categories apply to international conditions? What about Influence? If we are starting from bottom up, I recommend that if we are restricting one criteria to only US/UK since it's difficult to determine facts internationally, then we restrict all criteria to US/UK, otherwise it gives certain artists HUGE advantages over others. Either that or we consider as best we can international impact for all criteria on all artists, which I assume is too hard to do. So yeah, we should just completely stick with US/UK then, and I'm actually fine with that considering the scope of our knowledge and that we are primarily focusing on strictly US/UK bands.

Author:	Bruce [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Negative Creep wrote: Just for the hell of it, what would your guys' own personal top 5 be like, off the top of your head? Mine would probably be like this.. 1. Elvis 2. Beatles 3. Brown ^those 3 are cemented, order them however you want 4. Dylan 5. Little Richard Here's my personal favorite 100 artists: 1 - Fats Domino 2 - Elvis Presley 3 - Little Richard 4 - Hank Williams 5 - Joe Turner 6 - Drifters 7 - Muddy Waters 8 - Smiley Lewis 9 - Clovers 10 - Carl Perkins 11 - Beatles 12 - Buddy Holly & Crickets 13 - B.B. King 14 - Bo Diddley 15 - Hank Ballard & Midnighters / Royals 16 - Chuck Berry 17 - James Brown 18 - Howlin' Wolf 19 - Wynonie Harris 20 - Robins 21 - Orioles 22 - Five Royales 23 - Creedence Clearwater Revival / John Fogerty 24 - Five Keys 25 - Ray Charles 26 - Rolling Stones 27 - Beach Boys 28 - Jerry Lee Lewis 29 - Spaniels 30 - Temptations 31 - Elmore James 32 - Bobby "Blue" Bland 33 - Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) 34 - Sticks McGhee 35 - Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns 36 - Dominoes 37 - Johnny Burnette Trio 38 - Louis Jordan 39 - Spiders 40 - Flamingos 41 - Moonglows 42 - Coasters 43 - Curtis Mayfield & Impressions 44 - Eddie Cochran 45 - Lloyd Price 46 - Bill Haley & Comets 47 - Buddy & Ella Johnson 48 - Ivory Joe Hunter 49 - Swallows 50 - Little Walter 51 - Jimmy Reed 52 - Everly Brothers 53 - Gene Vincent & Blue Caps 54 - Johnny Cash 55 - Amos Milburn 56 - Roy Brown 57 - Jack Scott 58 - El Dorados 59 - Dave Bartholomew 60 - Champion Jack Dupree 61 - Roy Orbison 62 - Smokey Robinson & Miracles 63 - Checkers 64 - Jimmy McCracklin 65 - Little Esther 66 - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson 67 - Marvin Gaye 68 - Tommy James & Shondells 69 - Jackie Wilson 70 - Mills Brothers 71 - Ruth Brown 72 - Bob Dylan 73 - Shirley & Lee 74 - Aretha Franklin 75 - Dells 76 - Wilson Pickett 77 - Little Milton 78 - Marvin & Johnny (Jesse & Marvin) 79 - Heartbeats / Shep & Limelites 80 - Harptones 81 - Doors 82 - Little Willie John 83 - Ravens 84 - Marty Robbins 85 - Lamplighters 86 - Willie Mabon 87 - Guitar Slim 88 - Solomon Burke 89 - Jerry Butler 90 - Roy Milton 91 - Rosco Gordon 92 - Charlie Feathers 93 - Penguins 94 - J.B. Lenore 95 - Big Maybelle 96 - Cadillacs 97 - Chuck Willis 98 - Mac Curtis 99 - Cardinals 100 - Slim Harpo

Author:	Bruce [ Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:06 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: 100 Greatest Rock Artists (under revision)
Negative Creep wrote: Just for the hell of it, what would your guys' own personal top 5 be like, off the top of your head? Mine would probably be like this.. 1. Elvis 2. Beatles 3. Brown ^those 3 are cemented, order them however you want 4. Dylan 5. Little Richard If you're asking who should be the top 5 on this list, I'd say: 1 - Beatles 2 - Elvis 3 - James Brown 4 - Bob Dylan 5 - Chuck Berry

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