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Post by Jeff on Sept 24, 2005 21:49:38 GMT -5
Justin,
I love your essay. You write so well about music! Anyway, I very much like your distinction between innovative synthesis vs originality. As I see it, these are subdistinctions of a progressive tendency that I was thinking of too narrowly. Would you agree?
Jeff
PS I hope you aren't taking to heart any of my venom against the Stones. I did watch and enjoy their HBO concert in 2003. In fact, I broke my favorite pick playing "I Know It's Only Rock and Roll."
Jeff
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Post by amanda mcbride on Sept 25, 2005 9:39:05 GMT -5
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Post by Jeff on Sept 25, 2005 11:16:04 GMT -5
Hey Guys,
I just realized that somehow the Beach Boys got left off my list. They're definitely in the top ten and one of the first acts I thought of when I made the list. I don't know how I could have made such a stupid error.
So, at this point my list is bollocks. I think I would take off Graham Parker and the Eurythmics and insert The Beach Boys and N.W.A. The Beach Boys would be in the top 10. N.W.A. would be somewhere in the indifferents.
But the point isn't the list, really, but the development of aesthetic ideas.
Looking forward to your lists, guys!
Jeff
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Post by Barry Dingle on Sept 25, 2005 11:35:32 GMT -5
These lists are hard. One way to do it is simply to brainstorm, but that leaves huge holes in the list because the brain is faster than the hand. In my initial brainstorming, I also failed to write the Beach Boys, not because I didn't want to include them, but just because so many acts were flooding into my mind. Another way to do it is to try and break it up somehow, by decade, by (sub)genre, by race-sex-creed-country of origin, or whatever. I tried to do it by decade, but it's harder than you might think. Many of these guys are all over the map. Are the Stones, for instance, or Aerosmith localized to only a single decade? Of course not. Also, I found myself having to deal with bands made of solo acts or other bands. For example, I had on my list an entry for Green River/Mother Love Bone/Temple of the Dog/Pearl Jam/Soundgarden, another entry for Dr Dre/Snoop Dogg/Eminem/N.W.A./Ice Cube/Eazy E, and one for Genesis/Yes/Asia/Anderson, Wakeman, Buford, & Howe/GTR. This does no justice to the individual acts, but it's convenient to make such lumps. Otherwise, you get something like what Jeff had, an entry for the Beatles, one for McCartney, one for Lennon... And I definitely didn't want to leave the sistas out of my list, although I found it was heavily dood-filled. Anyway, it's hard. It's haaaarrd.
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Post by luceph on Sept 27, 2005 2:47:41 GMT -5
Just some observations.
I think you should keep the Eurythmics/Annie Lennox in your list Jeff. Just replace Snoop Dogg with N.W.A.
Random bands/singers that should be in the list, according to Chad : )
Devo P.J. Harvey Bauhaus Aimee Mann The Pixies Tina Turner Pat Benetar Motorhead/Metallica/ACDC Cyndi Lauper John "Cougar" Mellancamp (I refuse to acknowledge that he ever dropped Cougar from his name) KISS (i know, i know, i hate them too) Orbital
just a few
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 7:41:32 GMT -5
If someone gets added to the list then someone else has to go. It is arbitrarily capped at 100 acts. Some of your suggestions are ones I considered and intentionally left off:
P.J. Harvey Aimee Mann Tina Turner Pat Benetar Motorhead/Metallica/ACDC Cyndi Lauper John "Cougar" Mellancamp KISS
Motorhead, Lauper, and Kiss made it to the 175 act list, but no further.
But, again, you bring up acts that I just stupidly forgot to consider. It is hard to remember everyone! Devo, The Pixies, and Bauhaus SHOULD be on any 100 act list. I just forgot them. I'll go find some folks to knock off.
Finally, you say swap Dogg for N.W.A. Hmmm. That is a tough call. I am inclined to think that both acts are sort of fundamental.
Jeff
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Post by luceph on Sept 27, 2005 7:46:48 GMT -5
Then let me add, in my own very humble opinion, that P.J. Harvey belongs in the top 100 more than Bjork since I feel that P.J.'s influence is wider and more profound.
That is all.
also maybe I'm a little off, but wasn't Chuck Berry one of the founders of rock and roll and thus, performing well before your 1965 cutoff point?
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 7:52:45 GMT -5
Cool. I've owned two P.J. Harvey CDs, Rid of Me and To Bring You my Love. I did not think Rid of Me was the masterpiece everyone else did; in fact, I thought both CDs highly overrated. Further, as a female act, I don't think she was as important as say, Patti Smith, who made it onto my 175 list. If I were going to add some girls just because they are girls, I'd add Smith, Janice Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Diana Ross, and Donna Summer (thanks Justin) before I added Harvey. Jeff PS You are quite right. Berry was working in the mid 50s. It's just that he was still doing his thing in the 1960s. In fact, I think he is STILL doing his thing! www.chuckberry.com/index.php
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Post by Thanin on Sept 27, 2005 8:11:09 GMT -5
I mean, I like hiphop a great deal, and even love certain acts, but I'm not knowledgable enough to say whether Sugar Hill Gang is more important than Grandmaster Flash. I'd really like to make that call, but I can't in good faith. DJ Kool Herc[glow=red,2,300] pwndz [/glow]them both
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Post by amanda on Sept 27, 2005 9:16:59 GMT -5
The lack of female artists on the list is somewhat discouraging. Was rock & roll really such a boys' club that only seven or eight females notably impacted the aesthetic for pop music? Why not add Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Diana Ross, and Donna Summer in because they were influential rather than because you were just adding girls?
(not that the girls are being intentionally left off -- I'm just curious)
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 12:45:02 GMT -5
Here is my new list:
1. The Beatles 2. David Bowie 3. Jimi Hendrix 4. Radiohead 5. Elvis Costello 6. Ray Charles 7. The Beach Boys 8. Talking Heads 9. Bjork 10. The Police/Sting 11. Depeche Mode 12. The Pixies 13. The Cure 14. Lindsey Buckingham/Fleetwood Mac 15. Peter Gabriel 16. Tom Waits 17. New Order 18. Brian Ferry/Brian Eno/Roxy Music 19. Nine Inch Nails 20. Johnny Cash 21. Jeff Lynne/ELO 22. Jane’s Addiction 23. Pink Floyd 24. Bob Marley and the Wailers 25. Flaming Lips 26. Billy Joel 27. Roy Orbison 28. Al Green 29. The Cars 30. The Beastie Boys 31. Paul Simon/Garfunkel 32. Blondie 33. Run-D.M.C. 34. Duran Duran 35. The Kinks 36. The Clash 37. Queen 38. Bauhaus 39. Lou Reed/Velvet Underground 40. Prince 41. Kraftwerk 42. Led Zepplin/Robert Plant/Jimmy Page 43. John Lennon 44. Dire Straits 45. Devo 46. King Crimson 47. The Pretenders 48. Otis Redding 49. John Lee Hooker 50. Carole King 51. Aretha Franklin 52. Doobie Brothers 53. Steely Dan 54. Marvin Gaye 55. George Clinton/Parliament 56. CCR 57. Sonic Youth 58. Nirvana 59. Van Morrison 60. Bob Dylan 61. The Smiths 62. Public Enemy 63. Donna Summer 64. James Brown 65. Erasure 66. Black Sabbath 67. Etta James 68. The Temptations 69. Jefferson Airplane/Starship 70. Thin Lizzy 71. Stevie Wonder 72. Frank Zappa 73. Van Halen 74. Stevie Ray Vaughn 75. Neil Young/Buffalo Springfield 76. Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg 77. Santana 78. Sex Pistols 79. Eric Clapton/Derek and the Dominos/Cream 80. U2 81. Elton John 82. Black Crowes 83. N.W.A. 84. Eagles 85. Jerry Lee Lewis 86. Michael Jackson 87. Lynyrd Skynyrd 88. Ramones 89. Bob Seger 90. The Byrds 91. Madonna 92. R.E.M. 93. Diana Ross/The Supremes 94. Elvis Presley 95. The Who 96. The Doors 97. Bruce Springsteen 98. The Rolling Stones 99. The Grateful Dead 100. Rod Stewart
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 12:55:36 GMT -5
Amanda,
Janis Joplin was a conscious omission. She only really made two records before she died. She was great, don't get me wrong. But there is no one like her. Further, she is difficult to accurately place, because she has as much in common with Billie Holliday--whom I like as much as anyone on my list--as she does with Ann Wilson.
Joni Mitchell is just an odd bird. I seriously considered her for inclusion. She has been off doing her own thing for years. My question was this: Who is more influential Annie Lennox's Eurythmics, the weakest act on my list, or Joni Mitchell? I went with the Eurythmics. But recent inclusions have forced even them off the list.
There is no excuse for Ross or Summers other than my own ignorance. They are now included.
I would say in my own defense that at least 10% of my original list was female, e.g., Aretha Franklin and Carole King, or acts that had significant feminine influence, e.g., Jefferson Airplane and Fleetwood Mac. I can honestly say that I did not give gender a thought. Summers and Ross got left off because I don't like their music very much, which made them slip my mind. But they were certainly influential.
BTW: Here are the bands that got the axe: Tool, Weezer, Massive Attack, Supertramp, Eurythmics, Graham Parker, Chuck Berry, and Beck.
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 13:02:57 GMT -5
Chad,
I admit that I could be wrong, but in my estimation Bjork is the greatest female pop star in the period we are considering. She is both a serious song writer and vocal talent. She embodies just about everything I think is interesting in art. If I could only give 20 important acts, she would be on the list.
The fact that we disagree about this suggests that we are here touching on some important facts about our aesthetic judgments.
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Post by Betterout on Sept 27, 2005 14:32:03 GMT -5
I admit that I could be wrong, but in my estimation Bjork is the greatest female pop star in the period we are considering. She is both a serious song writer and vocal talent. She embodies just about everything I think is interesting in art. If I could only give 20 important acts, she would be on the list. The fact that we disagree about this suggests that we are here touching on some important facts about our aesthetic judgments. You've hit the nail on the head, Jeff. I would argue, and I think others might agree, that Björk's historical importance is not particularly great. That is, I doubt her overall contribution to the field is not as broad as Joni Mitchell's, Janis Joplin's, or for that matter Annie Lennox's. Don't get me wrong, I really dig Björk, and I think she makes great, serious music. But the task you described was to name important acts, not good acts. This brings us back to the point I tried to bring up in my essay, and you've illustrated well with your lists: Historical importance and aesthetic quality (both with respect to a given field of expression, in terms of the evaluatory criteria used in that field) are not the same things at all. If we're trying to get at a set of aesthetic criteria by exploring historical importance, then we're bound to fail in some way. It's tough to evaluate, say, the Beatles on the same terms as we do ELO. The former is both important and good while the later is just good. The most historically important acts make an impact on the public at large, a group that includes other musicians, who in turn have the opportunity to make an impact. So, one tension here seems to be between our individual opinions and those of the public. If we come up with our aesthetics based on the public's then we'll take into account popularity at a rate out of sync with our own tastes, which might be populated with numerous good, but ultimately obscure acts. Or maybe it's the other way around. Perhaps this has been your point all along: You don't have to provide any aesthetic argument against the Stones, because you freely admit their importance... Sneaky, sneaky! If we really want to get at the core of the aesthetics, wouldn't it be better simply to name 100 acts we call good? Then we could see what criteria we're using, and struggle to find a common ground from that.
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 14:54:17 GMT -5
I am out of time today! Alas. The problem, I'd say, is that there is a difference between importance and historical importance. My list doesn't try to track simple historical importance. That is why I think it can connect up with my overall aesthetic criteria.
As for history, I'd just say that it takes about 100-200 years to be able to generalize badly enough to be interesting. It may be that this 50 year period that we are discussing is seen as a mere blip between the navel-gazing self-destruction of Jazz in "Existence Music" and Future Music X. I have very little real idea about history, BUT I've tried to use what I do think I know.
PS In fact, my ending argument did run along those lines. The idea that we must respect (label as good) an act because they have been historically influential is suspect.
PPS This only means that I regard historical importance as an aspect of overall importance. It is still worth considering. It is just not competely determining.
PPS I do still owe you an argument against the Stones. But the argument will consist in me making plausible a different system of aesthetic evaluation. That is what I am doing with this thread. I invite everyone to do the same. I really am learning a lot doing it!
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Post by Jeff on Sept 27, 2005 15:10:08 GMT -5
Last thing before I go to work: My aesthetic categories are fluid right now. But I do see distinctions between acts that are important and acts that are good. The point of my list was to show that you could have important acts that were not very good.
Distinguishing historical importance from importance (without distinction) is fundamental, if slightly confusing. This can help (I hope). Distinguish between diachronic importance and synchronic. You might call this genetic analysis versus coordinate analysis. The later provides individuality to any set of generative aesthetic criteria, i.e., it allows us to distinguish one set from another, while the former (diachronic, genetic analysis) provides self-sameness or identity. Both are necessary for an aesthetic system, i.e., individuality and identity.
There may be other analyses of importance as well. But this is my starting place.
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Post by luceph on Sept 29, 2005 0:30:18 GMT -5
I just realized that there is a great lackage of Gary Numan in this thread. So...um...Gary Numan.
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Post by Tyler on Sept 29, 2005 8:33:49 GMT -5
This list is really easy to make. You start with Mike-D and you look back to find his influences. If they influenced him, they belong on the list, in a position proportional to their influence on him. Paul's Boutique is dare I say not just the greatest album of the past 13 decades, but also the only good one. So, the only way that an act could get on the list would be in the postion of influence on it's creation.
Seriously now, we all know that most people are mororns, so why are we playing with the idea of historical importance? Extend that to history itself, and we'd have to include Pol Pot. And nobody wants to do that. The Rolling Stones suck, don't support Pol Pot.
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Post by luceph on Sept 29, 2005 8:49:28 GMT -5
"The Khmer Rouge had pieces of flair that they made fans of the Rolling Stones wear."
I know it might shock your delicate sensibilities to hear this Tyler, but Mike D is not the end all, be all of music. Hell, he is barely adequate at non-sucking.
Now Tom Petty on the other hand....
I think every man and woman-jack of us should create their own list of influential music acts and then mock the lists that other people come up with, or discuss in a rational manner, whatever.
and Tyler, you will have to come up with more than the Beastie Boys : )
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Post by Mike D Himself on Sept 29, 2005 9:39:38 GMT -5
Tyler,
What do you suppose I did yesterday? I have such an intriguing life...
-M. Diamond
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