I mentioned that I would probably be replacing The Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground, Talking Heads, Zappa, Chicago, and Yes in the top 100 with The Dominoes, Joe Turner, Johnny Otis, Kanye, Whitney, and Guns 'n' Roses. I now think I'll also be replacing The Ramones and Eric Clapton with The Orioles and McCartney/Wings. The reason why I think The Ramones don't quite make it is that The Orioles look to be borderline, but The Orioles compare favorably to The Ramones. Influence is The Ramones strong suit, but The Orioles are probably even more influential than The Ramones. And if you take the context of the era into account even a little bit, The Orioles also take popularity. I don't see The Ramones making up the popularity/influence deficit in the rest of the criteria.

With Clapton, it was also a case of appearing to be less deserving than another artist than another artist that just barely makes the list. Both are primarily popularity artists with a little musical impact in addition. If Clapton takes muiscal impact, I don't think the margin is big enough to make up for McCartney's popularity advantage.

I expect that I will make whatever changes that I make in this part of the list in the next day or two, and that I will then shift my attention to positions 6-14.

I was looking forward to hearing your take on the order of those artists.

How about Ramones vs. McCartney? For Ramones it's a single big moment which gives them at least an okay score everywhere except popularity, albeit with sheer musical influence that is probably easy to overstate given the major pre-punk innovators from '65-'75. For McCartney it's very high sustained popularity for about a decade, but no single moment of musical impact to totally separate his peer recognition from his time with the Beatles, and therefore not much to go on past that popularity.

Edit: Once you move on to 6-14, why not broaden that out just a little? At the least, I don't see any reason to assume the Stones and Dylan beat out Michael Jackson for the 4th and 5th spots, and I don't see how Madonna could possibly be held out of this group. She's a top 6 artist in popularity, and a top 10 artist in cultural, with very little room for debate, and still does very well in the other two areas.

I could maybe see MJ above the Stones, but not Dylan.

Influence: Dylan.
Imo, influence isn't Jackson's strong point. He does have a lot of it, especially in regards to dancing and live performing, but Dylan's influence is deeper-rooted and much more widespread. For starters, there's his voice. Say what you want about it, but virtually every singer-songwriter type of vocalist that followed took from his style, whether it's Neil Young or Lou Reed or whoever else.
Then there's his lyrics, I dont think I even have to explain this.
He also influenced numerous other things like the length of hit singles, broadening the potential of the rock album, and pretty much the entire folk rock genre.

Musical Impact: Tied.
When two artists are THIS close, there's just no way of objectively reaching a conclusion. They both have an absolutely ridiculous amount of acclaim from other artists, but they're acclaimed for different things.

Cultural Impact: Tied.
MJ had enormous impact with his music videos, plus his moonwalk and his singing style have become so ingrained into our culture that it's pretty much cliched. And he's not just huge in America, but all across the world.
However, I feel that Dylan had a more profound and pivotal effect on culture. He changed the way people looked at rock music as a whole. His protesting was legendary. By going electric in 1965, he created such a controversial stir that he was possibly the most polarizing artist in rock at that point.

Commercial Impact: Jackson.
No explanation needed.

Wow that's a lot closer than I'd thought....

Dylan's got way more acclaim than MJ.

I wouldn't say "way" more at all...

Critics like MJ, but Dylan is pretty much the most acclaimed artist ever other than The Beatles from what I've gauged.

According to http://acclaimedmusic.net/

Dylan is #3 after the Beatles and Stones.

Nah I wouldnt say that Dylan is more acclaimed than Presley overall, though he's definitely right up there with him.

As for MJ, he is immensely praised by a plethora of artists. Not just critics.

Michael Jackson has a huge musical impact but not nearly as much as Dylan. Dylan's top 5 for musical impact easily, and probably top 3. I'd say all of the artists ahead of MJ have more musical impact than him, and even some of the ones right behind him also have more.

As for your breakdown, I'd give musical impact to Dylan easily, and probably also cultural impact realistically speaking.

Perhaps only the top two spots are reserved - Beatles and Elvis - in the list. The top 3-26 is clearly debatable.

I agree with you about Madonna, I've been arguing this for some time, she has a very high score on three criteria. I would say she is top 5 in popularity, top 10 in cultural impact and top 15 in influence. And even in their "worst" criteria, she can stay in the top 25 in musical impact. She is definitely a top 15 artist, and fight to be top 12.

I believe in a difficult dispute between Brown, Dylan and MJ.

Stones alone in sixth place.

And the top 15 being difficult to move.

In no order:

6. Chuck Berry
7. The Who
8. Led Zeppelin
9. Ray Charles
10. Stevie Wonder
11. The Beach Boys
12. Aretha Franklin
15. Jimi Hendrix
20. Madonna

Then:

13. Fats Domino
16. Little Richard
17. Bruce Springsteen
18. Marvin Gaye
19. Sam Cooke
20. Madonna
21. Prince
22. U2
23. Pink Floyd
24. The Supremes
25. Elton John
26. Queen

No way do I see Jimi Hendrix ahead of Little Richard or Fats Domino.

They both beat him by a big margin in popularity and influence. Musical impact is close between them. Jimi clearly beats Fats in cultural impact, but even if he beats Richard there too (which I'm not sure of), I don't see how that overcomes their advantages in other areas.

I think Pink Floyd, Elton and Queen should be above U2, they are all very close though.

you underrate Hendrix's massive influence. not to mention, popularity only seems like a huge advantage if its initial popularity only. lasting popularity is a whole different game with Hendrix.