Most Influential Musician

hey ppl, michael jackson shud certainly b in the list. no matter wht he is facing in his private life, that guy is a musical genius. and many artists of these dayz have been inspired by his entertainin capibilites and dancing. he certainly shud b there

Erm, Tim Westwood and Fatboy Slim?

so you don't have Black Francis/Frank Black/Francis Black, or Kim Deal or Zach de La Rocha or Tom Morello or Billy Corgan or any of the original emo artists? yeah, this thread is pretty stupid for 'recent' artists.

ozzy has had prolly more influince over the years then then the whole list he helped shape and create a whole genra if you ask any metal band out today they will tell you ozzy and black sabbath are the godfathers of heavymetal

mine is black sabbath jimmy page or chris rea

If you have Britney Spears in the poll, you might as well have put Madonna. Madonna is Britney's idol.

if it's most influential EVER, then it is Elvis, hands down. He inspired every rocker in the 60s to go out there and make a band.

Second is the beatles, who inspired and influenced just about...everyone. including Ozzy. Ozzy wanted to be a Beatle, but he realized he 1) didn't have the voice 2) couldn't write those type of songs. So instead we got Black Sabbath. Which is better than another British Invasion Beatles-wannabe band.

But that's where this discussion becomes anooying. Because how can Elvis be the most influential when his act is a rip off of guys like James Brown or Chuck Berry.

because while they influenced Elvis, Elvis influenced a huge group of people; basically every rocker in the 60s.

If we are getting into the second degree of influence (Well, Chuck Berry's grandpa taught him to play guitar, so...) then it would be Robert Johnson for sure. Or back to the african tribesman of yore. But I'd like to stay on the first degree of influence (direct influence) instead of the more abstract, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon style influence game. Because then it will inevitably go back to Beethoven or Mozart or the military drummers in ancient greece or...etc.

So using my method, it's clearly Elvis, then the Beatles

Originally posted by el_barto
eminem kiks all these guyses asses expecally britney speirs (i think she may be a slut) between u and me

What dumb-ass posted that? 😗

Electric Bugaloo that's my point though. I was saying that's the reason this topic is so annoying, because there is never a real answer.

As far as Elvis goes though, I wouldn't put anyone is the most influential artist ever unless they were a unique artist and were doing something different from everyone else. I don't think Elvis was that unique, he was just the first white guy. But that's an opinion based assessment.

Everyone has their influences, but truly influential musicians take their influences and make something original.

Yeah, Elvis didn't do anything terribly original, but that doesn't change the fact that what he did was influential; it's not so much about who does it first or best, but who was more widespread (ie, Krokus and AC/DC)

Chuck Berry may have influenced Elvis and a handful of artists, but Elvis, as I have said repeatedly, influenced an entire generation.

Has anyone ever heard the term history repeats itself? Well m'lads the reason I bring this up is because this isn't the first time this argument has occured in this thread (let alone this forum). It's funny: because we keep saying the same shit over and over because we don't know it has been said like 40 times before. However no one want's to browse through 4 pages of the same old tired ass talk so...repeat on...

wait, wait--you mean there isn't an infinite amount of htings to talk about in music, and there are prevailing arguments in some of the topics that have been brought up multiple times???

Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that TV goes in cycles too.

Originally posted by ElectricBugaloo
wait, wait--you mean there isn't an infinite amount of htings to talk about in music, and there are prevailing arguments in some of the topics that have been brought up multiple times???

Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that TV goes in cycles too.

No. What I really meant was that it's funny that the same old discussions within the same old topics keep coming up. What really gets me is that no one ever gets tired of it.

that's because it's usually new people every time that i have to persuade to my point of viwe

This is, by far, the dumbest poll I've ever seen.

A) Britney Spears is not a musician.

B) Where the hell are, for starters, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Trent Reznor, Janis Joplin, etc. etc.? This list blows. Big time.

-Smitten Kitten-