I can't even read his name without thinking of this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsS811o21-k[/youtube]

Indeed, virtually all of it, considering that the Isleys had a top 5 album in 2006 (following a number one album in 2003).

Very true on Hendrix, he is simply an iconic / influencial figure in rock, who is known around the world with a lasting popularity that very few rock artists have ever obtained .... and certainly an artist that introduces himself very easily to every new generation of rock fans .... if Hendrix was a multi national corporation his share value has been strong from the 60`s to the present ... ( all one has to do is look at digital downloands, itunes, soundscan, radio play, catalogue charts etc, around the world) .......... Take care

Should an artist that has two million people buy one album each, and an artist that has two million people buy five albums each, get the same commercial impact score?

Yeah, I agree with that.

All good points, but we're still dealing with two different beasts with singles/album artists. Outside of collectors there's not much market for catalog singles... UNLESS they're on multi-artist compilations (or single artist greatest hits). In those cases the artist still has their music sought out by just as many people as the same fan buying five catalog albums of a later artist, it's just that it's done in a different way that does not get accurately reflected in sales totals, or in cases of the comps, not at all.

If we can figure out fairly accurately somehow which artists and songs of the singles era are most often compiled and then make the context of era/style adjustments to account for the disaparity in total sales that result, it can work.

New question: Why isn't Jay-Z in the discussion for the Top Ten yet? Don't look now but he's kicking the ass of a lot of the names we've been talking about. He's got like ten #1 albums, loads of influence, the most Musical Impact of the new century by far (every single artist wants him guesting on their tracks) and his cultural impact is off the freakin' charts. Heis dominant in all four areas of the criteria. Is this lack of attention simply because he's still so current nobody really thinks to do a serious overview of his career or is it something else, because the man belongs up this high without question.

What's his cultural impact? Because he bought a basketball team? What's his influence? Did he innovate anything?

Do you have an answer to this question? I've asked it before. I think it's crucial to getting a handle on your definition of commercial impact. From your posts, you seem to think all that matters is how many people buy your music, regardless of the amount of your music that they buy.

We talk about how the Beatles influenced fashion, Jay-Z started Roca-wear, one of the most popular clothing lines in America, with earnings of 700 million a year. He is the biggest artist-mogul in the history of music. He's doing things - successfully - that the Beatles, KISS (who damn sure tried) and others could only dream of. Look at artist owned record labels - Ray Charles had Tangerine Records, Sam Cooke had SAR, The Beatles had Apple, The Beach Boys had Brother, etc. yet they had few hits between them and were seen largely as vanity projects. Jay-Z has Roc-A-Fella Records which had in its stable Kanye West, The Neptunes, Beanie Sigel, Cam'ron, The Diplomats, Just Blaze and Jadakiss. That's some of the biggest names out there. He then becomes the President of Def Jam Records, only one of the biggest independent labels in history, all while still being an artist! And yeah, having the bling to buy a chunk of the Nets further penetrates him into the cultural landscape. He is a towering figure in popular culture.

More hits = more commercial impact. More hit albums = more commercial impact. That said, if we're talking catalog sales with albums vs. singles artists it's gotta be put into era-specific context again. Let's say two million people buy a 25 song Fats Domino Greatest Hits collection, but two million people each buy "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold As Love", "Band Of Gypsies", etc., the sheer numbers would give the clear commercial edge to Hendrix, but he benefits from being an album artist who, to properly appreciate, you need the full length albums. But add in the millions who own various Fats singles on multi-artist compilations and the numbers would start to balance out, yet we would have no way of accurately telling this because we don't have sales figures for all of those, we don't even know all of the comps his songs appeared on. I know you said you owned the Rock 'n' Roll Era Time/Life stuff and his songs are all over those. I'm assuming you paid money for them, but they don't show up in his sales figures. By contrast Hendrix's songs are notoriously not available on too many, if any, compilations, so to get anything from him you gotta buy the albums, which boosts his totals even more.

I'm not saying it's either one's fault, they can't help the era they're from, but it definitely matters and which is why when charting Commercial Impact I always take context into account. More hits, more hit albums, greater longterm sales, etc. all are going to be huge in Commercial Impact, but there are other factors worth considering when studying it closer.

What about innovation?

Everyone wants Jay-Z to guest on their records because he can help their careers. If we go by how many guest spots artists actually make, I'm not sure how many more records Nikki Minaj could possibly appear on.

Jay did not become president of Def Jam while it was an independent label. He became president when they were part of Island Def Jam Motown music group, owned by Polydor, owned by Seagram, owned by Universal, owned by Halliburton, Shinehardt Wigs and the Illuminati.

He didn't really buy the Nets; he's a celebrity-spokesperson "owner" who probably gets paid in stock to appear courtside and take some PR duties off the Russian billionaire who actually owns the team. Jimmy Buffett owns a piece of the Miami Dolphins and temporarily got the name of their stadium changed to "Lank Shark Stadium" to promote his beer brand (I'm not joking), so Buffett nearly matches the HOVA in this one regard.

Of course Jay's whole story is legendary, establishing Roc-a-fella and using it to put himself on the map, steering into the skid after Biggie's death by picking a fight with Nas and rising to superstar status, putting out Blueprint which changed his sound and raised him to legend status, then turning around and using Roc-a-fella to successfully promote other artists, selling it to Universal and becoming president of Def Jam, launching Kanye and Rihanna's careers along the way and releasing another stack of classic albums, and eventually becoming some kind of hip-hop demi-god American hero, married to an American princess and father of her baby.

But Dr. Dre is pretty legendary too, having launched Snoop, Em and 50, and his Beats headphones are important because they are hugely successful and represent how artists are fighting music piracy. Puff Daddy's Sean John is also successful and predates Rocawear by a year. Wu-Tang Clan was also built from nothing through cross-promotion of brands (they had their own videogame), and may have established the model for how posses cross-promote each other. And like I mentioned, Jimmy Buffett has his own beer brand. Every celebrity is at least a pretend mogul these days.

And everyone knows Damon Dash was the businessman. Just sayin'. Who has Roc-a-fella launched since Kanye? What new brands has Jay launched vs. selling stakes of them and buying into different, more stable ones like the Nets, since he fell out with Dame? Is that just the thing everyone knows but no one can say?

When we break it all down, is Jay-Z's status as a "mogul" really all that different from dozens of other celebrities, except bigger?

Sorry, I only answered the one side of the question.

As for Jay-Z's innovation, he was more about secondary influence than strict innovation, which is why I just said "influence". He was the defining example of seeking crossover success while maintaining street credibility, which always the most perilous balance for rappers. Anytime you had legit crossover into pop realm the hardcore hip-hop followers would accuse you of being a sell-out. If you stayed true to the streets and brushed aside any attempts at broader appeal you remained stuck as a big fish in a small pond with little acclaim in the wider market. Now rap was clearly moving further and further into the mainstream before he came on the scene, first with albums (which relied on fan interest completely to move units), then increasingly in the early 90's with a handful of landmark singles from Cube, Snoop, PE, etc. All artists with strong street cred, no question. But then look at Jay-Z who perfected it. He himself said he dumbed down his lyrics to appeal to the mass audience, yet the hardcore rap fans still stuck by him. His productions were polished gems, the hooks were massive and creative ("Annie"?!?!), the rhymes still tough and his flow impeccible. He could dis and be harsh, but could stay witty and accessible. They weren't angry and therefore taboo for mainstream playlists. Remember, this was no Vanilla Ice, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince or M.C. Hammer, the type of guys who had that level of mainstream hit-stature before him. By the 2000's he's not only releasing a steady stream of Top Ten hits, he's guesting on a ton of them and his presence on them are often what is generating the most buzz. He was omni-present and largely as a result of that style rap itself became universal. He found the balance that acts had been seeking for nearly twenty years and then maintained his stature as the best at it, even as others followed that lead and rap as a whole moved further into the spotlight. That's big influence, even if it was less innovation and more a refinement of what others couldn't quite pull off consistently before him.

Now I'll be the first to say this was inevitible. When an entire generation or two grows up with a style of music that started on the outskirts of the mainstream then it's only a matter of time before it moves into the mainstream once that audience seizes control of the marketplace, but someone's gotta find the key that fits the lock to open that door and then force it to stay open, and that was largely done with Jay-Z, who set the basic blueprint (pun intended or not) of how to have crossover success and stay legit within hip-hop. Secondary influence, granted, but a ton of it.

All true, but as you say he did it all BIGGER. Not just a little, but a LOT bigger. He pulled Def-Jam up when they were floundering. No other artist became the president of a major label and did that. Dre definitely had more influence as a producer and talent scout, for lack of a better word, but Jay-Z had plenty of his own with putting Kayne alone out there, let alone the Neptunes, Cam'ron, Jeezy, Rihanna, et. all. Yes in fashion Sean Jean was huge as well, but in terms of cultural impact it's not who comes first as much as who penetrates into society deeper and in more ways. Diddy of course would get substantial Cultural Impact for that too, but that doesn't take away from the Cultural Impact of Jay-Z in the same arena.

The others are all trying to be "pretend moguls" as you say, but he's unquestionably the real thing. The one the rest are all trying to match and falling considerably short of.

Put it this way - in the 50's Elvis towered over his competition, everyone was trying to match him and it wasn't just music, he was the face of rock 'n' roll, the movies, TV, headlines, style, etc. In the 60's it was the Beatles. Now it's Jay-Z. He's the closest to them in stature in terms of an artist that defines the times in more ways than just musically. Not on their level, but the next step down and there's not many others on that step with him, if any. That's cultural impact.