Greatest Rock Artists Of All Time (Revision Version)

[DmitryXenon]

I think Nick Drake still deserves a spot somewhere near the end of the list.

[Tim]

Guess I can see Drake between Traffic and Sparks.

[Tim]

The Cult strike me as the most worthy artist here.

Reckon they are top 500 worthy?

[ManPerson]

Probably not.

[ManPerson]

Guess I can see Drake between Traffic and Sparks.

I could see that too.

[Tim]

490. Wilco
491. Larry Williams
492. The Chi-Lites
493. The Delfonics
494. Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns
495. Traffic
496. Nick Drake
497. Sparks
498. Kurtis Blow
499. The Del-Vikings
500. Primal Scream

[ManPerson]

Looks good.

[pauldrach]

Finished?!? What a list!

[Tim]

Think we might change wording of criteria, for sake of clarity, into this:

Criteria: Influence (35%), Popularity (30%), Acclaim (25%), Cultural Impact (10%)

Lifted from ManPerson's 1990s list.

[Fido]

Okay, thoughts on the 250-300 part:

How is Olivia Rodrigo so high? Really, all she has is, again, popularity. While she is acclaimed, she falls WAY short for this part of the list (over Chaka, Peter Gabriel, Soundgarden...hell, even Vandross solos her) and she has, without exaggerating, ZERO INFLUENCE. I don't know why artists who score so low in what is in theory the most important criterion can be this high. No artist with zero popularity is getting there!
Same thing with Billie Eilish. Why are any of them above Lorde? Well, you already told me the reason: their recent albums put them ahead in acclaim (I disagree, esp with Rodrigo, but let's say they tie) and then it's popularity vs influence, and of course the most popular win. Even though all three are chat-topping million sellers, while only one of them has ANY influence, and influence is supposed to be the most important one!
Most of the top 300 beat them in influence and acclaim, with the difference in influence being insurmountable as it's not really quantitative, it's qualitative. One vs zero. Then we have acclaim, in which Billie scores well but Rodrigo gets trumped. Literally, put her against almost anyone. She has three albums that are among the top 20 most acclaimed of their years. But we aren't talking years, we are talking all time. Does this put her ahead of hall of famers considered the best at what they do for decades now? And on the popularity front, I understand it's tricky comparing streaming success vs chat success, but Billie, despite everything, has ONE number one single.
Hell, even Bieber is clearly more influential and popular than them!

Future also seems a random pick for that part. His influence is rather limited to one subgenre, in which he is not more influential than let's say T.I., his acclaim is also not at this level and I don't see him being a popularity juggernaut.

[ManPerson]

Okay, thoughts on the 250-300 part:

How is Olivia Rodrigo so high? Really, all she has is, again, popularity. While she is acclaimed, she falls WAY short for this part of the list (over Chaka, Peter Gabriel, Soundgarden...hell, even Vandross solos her) and she has, without exaggerating, ZERO INFLUENCE. I don't know why artists who score so low in what is in theory the most important criterion can be this high. No artist with zero popularity is getting there!
Zero influence is definitely an exaggeration. She's been credited with helping to revive the mainstream pop appeal of guitar rock and she's clearly influenced songs like "Abcdefu", for example. Granted that's still far less than most artists on the list, but once you get to this range of the list you aren't going to find many artists who truly excel in all of the criteria so someone who manages to do very well in two of the criteria can comfortably belong, imo. Like New York Dolls have minimal popularity, but because of their huge influence and strong acclaim they are able to belong in this range. I don't see how someone who has huge popuarity and strong acclaim can't be in this range as well.

Also, the idea that she falls way short of say Chaka Khan or Vandross in acclaim seems to only be taking into account each artist's acclaim as vocalists. When you compare discographies, based on the AM EOY rankings, Olivia would be ahead of both artists in terms of acclaim for both songs and especially albums, and that's before you consider that her newest album is well slated to be among the top 3-5 most acclaimed albums at the end of this year with several acclaimed singles as well. With the acclaim of the newest album I think she's easily comparable to Soundgarden as well, even after you take into account Cornell's acclaim as a vocalist.

Same thing with Billie Eilish. Why are any of them above Lorde? Well, you already told me the reason: their recent albums put them ahead in acclaim (I disagree, esp with Rodrigo, but let's say they tie) and then it's popularity vs influence, and of course the most popular win. Even though all three are chat-topping million sellers, while only one of them has ANY influence, and influence is supposed to be the most important one!
Ok, I'm fine with moving Olivia below Lorde at least since, as you point out, influence is being weighted a bit more than popularity but while all three are technically chart topping million sellers, the streaming numbers show that Billie and Olivia are well ahead which I think is fairly definitive considering that all three artist's primes are not all that far apart from each other. Billie especially is very clearly in the upper echelon of the most popular artists of this era, with her being among the top 15 most streamed artists of all time and being one of the 5 most streamed artists of the year on three separate occassions. And that's with barely any features as well.
Most of the top 300 beat them in influence and acclaim, with the difference in influence being insurmountable as it's not really quantitative, it's qualitative. One vs zero.
It's still quantitative even if it's admittedly much harder to quantify. What I mean is that what you boil down to "one vs zero" can never be that simple, because while Billie and Olivia have fairly small influence compared to most artists on the that doesn't change the fact that some artists beat them in that category by a lot more than other artists do. Both New York Dolls and Arcade Fire beat them in influence, for example, but I think we'd both agree that New York Dolls win influence by a lot while, at least I'd argue that, Arcade Fire win by a much less significant difference. But by your logic both of these are "one vs zero" when, in reality, the margins in each criteria are always important. I'd say the difference in influence here is no more 'insurmountable' than the difference in popularity between most artists in this range compared to, as I mentioned before, the New York Dolls or even Captain Beefheart and Husker Du (who are both even higher than Olivia and Billie).
Then we have acclaim, in which Billie scores well but Rodrigo gets trumped. Literally, put her against almost anyone. She has three albums that are among the top 20 most acclaimed of their years.
You mention that she's had 3 albums that are top 20 most acclaimed in the years (I'll mention that all three of her albums are close to being top 10 for their year while one is likely top 5) and brush it off like it doesn't indicate strong acclaim when that's actually something that a vast majority of the artists immediately below her cannot claim to have.

To illustrate this point, I'll list all of the artists from 260-300 (i.e. artists who are below Olivia but still in the top 300, which I think is a fair range for what we're talking about here) who have three albums that reach that threshold. I'll even be extremely generous and extend the threshold to include any artist that has three albums among the top 50 of their respective years as there are, admittedly, more highly acclaimed albums from the years of the late 20th century than from the 2020s.

Here they are:
Billie Eilish
Lorde
Eurythmics
Peter Gabriel
D'angelo
Arcade Fire
Gram Parsons/Flying Burrito Bros.
Weezer
Foo Fighters
Erykah Badu

So 10 overall.

Let me make this really clear, Olivia has three albums that are clearly within the top 15 albums of their respective years while these artists only need to have three albums within the top 50 of their respective years to be listed. Yet only 10 qualify artists even qualify by that standard. Yes, it's true that many artists in this range are more singles artists than album artists but Olivia has a lot of acclaimed songs as well so I don't think most of them clearly pull ahead in that respect.

To prove my point even further, I'll list all the artists who have at least five songs that are among the top 100 most acclaimed songs of their respective years. I chose five because that's the number of songs O-Rod has had among the top 50 most acclaimed songs of their respective years. Keep in mind that I'm still holding Olivia to a higher standard than everyone else, and I'm not even including any songs from her newest album which, considering its her most acclaimed yet, is almost certainly going to have at least 2-3 songs that end up high on EOY lists.

Again, here they are:
Future
Billie Eilish
Lorde
Eurythmics
Peter Gabriel
Soundgarden
D'angelo
Aaliyah
Arcade Fire
T.I.
The Prodigy
Lloyd Price
Gram Parson/Flying Burrito Bros.
Weezer
Gil Scott-Heron
Foo Fighters
Erykah Badu

That's 17 artists, which is still less than half of the artists in this range, who are either comparable to Olivia in terms of albums and songs by this standard. This is clearly a far cry from the claim that "almost any artist in this range" trumps Olivia in terms of acclaim.

But we aren't talking years, we are talking all time. Does this put her ahead of hall of famers considered the best at what they do for decades now?
This mostly just proves that the artists below her have been around longer than her. It would be one thing if these artists all had several works that are considered some of the greatest of all time, but as my little exercise shows, most in this range don't even have that many that are among the most acclaimed of their respective years.

Sure, most of these artists are 'hall of famers', but considering that, at this point, dozens of rock and roll hall of famers have objectively (by our criteria, anyway) achieved much less than O-Rod has, I think that hardly proves that she's unworthy of being in this group, and that she's very likely to be inducted in. Actually, many artists below her are notably not in the rock hall despite several nominations. But I think all this proves is that who happens to be a 'hall of famer' should only have a minor bearing on the list's rankings.

And on the popularity front, I understand it's tricky comparing streaming success vs chat success, but Billie, despite everything, has ONE number one single.

And her massive streaming numbers clearly show that the fact that she has only one number one single is misleading when it comes to capturing her popularity. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, for example, both only have one single that even made the top 10 but obviously in those cases we'd both agree Billboard chart numbers don't tell the whole story, and in this case, they don't tell the full story either.
Hell, even Bieber is clearly more influential and popular than them!

I'd argue the difference in acclaim between him compared with Olivia and Billie is bigger than his wins in influence and popular combined, though.

Future also seems a random pick for that part. His influence is rather limited to one subgenre, in which he is not more influential than let's say T.I., his acclaim is also not at this level and I don't see him being a popularity juggernaut.

Future has plenty of acclaimed songs while also ranking on several lists of the greatest rappers showing some musical impact as well. In terms of popularity, 7 platinum albums and 10 number one albums as well as 11 top ten singles and 2 number one singles (not including features). He also has very strong streaming numbers. Overall, I think this indicates he's more popular than many, if not most, artists in this range. In terms of influence I'd argue he's at least to comparable to, as you mention, T.I., as almost any major trap artist who's emerged since around 2013 (as in anyone who was around during trap's commercial peak) takes far more influence from Future's mellow autotuned mumble rap style than the dirty south style that early trap from the 2000s was characterized by. Of course, T.I. still deserves a ton of credit for pioneering a lot of trap's defining features but I also think many other elements that have defined trap, and really mainstream rap music as a whole, in the past decade originate from, or were at least popluarized by, Future's work rather than T.I.'s

[Fido]

Zero influence is definitely an exaggeration. She's been credited with helping to revive the mainstream pop appeal of guitar rock and she's clearly influenced songs like "Abcdefu", for example.

I know she's been credited with things she hasn't done, but I'd expect us to know better than the mainstream music press. Guitar rock, more precisely pop punk influenced, had been on the rise since the late 2010s with all those emo rappers incorporating it into their music since it was popular when they were younger, all of that culminating in Machine Gun Kelly going full pop punk and topping the charts before Olivia released her first song. She is one rider of that wave, and if we ignore that then what are we even doing here?

So, no influence.

Like New York Dolls have minimal popularity, but because of their huge influence and strong acclaim they are able to belong in this range. I don't see how someone who has huge popuarity and strong acclaim can't be in this range as well.

This shows what I say all the time: New York Dolls have minimal popularity. Ok. What is minimal popularity? Their two albums (before their reunion) charted on Billboard bubbling under and in the top 100 Cash Box chart. That puts them ahead of almost EVERYBODY making music who didn't even dream of getting a major label deal. Do you know how many bands, artists, whole scenes exist in the underground? How many artists only play locally, how many garage bands exist at any given time in any scene? Of course you know it! For every big name you have dozens and dozens of no name acts who at most develop a cult following. This has of course flourished in the age of the internet, you only need to ask an electronic, black metal, indie, instrumental guitar, you-name-it, enthusiast and they'll give you a thesis on lots of "important" artists who have never sniffed the charts. Now, do the New York Dolls have "minimal" popularity? OF COURSE, but the difference between their "minimal" popularity and Rodrigo (or Billie, or whoever)'s "minimal" influence is STAGGERING. That's what I mean when I say "qualitative" and all that jazz.

Also, the idea that she falls way short of say Chaka Khan or Vandross in acclaim seems to only be taking into account each artist's acclaim as vocalists. When you compare discographies, based on the AM EOY rankings, Olivia would be ahead of both artists in terms of acclaim for both songs and especially albums, and that's before you consider that her newest album is well slated to be among the top 3-5 most acclaimed albums at the end of this year with several acclaimed singles as well. With the acclaim of the newest album I think she's easily comparable to Soundgarden as well, even after you take into account Cornell's acclaim as a vocalist.

I take into account each artist's acclaim AS ARTISTS, which is what we are ranking and judging here. Rufus are considered one of the greatest funk bands ever, Chaka is known as the Queen of Funk, is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of all time, and lots of top tier artists have expressed admiration for her music and collaborated with her, from Ray Charles to Miles Davis to Ariana Grande. Luther Vandross, apart from also being one of the greatest singers ever, has also worked with everybody, when he died the top R&B artists in the world recorded a fucking tribute album to him, and Kendrick released a tribute song 20 years after the fact. Their greatest songs and albums, of course, are also established classics. I'm all for incorporating critical acclaim into the list, but this is precisely the reason why Musical Impact was the criterion of choice for this list, instead of critics' opinions, working for magazines that cater to their especific audience, half of them owned by the same companies that own the labels promoting the artists, and with all the demographic and recency biases that AM can't help. I mean, saying that Olivia Rodrigo is easily comparable to SOUNDGARDEN in acclaim is just the most insane thing I've read in months.

You mention that she's had 3 albums that are top 20 most acclaimed in the years (I'll mention that all three of her albums are close to being top 10 for their year while one is likely top 5)

Hey, I'm going by the AM EOY lists and the highest album is at #10. On the Megacritic chart Sour is outside of the top 100 mind you.

and brush it off like it doesn't indicate strong acclaim when that's actually something that a vast majority of the artists immediately below her cannot claim to have.

To illustrate this point, I'll list all of the artists from 260-300 (i.e. artists who are below Olivia but still in the top 300, which I think is a fair range for what we're talking about here) who have three albums that reach that threshold, etc

I knew you were going to go that route which is why I said we are talking "all-time" here. Having Olivia's level of acclaim doesn't necessarily translate to being acclaimed as an all time great (which is also what I was refering to when I said "hall of famers", not just the Rock Hall). You are completely ignoring musical impact, hell, it seems you are completely ignoring anything that isn't AM EOY lists. Read books, watch documentaries, read interviews, and these artists come up all the time. Not saying you haven't done this, but you are throwing all that aside because it doesn't have a number on a list we can point to. You say below that's mainly because those artists have been doing it longer than her, and to that I respond WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT IN A FEW YEARS! I don't know why it's controversial to say that an artist that's peaking right now and debuted five years ago shouldn't be considered goated yet.

And her massive streaming numbers clearly show that the fact that she has only one number one single is misleading when it comes to capturing her popularity. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, for example, both only have one single that even made the top 10 but obviously in those cases we'd both agree Billboard chart numbers don't tell the whole story, and in this case, they don't tell the full story either.

Because those are album artists, and more importantly, from 50 years ago when Billboard charts worked differently. I meant to say that other contemporaries of Billie (like Olivia, Taylor, Ariana, Sabrina is getting there) have the streaming AND the chart numbers. Not saying Billie is not popular of course.

I'd argue the difference in acclaim between him compared with Olivia and Billie is bigger than his wins in influence and popular combined, though.
I'd argue it isn't, and that this "one criterion trumping everything else" is getting out of hand. Regardless, Bieber is the artist Olivia and Billie should be compared to, not Lorde. All popularity juggernauts, contemporaries, one more influential (influential on Billie, mind you) but less acclaimed.

Fine on Future, though I still think he should be lower. Most artists on this range are also influential on one subgenre, and with better acclaim. I see I underrated his popularity (maybe he's less popular here in Spain, even though trap was very popular I don't remember anyone mentioning him) but where do you get the "not including features"? I only two top ten hits of him solo.

[Fido]

Also, I forgot to mention that Olivia Rodrigo had a recording contract with a major label before she was even an adult because she had already been an actress and singer for DISNEY of all companies, starring in two series watched by millions. You know, for putting things in context (not that it makes much of a difference here).

[ManPerson]

Zero influence is definitely an exaggeration. She's been credited with helping to revive the mainstream pop appeal of guitar rock and she's clearly influenced songs like "Abcdefu", for example.

I know she's been credited with things she hasn't done, but I'd expect us to know better than the mainstream music press. Guitar rock, more precisely pop punk influenced, had been on the rise since the late 2010s with all those emo rappers incorporating it into their music since it was popular when they were younger, all of that culminating in Machine Gun Kelly going full pop punk and topping the charts before Olivia released her first song. She is one rider of that wave, and if we ignore that then what are we even doing here?

So, no influence.

Like New York Dolls have minimal popularity, but because of their huge influence and strong acclaim they are able to belong in this range. I don't see how someone who has huge popuarity and strong acclaim can't be in this range as well.

This shows what I say all the time: New York Dolls have minimal popularity. Ok. What is minimal popularity? Their two albums (before their reunion) charted on Billboard bubbling under and in the top 100 Cash Box chart. That puts them ahead of almost EVERYBODY making music who didn't even dream of getting a major label deal. Do you know how many bands, artists, whole scenes exist in the underground? How many artists only play locally, how many garage bands exist at any given time in any scene? Of course you know it! For every big name you have dozens and dozens of no name acts who at most develop a cult following. This has of course flourished in the age of the internet, you only need to ask an electronic, black metal, indie, instrumental guitar, you-name-it, enthusiast and they'll give you a thesis on lots of "important" artists who have never sniffed the charts. Now, do the New York Dolls have "minimal" popularity? OF COURSE, but the difference between their "minimal" popularity and Rodrigo (or Billie, or whoever)'s "minimal" influence is STAGGERING. That's what I mean when I say "qualitative" and all that jazz.

Again, I'm not going to dispute that Olivia's influence is pretty miniscule compared to a vast majority of artists on this list, but the idea that she has no influence is still an exaggeration, artists like GAYLE, Jax or Leah Kate, who all had gold or platinum certified songs are very clearly influenced by O-Rod more than they're influenced by Mgk, Juicewrld or whoever else dabbled in pop punk before her. Granted, all those artists make pretty terrible music but that's still three artists who achieved a somewhat notable amount of success clearly influenced by her. Also, Chappell Roan reached the level of popularity she did in large part because she was a performer in Olivia's tour. Again, still very little influence compared to most artists on the list, just like New York Dolls have very little popularity compared to most artists on the list, but, as you address in the bold, still more influence than 99% of the underground artists out there, just as New York Dolls are still more popular than 99% of the underground artists throughout rock history.

Also, the idea that she falls way short of say Chaka Khan or Vandross in acclaim seems to only be taking into account each artist's acclaim as vocalists. When you compare discographies, based on the AM EOY rankings, Olivia wouIld be ahead of both artists in terms of acclaim for both songs and especially albums, and that's before you consider that her newest album is well slated to be among the top 3-5 most acclaimed albums at the end of this year with several acclaimed singles as well. With the acclaim of the newest album I think she's easily comparable to Soundgarden as well, even after you take into account Cornell's acclaim as a vocalist.

I take into account each artist's acclaim AS ARTISTS, which is what we are ranking and judging here. Rufus are considered one of the greatest funk bands ever, Chaka is known as the Queen of Funk, is acclaimed as one of the greatest singers of all time, and lots of top tier artists have expressed admiration for her music and collaborated with her, from Ray Charles to Miles Davis to Ariana Grande. Luther Vandross, apart from also being one of the greatest singers ever, has also worked with everybody, when he died the top R&B artists in the world recorded a fucking tribute album to him, and Kendrick released a tribute song 20 years after the fact. Their greatest songs and albums, of course, are also established classics. I'm all for incorporating critical acclaim into the list, but this is precisely the reason why Musical Impact was the criterion of choice for this list, instead of critics' opinions, working for magazines that cater to their especific audience, half of them owned by the same companies that own the labels promoting the artists, and with all the demographic and recency biases that AM can't help. I mean, saying that Olivia Rodrigo is easily comparable to SOUNDGARDEN in acclaim is just the most insane thing I've read in months.

You mention that she's had 3 albums that are top 20 most acclaimed in the years (I'll mention that all three of her albums are close to being top 10 for their year while one is likely top 5)

Hey, I'm going by the AM EOY lists and the highest album is at #10. On the Megacritic chart Sour is outside of the top 100 mind you.

and brush it off like it doesn't indicate strong acclaim when that's actually something that a vast majority of the artists immediately below her cannot claim to have.

To illustrate this point, I'll list all of the artists from 260-300 (i.e. artists who are below Olivia but still in the top 300, which I think is a fair range for what we're talking about here) who have three albums that reach that threshold, etc

I knew you were going to go that route which is why I said we are talking "all-time" here. Having Olivia's level of acclaim doesn't necessarily translate to being acclaimed as an all time great (which is also what I was refering to when I said "hall of famers", not just the Rock Hall). You are completely ignoring musical impact, hell, it seems you are completely ignoring anything that isn't AM EOY lists. Read books, watch documentaries, read interviews, and these artists come up all the time. Not saying you haven't done this, but you are throwing all that aside because it doesn't have a number on a list we can point to. You say below that's mainly because those artists have been doing it longer than her, and to that I respond WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT IN A FEW YEARS! I don't know why it's controversial to say that an artist that's peaking right now and debuted five years ago shouldn't be considered goated yet.

I guess my argument overemphasized critical acclaim and I'll acknowledge that Chaka and Vandross have a level of musical impact (assuming we're both using Sampson's definition of the term) that Olivia has simply not reached, but I also think that the praise of music critics should be balanced into the equation and I think my argument shows that her discography has more critical acclaim than many, if not most, artists in this range so I'm disputing the idea that she's clearly out of her league in terms of acclaim. Critics from major publications have also described her as things like "the voice of her generation", "a truly brilliant rock star" and her songwriting has been described as having "a level of perfection and depth rarely achieved by her pop contemporaries". I think this shows that, at least in mainstream critical circles she's already established a reputation as a generational songwriting talent on top of consistently having obtained very strong acclaim for three different albums. I also think that her career starting recently shouldn't exclude her from this range. Obviously something like top 100-200 would be extreme, but if you look at the DDD's lists from 10-15 years there were artists as recent as her and Billie who were being included in the top 300.

And her massive streaming numbers clearly show that the fact that she has only one number one single is misleading when it comes to capturing her popularity. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, for example, both only have one single that even made the top 10 but obviously in those cases we'd both agree Billboard chart numbers don't tell the whole story, and in this case, they don't tell the full story either.

Because those are album artists, and more importantly, from 50 years ago when Billboard charts worked differently. I meant to say that other contemporaries of Billie (like Olivia, Taylor, Ariana, Sabrina is getting there) have the streaming AND the chart numbers. Not saying Billie is not popular of course.

I'd argue that Billie can be considered an album artist as well, it's just that, in the streaming era, the success of her albums shows up differently than it would have in previous decades. I think this link illustrates what I'm talking about pretty clearly. The fact that even the least streamed tracks on 4 of her albums/eps have accumulated over 150 million streams shows that people are listening to her albums front to back tens of millions of times. That's why her streaming success overall show her popularity is much stronger than counting top 10 and #1 singles would seem to indicate, because it's almost her entire discography that's been successful, not just her hit singles.

I'd argue the difference in acclaim between him compared with Olivia and Billie is bigger than his wins in influence and popular combined, though.
I'd argue it isn't, and that this "one criterion trumping everything else" is getting out of hand. Regardless, Bieber is the artist Olivia and Billie should be compared to, not Lorde. All popularity juggernauts, contemporaries, one more influential (influential on Billie, mind you) but less acclaimed.

Fine on Future, though I still think he should be lower. Most artists on this range are also influential on one subgenre, and with better acclaim. I see I underrated his popularity (maybe he's less popular here in Spain, even though trap was very popular I don't remember anyone mentioning him) but where do you get the "not including features"? I only two top ten hits of him solo.

That was poor wording on my part, I meant not including songs where he is the featured artist.

[ManPerson]

I could definitely see the argument that we overrated Billie, Olivia and Future a bit, though. I think having them close to New York Dolls is fair, for the reasons I mentioned.

I'd suggest this as a compromise:

259. Luther Vandross
260. Lorde
261. War
262. Chaka Khan/Rufus
263. Eurythmics
264. Salt-N-Pepa
265. Peter Gabriel
266. The Righteous Brothers
267. Jethro Tull
268. Soundgarden
269. George Harrison
270. D'Angelo
271. Billie Eilish
272. Aaliyah
273. Electric Light Orchestra
274. New York Dolls
275. Future
276. Arcade Fire
277. Olivia Rodrigo
278. The (Young) Rascals
279. T.I.
280. Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps
281. The Marvelettes
282. Joe Tex
283. The Prodigy
284. Johnny Ace
285. Lloyd Price
286. Cher
287. R. Kelly

[Tim]

I like it, Man.

[Fido]

I guess I'll take it.

Thoughts on the next 100 (I won't comment much on artists I've already argued for as I guess they are not getting any higher):

- Shakira and other Latin artists we've already discussed and as I said it's a can of worms, but here you have an artist who is far more popular and influential than Rodrigo (and most of their contemporaries tbh).
- Ed Sheeran should be higher, not by a lot, but he kills in popularity and has some influence. Beats Rodrigo and Billie in both criteria, unless you say their acclaim difference is the only thing that matters.

[Tim]

250. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
251. Phil Collins
252. Spice Girls
253. Sade
254. Ariana Grande
255. Nicki Minaj
256. Hall & Oates
257. Boyz II Men
258. Alanis Morissette
259. Luther Vandross
260. Ed Sheeran
261. Lorde
262. War
263. Chaka Khan/Rufus
264. Eurythmics
265. Salt-N-Pepa
266. Peter Gabriel
267. The Righteous Brothers
268. Jethro Tull
269. Soundgarden
270. George Harrison
271. D'Angelo
272. Billie Eilish
273. Aaliyah
274. Electric Light Orchestra
275. Shakira
276. New York Dolls
277. Future
278. Arcade Fire
279. Olivia Rodrigo
280. The (Young) Rascals
281. T.I.
282. Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps
283. The Marvelettes
284. Joe Tex
285. The Prodigy
286. Johnny Ace
287. Lloyd Price
288. Cher
289. R. Kelly
290. The Lovin' Spoonful 
291. The Spinners
292. Rick James
293. Gram Parsons/The Flying Burrito Bros
294. Barry White
295. Weezer
296. Gil Scott-Heron
297. Linda Ronstadt
298. Foo Fighters
299. The Shadows
300. Emerson, Lake & Palmer
301. Erykah Badu
302. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army
303. Toots & the Maytals
304. Television
305. Todd Rundgren (& related bands)
306. Slayer
307. Jeff Beck
308. Jimmy Cliff
309. 50 Cent
310. Link Wray (& the Wraymen)
311. The Replacements
312. Boston
313. Cheap Trick
314. Harry Nilsson
315. Jesse Belvin/Jesse & Marvin
316. Buffalo Springfield
317. Devo
318. Bruno Mars
319. Justin Bieber
320. Journey

Guess I can see something like this.