Most Influential Recording Artist of the last 30 years

My daughter has been set this as an A level music assignment and she is struggling a bit....suggestions?

Crazy Frog

If we know what your daughter listens to, we might come up with a sensible answer.

Answering in general makes zero sense.

Thread is surprisingly short. Must be holiday weekend effect.

A lot of the obvious answers are kind of boring.

I'd suggest picking a musician she knows really well and just make a case.

Some huge hip hop producer

Galt MacDermot

Seo Taiji? Teddy Riley? For the melding of hip-hop and r&b and rock and... I think anyone I'd pick would represent just a tiny fragment, but I did just listen to BTS's version of Seo Taiji's "Come Back Home" and BTS just garnered the popular vote for Time's Person Of The Year (though they weren't awarded it), so...

(Basically agree with jimm, though I'd suggest taking two or three artists she likes right now and triangulating back 20 or 30 years.)

She should argue that the question itself is inherently problematic.

otm

Or at least clarify whether it means influential on other artists); or influential on culture, the music biz, etc.

(It’s actually kind of an interesting thought experiment, b/c the last 30 years have been so fragmented.)

Viable arguments:

Mariah Carey - you can trace a direct line from her to every female singer on televised singing contest shows, not to mention most Big Pop Singers since the late 80s
Kurt Cobain - made moping a viable rock strategy, until at one point it was the ONLY viable rock strategy

I agree w/both of those... Mariah probably the more interesting/fun case to make (especially for a young person), as her influence extends to the present day (and the case doesn’t lean so heavily on reaching back to dusty facts involving radio formats c.1992, etc.)

Hold the front page...apparently it's 'Important' not 'Influential'. Might make a difference.

I don't see why her taste in music has anything to do with it. She doesn't want to do Radiohead because 'that's what everyone else will do.'At the moment it's looking like a choice between Massive Attack (her choice) and Public Enemy (my suggestion) but Mariah Carey is a good shout.

Will check out some of the other ideas...Thanks.

mariah also had a big part in bridging the gap between r&b and hip hop etc

"Important" is an even stupider question than "influential"

Lex Luger or Skateboard P

aphex twin could be an angle

"most important" is a simpler writing assignment than "most influential," she can make a case in a lot of different ways

someone who knows more about country music than I do could make a case for Shania Twain or Garth Brooks, if influence = biggest sales and biggest effects on other best-selling artists in the last 30 years

'Important' is better, it leaves more room for interpretation. I was only suggesting going with something she likes on the assumption that it would be more fun to write about.

Tbh if she already has a choice I don’t see why this is even an issue

Yeah — if her choice is Massive Attack, just let her write the paper (I’d be interested to hear her argument!)

Max Martin and it’s not even close.

(No offense but I’m chuckling at the idea of a dad trying to convince his kid to write a paper on Public Enemy, in the waning days of 2018)

xp He’s not really a recording artist

At least you can cludge a definition of "influential" but "important"? As an invitation to bullshit it's OK as long as whoever's marking doesn't think it's actually something you can begin to measure objectively.

I don't see why her taste in music has anything to do with it.
― yugi ex, Saturday, December 22, 2018 5:49 PM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You don't ? For me, music is personal, and there's no artist to single out as significant and important independently of that / to generalize upon. Influence should be more objective on paper... but it turns out just as impossible. But I guess your daughter is not asked to do an essay on that.

Kurt Cobain - made moping a viable rock strategy, until at one point it was the ONLY viable rock strategy

For dispelling this myth, Buckcherry is obv the correct answer.

(My actual serious answer = let her write her paper herself.)

Not my favourite artist, but think there’s a case for Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails both in terms of sonic influence, but more significantly making dark and disturbing themes a central strand of popular culture in a way it wasn’t before.

My daughter asked her old man for advice and didn't feel happy with her choice. I suggested PE because she is really into modern hip hop but hasn't dug back very far and I thought she would like exploring PE especially as she did also quite politically minded. I didn't realise helping your daughter was so controversial.

Sorry, dude, now that you explained the situation better it makes more sense.

Now I am actually curious how this is going to turn out. Please come back and let us know

Timbaland, Aphex Twin and Mariah were the first three that came to my mind.

The Strokes

going back to '88, isn't this Whitney Houston?

Bone Thugs n Harmony seem like the ancestors to tons of rap now, Migos, Future, SoundCloud stuff

gaz coombes

starsailor

Max Martin

but he's not a recording artist

well he is but for other people

scroll up, flaps

right on. as much as I want to say Kurt Cobain it's unquestionably MM

because his importance/influence has extended over the entirety of those 30 years, because he has import/influence as an artist, as a producer, as an A&R/record exec, as a music biz mogul and more, and because his sonic signature extends so far and so deep, i would offer, an alternative to his contemporaries in public enemy... dr. dre.

*as* an alternative, that is

and fun and maybe easy to research and write about since there's both a biopic and a four-part hbo documentary series about him.

I could see convincing arguments for:

Teddy Riley
Whitney Houston
Dr. Dre
Garth Brooks
Kurt Cobain
Mariah Carey
Sean Puffy Combs
Three 6 Mafia
Max Martin
Lil Jon
T-Pain

Dr Dre was the first thing that came to my mind!

I remember someone describing Oval in these terms on a very old thread. Not sure whether that'd be more or less challops-y a further decade on.

In terms of pure sales (and influencing sales) garth is a good answer

In the States, maybe. On this side of the pond his influence is minimal.

these are all good answers but if i'm not mistaken think the OP is looking for someone who is more like the steve jobs or walt disney of popular music? you know, like the closest analog to henry ford, pablo picasso, kobe bryant.. but in the field of pop. whoever that might be??

In that case I would argue it's Madonna.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PA-14242538.jpg

bofa deez nuts
rumpy's dusty nuts
mc brazil nuts featuring gaz coombes

I have been kicking myself all day for not nominating Gaz

now that Big Narstie has been coopted into the establishment I think Gaz has gone back above him in the UK rankings.

Daniel O'Donnell has been bringing it for decades now, although he got beaten off by death + chris de burgh in the famous ilm poll.

Nick Knowles has never been hotter iirc

beaten odd by death: the daniel o’donnell story

OFF, goddammit

Actually a Nick Knowles cover of "Hot Right Now" could be the most important recording of the next 30 years

For a rock suggestion; Jeff Buckley.

But Massive Attack is a great shout. 4 years after Blue Lines, if you wanted to suggest 'new'nes and freshness to a wide mainstream audience, it was still, even then, the sound you reached for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN1bkIEs8oo

timbaland

death beating off daniel o’donnell's blood sausage.

like the way these threads turn into a sort of ilx’s cold war tableau. rip gaz, rip moaty

If it's in the last thirty years I'd argue for someone that was pretty much coming onto the the scene thirty years ago, so you get various waves of influence that you can map out.

Madonna is a decent choice but a portion of her influential stuff was pre 1988. Straight Outta Compton will also strictly fall out at the thirty year mark. Depends on how strictly they judge it

Terrence Trent D'arby

Ctrl +f "Nate Dogg" 0/0

I feel like I am in a time machine to ilx ten years ago

The ILM experience in a nutshell

dunno, Chemical Brothers or Rammstein as examples of how crossover is an option too?

Has anyone mentioned Yo La Tengo yet? Some lamer always mentions Yo La Tengo.

Gaz, Big Narstie, Mr C of The Shamen all good shouts.

The answer is whoever is the subject of the artist documentary you’re watching at the moment.

I remember someone describing Oval in these terms on a very old thread. Not sure whether that'd be more or less challops-y a further decade on.

― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Sunday, December 23, 2018 1:20 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember making this baseless prediction when I first heard Oval in the '90s and subsequently being surprised at the extent to which they actually did wind up being influential (even if indirectly, in probably most cases).

Sorry for being harsh. The question is pretty open to interpretation, though, unless the teacher is so prescriptive that it wouldn't matter what we said. She could probably make a solid argument that her favourite artist is the most important to her.

It is a fairly ridiculous question tbf. Nothing to do with yugi ex.

Nile Rodgers

Max Martin and it’s not even close.

Ace of Base

https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000019886871-guwtdv-t500x500.jpg

^lock thread

Max Martin, Burial or *sigh* Kanye West with some Aphex Twin and Daft Punk thrown in there.

But I mean really, it's Max Martin

Max is awesome and he and his crew(s) have indeed been super important to both the industry and “artistry” of pop music over the past two decades — but I’m gonna play devil’s advocate and say that no matter how many hit records (and plain great records) those guys write, produce, and play on, they won’t have earned the stature of (the best of the) artists who are singing lead and whose names are actually on the records. Maybe that’s “rockist,” or buying into industry mythology, I dunno. But I say this as an MM admirer since “...Baby One More Time,” so I’m not fronting.

Kurt

Rick Rubin

Rick Springfield

Rick Astley

it's Beyonce

Kurt

stephin merritt had the most influence on how i listen to pop songs--essentially formulaic, with these surprising moments of genuineness, like what roland barthes called the "punctum" in photography-- so the answer to me is clear.

roland barthes.

Rick Astley

She should do like the lame Time Person of the Year from 2006. Most Influential Recording Artist of Last 30 Years: You. Yes You! The Cottageification of the Recording Industry

Bijou Phillips

It’s Nile I promise (precursor to hip hop, dance, but through a pop lens)

Either him or Big N Rich

Nile = past 30 years?

You can make a solid case for Daft Punk as the figureheads of the reinjection of disco and electro into pop from circa 1996-now.

They lack an iconic death, but arguably Green Day/Offspring have had the most solid musical legacy within rock over the past 30 years - after the grunge boom petered out not that many bands really sounded like Nirvana, but pop-punk remained huge.

As far as producers go, you can make a good case for the obvious ones: Max Martin, Dre, Timbaland, Neptunes, Kanye. NWA, Snoop, Tupac?

As far as the continued omnipresence throughout the past decades of shaggy haired white dudes singing their heart out to acoustic guitar strumming, is there any single name responsible?

thinking Nile to you means something v different than Nile to me lol

Yes, thank you Siegbran, Shaggy it is! Lock thread.

^^ So. Much. This.

Haha yes I can see a case for Neanderthal Nile for sure.

In a similar vein, I vote Seige.

Who’s this other Nile, lol?

it's not just a river in Egypt