Most Influential Band of Last 20-25 years

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Dog 3000 D
Dog 3000 Apr 30, 2008 21:10:49
Replying to zphage

Kraftwerk! (The world may have finally caught up to them though, after 30+ years of being ahead of their time.)

Melvins (#1 in heavy rock)

Pavement (so many quirky indie rockers out there to this day! Of course there's more than a little of The Fall in their sound . . . )

Metallica (they've probably shifted the most units around the globe, took hardcore metal from niche to mainstream)

Michael Jackson (key influence on Britney, Justin, Backstreet Boys, etc. -- for better or worse, he is/was "the king of pop.")

Madonna too? ("girl power", "riot grrrrl" and all that plus dance music in general. Though William Orbit gets a lot of credit for that part.)

I don't see Radiohead as that big a deal, but I suppose U2 has a lot to answer for.

Hip-hop has obviously been huge for the last 25 years, but the trends there change so quickly there's no "one" most influential artist (LL Cool J has lasted longer than anyone else I suppose.)

R rojo
rojo Apr 30, 2008 22:26:54
Replying to Dog 3000

Dog 3000 wrote:
Kraftwerk! (The world may have finally caught up to them though, after 30+ years of being ahead of their time.)
bloody obvious but sooooo true. I had all the old kraftwerk albums like autobahn, R & F and always thought they were years ahead for a 70s band. But only recently I got to hear Computer World for the first time and, your right, folks are only just catching up with them now

I IanB
IanB May 1, 2008 09:24:58
Replying to Dog 3000

I am with you on Kraftwerk and, as per above I would put Moroder and Larry Levan in the same pot.

Despite all indications to the contrary on this board, most of the innovative music from the last 25 years has been from the 'dance' 'scene' and hip hop rather than from guitar music.

We're still largely in an era of rock recycling itself with the hipper artists recycling the most obscure artefacts from earlier generations and / or putting a cynically post-modern spin on old crap.

Where is the truly adventurous rock and roll is to be found?

Not a clue but I've heard nothing made with guitars in the last 20 years that went anywhere close to going as far out out of the AABA structural box as Matmos or Boards of Canada or FSOL have been. These artists are rarely on my proverbial turntable as I can get all that I can get from them, and get it in spades, from Reich and Adams and Ligetti but I can see their importance and live in hope that rock and roll will at some point stop settling for drinking its own piss and get out a bit more.

Like jazz, it's a fantastic museum to explore but that's what rock and roll is now. Fully embraced as a mainstream art form and utterly flumoxed by its own lack of cultural relevance.