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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Most important band in the history of popular music
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Some people on this thread have pointed to the Beatles as the most important band, what's wrong with discussing what made them so?
Well, that would be a different and much more complex thread.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Actually, I kind of think that is this thread--unless it's just about throwing out alternative names.
Look--George Martin produced other bands (anybody remember American Flyer?). Brian Epstein managed other bands (the Cyrkle, anybody?) Let's not get too enthralled with the svengali factor. Or forget the the Sex Pistols had Malcom Maclaren. The Sex Pistols caused quite a commotion for a year or two. I liked them, but they were more about theater than music, especially after Glenn Matlock left. Yeah, they were important, but only once. The Beatles changed the course of popular music on an annual basis for those few years that they ruled that world. And they didn't just change the music, they changed the culture. Not single-handed (or quadruple-handed), but it's hard to imagine how it could have happened the same way without them.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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The Phantom Flan Flinger
Shipmate
# 8891
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by The Phantom Flan Flinger:
Some people on this thread have pointed to the Beatles as the most important band, what's wrong with discussing what made them so?
Depends on how it's done. When the argument is, "The Beatles had a bunch of support; therefore some other band is more important," then it's no longer just "discussing what made them important".
Fair comment, but that wasn't my intention.
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Posts: 1020 | From: Leicester, England | Registered: Dec 2004
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Pasta
Apprentice
# 5635
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Posted
Camel. Definitively the most important and influential band in my personal history of music, which is only reference point I can relate to. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 28. January 2015, 21:58: Message edited by: Pasta ]
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Happiness is a contented kipper
Posts: 43 | From: Suffolk | Registered: Mar 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
But if you really want to know who was the most influential person behind Rock and Roll, it would be Adolf Rickenbacker who developed the electric guitar in 1932. The rest is history.
The collecting of various percussion instruments together to form a drum kit did more to change modern music, be it jazz, blues etc. did more to revolutionise music than electrification and amplification of other insrtuments.
I see your Rickenbacker 1932 and raise a William Ludwig Sr 1908.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
You could also say that Louis Armstrong's switch from cornet to the louder trumpet, and his invention of the improvised solo break (the two things being one, in effect), in contrast to the group improvisation of very early jazz, led to the core of rock: Satch--> Blind Lemon Jefferson--> T-Bone Walker--> Chuck Berry--> every rock lead guitar player ever.
You could also note that if the King of Swing (Benny Goodman, for the undereducated) had not blown the roof off the Palomar Ballroom on a hot summer night in 1934, White America's popular music might be based on the polka or the waltz. With repercussions for the rest of the world.
The interesting thing is how people project their personal tastes into their judgments of "importance." Kraftwerk was important in a particular musical style, but electronica is an exotic niche genre. Most people will dance to it if they're high enough, but beyond that don't care. You could say the same about a lot of the bands that have been mentioned. Being good doesn't make you important.
There certainly are artists (performers and composers) without whom the history of popular music would not be what it is. I once sketched an outline for an article on the subject, which I never wrote--but now that I think about it, it would take a book. They are:
1. Stephen Foster (really the inventor of American popular song)
2. Ma Rainey (first blues superstar, brought the blues into American music in a big way)
3. Louis Armstrong (see above, and more)
4. The Carter Family (Maybelle, especially)
5. Paul Whiteman (kind of lame, but made people take jazz seriously)
6. Benny Goodman (see above)
7. Duke Ellington (if you gotta ask...)
8. Bing Crosby (the original hipster, and the guy who radically changed pop singing style by understanding what you could do with a microphone)
9. Sinatra
10. Elvis
11. Chuck Berry
12. The Beatles
13. Dylan
14. Joni Mitchell (who radically changed the emotional vocabulary of pop music)
And by then end of the '60s, things had begun to fragment so much that by 1980 no one artist could affect the overall course of music very much--all they could do was create new subgenres, which were very important to fans but not to anyone else. As much as Hendrix influenced guitar players, you can't point to an overall stylistic trend that came from him any more than from Cream, Zep, and for that matter Iron Butterfly (blues-based power trio rock --> heavy metal --> Van Halen, Rush, AC/DC, Metallica etc.) Disco was huge, but there's no one dominant disco band (Earth, Wind, and Fire were the best, but they're not the disco Beatles). Springsteen was huge, but there was no movement that followed from him (except Tom Petty, who would probably deny the influence).
Punk changed things, but it's too easy to overestimate the importance of any one band (the Pistols or the Ramones? Elvis Costello says that he and Graham Parker and Nick Lowe were the real punks, and the Pistols were a corporate creation...) L.L. Cool J and Run DMC were probably more important than any White artists of the '80s, but they didn't change the musical world. Not because they weren't good enough, but because the scene had changed to the point that no one could exert the kind of influence the Beatles did anymore--and probably never will again.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
In relatively recent times, I'd say the Spice Girls had a massive impact on the popular music scene. Not only did they single-handedly change the prevailing musical ethos from being dominated by male guitar bands (Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Ash, etc.) and go on to dominate the airwaves for years and pave the way for a host of imitators, but it could be argued that they represent the beginning of the "packaged pop" era that has culminated in shows like X Factor, Pop Idol and [Country]'s Got Talent. How many of the popular songs, bands and singers of the last decade or two can trace their genesis to that phenomenon?
Their music itself may not have been anything particularly new or innovative, but literally everything else about them has fundamentally changed the music industry across the Western world. And if that doesn't qualify them as an important band in the history of popular music then I don't know what does.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Though, packaged pop goes back a bit further than Spice Girls. Think Stock, Aitken and Waterman turning Aussie soap actresses into pop stars.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Well, sure. And groups of lads playing guitars predate the Beatles. The point is that they were the band that suddenly made it huge.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
quote:
packaged pop goes back a bit further than Spice Girls
Indeed - but although some think of them as just the puppets of proto-Cowell figure Jim Henson, for my money Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem showed true, and influential, genius in their own right...
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
What exactly does "packaged pop" mean?
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I take it to mean the "manufactured" bands which, as AC said, probably started* with the Stock, Aitken & Waterman protégés in the late 1980s - Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and the like, and went on to produce groups like the Spice Girls in the 90s and the televised talent contest winners promoted by the likes of Simon Cowell these days.
* although I've heard it said that the first manufactured band was the Monkees in the 1960s, who I believe were created specifically for the television show.
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alto n a soprano who can read music
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
I take it to mean the "manufactured" bands which, as AC said, probably started* with the Stock, Aitken & Waterman protégés in the late 1980s - Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and the like, and went on to produce groups like the Spice Girls in the 90s and the televised talent contest winners promoted by the likes of Simon Cowell these days.
* although I've heard it said that the first manufactured band was the Monkees in the 1960s, who I believe were created specifically for the television show.
Indeed. The Monkees were the first prefab band. But you must also include the Partridge Family and to a lesser extent the Archies (although they were a one-hit wonder, they were certainly an artificial creation; interestingly of Don Kirshner, same guy who made the Monkees). Putting the advent of artificial bands in the 1980s is a little near-sighted. Frankly it looks like people didn't bother to do their homework.
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I just went this evening to a lecture called "Yeah Yeah Yeah" from a series called Deconstructing the Beatles. This lecture ended with 1963. In addition to 4 number one singles and 2 number 1 albums they wrote so many songs that they gave them to other groups who then got top ten hits. Groups like Gerry and The Pacemakers and The Rolling Stones got their first hits with songs written by the Beatles.
It certainly did show a year of spectacular dominance and huge influence on other performers from Bob Dylan to the Bee Gees. It also firmly pushed the concept of the rock group writing their own songs.
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Roselyn
Shipmate
# 17859
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Posted
I remember someone once saying that the reason Bing and Elvis were top in the particular years they were was attributable to developments in microphones etc. How much was the history determined by technological invention?
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
Well, here's an example - the Beatles gave up touring because they couldn't be heard above the screams of their fans - and concert PA system design caught up maybe 5-10 years later. Gangs of large amplifiers were possible using valve (US - vacuum tube) technology (WEM - UK and Crown - USA had a go), but the result was expensive, power hungry, heavy and bulky (an issue for touring rigs) and somewhat fragile. So the technological innovation which makes stadium gigs and the Large RocknRoll Tour possible is probably the invention, or perhaps rather the adoption, of the power transistor.
Regarding 'packaged pop' - the idea seems to have deep literary roots which go back a good deal further than the Monkees ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Sometimes, Roselyn, it is the reverse. The European musical scales that dominate this discussion are limitations. African music* operates in different structure, containing notes that do not quite exist in the European systems. "Bending" notes to approximate gave a distinctive sound to the blues and through that to rock 'n roll.
Little Walter and Jimmy Hendrix used the limitations of their instruments and equipment to create styles and sounds which greatly influenced later musicians and drove technical innovation.
People tend to think in terms of a motorway, going from origin to destination. But music is the streets of an old city. Intertwined, connected, traveling in many directions with direct connections and obscure routes.
*not monolithic, no, but grouped for ease of discussion
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
People tend to think in terms of a motorway, going from origin to destination. But music is the streets of an old city. Intertwined, connected, traveling in many directions with direct connections and obscure routes.
Great metaphor. I'd apply this to just about any aspect of pop culture, not just music.
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Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Roselyn:
I remember someone once saying that the reason Bing and Elvis were top in the particular years they were was attributable to developments in microphones etc. How much was the history determined by technological invention?
It's not just the technology, but people figuring out how to use it in creative ways. Rudy Vallee sang through a megaphone--he still had to project like an opera singer. The microphone was just supposed to be a way of making voices louder, so they could be heard over a band, but Crosby figured out that they made it possible to sing in a more intimate, "crooning" style. Similarly, the electric guitar was just supposed to make the instrument louder, but it also introduced distortion (and increased sustain, and feedback), and guitar players began to find ways to use that musically (Hendrix especially--and now there are devices to help guitarists get Hendrix-like sounds without Jimi's technique). The recording studio was supposed to capture the live performance, and the Beatles used it to create effects that could not (at that time) be produced in live performance (one of the reasons they stopped touring). But then technology was invented to make it possible to do all that on stage, and there are Beatles tribute bands playing "Tomorrow Never Knows" live...
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
OTOH, I think Peter, Paul, and Mary were put together by a manager. I think *maybe* the guys knew each other before.
They turned out pretty well. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
How on earth can you narrow it down so much?
But if you had to, I'd say Velvet Underground. But I would - I'm a Gen-Xer, and all the music I grew up with was influenced by them. That's still a pretty limited sphere of influence.
But seriously, how can you narrow it down to one most important band?
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My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
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for that, TTO. You put names to my previous assertion about blues.
