The Greatest Recording Artists Of All-time
Submitted by Wezzo on Mon, 11/28/2005 - 05:02
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- In my opinion, the below are the 20 most important - and I suppose therefore, the greatest - recording artists of all-time. Alphabetical order.
- Abba
- The Beach Boys
- The Beatles
- Elvis Costello
- Bob Dylan
- Everly Brothers
- Buddy Holly
- Michael Jackson
- Elton John
- Kinks
- The Police
- Elvis Presley
- Queen
- REM
- Frank Sinatra
- Bruce Springsteen
- U2
- Velvet Underground
- The Who
- Stevie Wonder
- Close runners:
- The Bee Gees
- Blondie
- Blur
- The Fall
- Aretha Franklin
- Marvin Gaye
- Billy Joel
- Led Zeppelin
- Oasis
- Tom Petty
- Radiohead
- They Might Be Giants
- Frank Zappa
May I suggest that you retitle your list "The Greatest Recording Artists Of All-time"? Others may be misled, as I was, by the present title.
Good spot, done! :) Note that I categorised it under 'music', however.
I came to it by way of the 'Recent Posts' page, which doesn't show categories.
Completely explainable then, my apologies.
I think a list like this is very hard to make as it will split people's opinons so much. I feel that music is the one Universal art form. You can get people who hate Art, who hate movies, who never read a book but nearly everyone likes music of some kind. Thats why making a list such of this will be down to opinon. I think you made some great choices here. However thats whats so great about music, varied choices and opinons. Rock on! (No Pun Intended)
Ta for the comment! I agree, music is complete subjective. This list was hard to compile, and it really only covers pop and rock - and even within that genre there will be much disagreement over who belongs here. I tried to choose based on both success and artistic merit, and I think I did alright; but as you said, no-one likes exactly the same music, as despite it being a universal art form, people's opinions within the art vary greatly. I tried to cover all the bases in this list though. As ever, I appreciate the input!
but just something for you to think about.... well, maybe, as time went by, you realized the huge gaps yourself.
the clash?
bob marley ? (come on, you talk about important --> influential... and a whole nation makes music just because of him)
pink floyd? (without them, radiohead would be nowhere)
and once you're edit, re-think or loose the distinction with the "close runners"... because there is no way on all earth that the kinks or the police were more important than zeppelin.
and where's hendrix? and where are the rolling stones??
i don't know... either the listmaking should include like 50 bands, or you should try and destilate it to the few absolutely undoubtedly most important ones... in that case, my list would say:
bob dylan (for bringing poetry and attitude to modern music)
the beatles (for bringing freakiness to a general audience)
elvis presley (for showing that white people can appeal to predominantely white crowds by playing black music)
to me, they were the most important because they had the biggest impact, and influenced more people than anybody else . but even this small list could be contested. so i shouldn't even post it.