Most Influential Artists of 1996 in 2021

Tricky is a really interesting one in that he's one prominent, successful and critically acclaimed artist who virtually no one tried to consciously copy, and who initially seemed like an outlier but whose influence (particularly his approach to vocals) has filtered through into contemporary music in a really diffuse and interesting way. When Billie Eilish cited something off Nearly God as an influence there was a real penny drop moment but I think it had been quietly rumbling on for a few years.

Maybe slightly later in his career but the influence of someone like Elliot Smith is directly audible in the music of people like Phoebe Bridgers. That's a significantly less diffuse one.

In terms of the original thread premise the person who most immediately comes to mind is someone like Todd Edwards, who was turning heads in very specific circles by the mid-90s but whose sound and techniques have impacted right across the contemporary gene pool including artists who would never directly vote him as an influence.

good call on Todd Edwards, similar to Oval insofar as both popularised production techniques that are widely used (ubiquitous in the case of Edwards) by contemporary producers who may be unaware of their exact genesis

Billie Eilish is influenced by trip hop… artists like Tricky, Esthero can be heard in her sound.

She makes a case for trip hop from around this period to be influential to a big artist in 2021.

I also hear Jamiroquai in the thousand of “funky” indiepop acts that have been sort of “boutique” music in the past couple of years.

I get that some of the artists mentioned here may have echoes in current artists, but it's hard to say that a lot of them shaped the last 25 years

Todd Edwards

The Spice Girls were probably more influential than most here

On that tip, the Backstreet Boys' debut (released ex-US in '96) kind of represents the beginning of the Max Martin Era.

the spice girls were an anachronism by y2k

https://www.timeout.com/london/news/dua-lipa-just-paid-tribute-to-the-spice-girls-with-her-performance-at-the-brits-2021-051121

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nme.com/news/music/beyonce-once-told-victoria-beckham-how-the-spice-girls-inspired-her-2935022%3famp

How about Mase as the godfather of mumble rap?

Three 6 Mafia is probably the best answer

xp Mase is another Class of ’97 artist, no (?)

I was just thinking about how puff and mase in particular were criticized around that time for a lack of lyricism, like could they even be called mcs? by conscious rap rockists, in a way that seems almost quaint these days, like axel rose complaining about nirvana in 1992.

What did TLC do in 1996? Crazy Sexy Cool was earlier and Fanmail was later.

Yeah, I guess you're right. They did win the best R&B album Grammy award in 1996, but the album came out late '94. Grammys were late to the party, I guess.

Billie Eilish is influenced by trip hop… artists like Tricky, Esthero can be heard in her sound.

She makes a case for trip hop from around this period to be influential to a big artist in 2021.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, 15 October 2021 15:28 (three days ago) link

Reach imo. Billie eilish is more influenced by xxxtentacion than trip hop

it's a reach that I endorse!

Neurosis Through Silver in Blood was kind of a blueprint for what the Pitchfork-reading kids would call post-metal.

Blut aus Nord released their debut Memoria Vetusta in 1996, which also can be argued as being innovate atmospherically.

Ulver's first album Bergtatt came out in 1995 but I am pretty sure people were still listening the next year (and definitely that band paved the way for a whole lot of stuff).

Only after typing the above did it dawn in me that that was a very formative year for a lot of things that define a lot of metal these days (certainly a lot of the metal that I personally enjoy).

Meanwhile, Kool Keith unleashed Dr. Octagon upon the planet... Surely that counts for something.

Entroducing influenced 25 years of This American Life segments

I hear Z100 play way too many piano ballads lately so... Jewel "Foolish Games"

― billstevejim, Friday, October 15, 2021 4:50 AM (three days ago)

I wouldn't normally be pedantic about this but I just recently learned that despite appearing on her 1995 debut, "Foolish Games" and "You Were Meant for Me" weren't released as a single until 1997 (after "Who Will Save Your Soul" became a hit, belatedly). This explains why I had mentally filed "Hands" from the second album alongside those singles from the first, despite the 3 year gap separating their respective albums.

Reach imo. Billie eilish is more influenced by xxxtentacion than trip hop

― xheugy eddy (D-40)

http://www.mtv.com/news/3119037/pop-goes-industrial-nu-metal/

MTV agrees with me!

But just months into 2019, a new trend has emerged, with some pop artists tapping into sonic corners more unexpected than typical millennium-pop nostalgia: trip-hop, nu-metal, industrial, and breakbeat hardcore. In January, Billie Eilish, one of the singer-songwriters positioned at the top of pop's new class, released "bury a friend." The song was a spooky, unsettling slice of weirdo electronica that found the 17-year-old drifting from the ethereal alt-hip-hop of previous hits "Ocean Eyes" and "Bellyache," and leaning into dark trip-hop territory, resurrecting the slow, cerebral lurch of Massive Attack's "Inertia Creeps" (off their 1998 opus, Mezzanine) and the eerie wobble of Tricky's "Strugglin'" (off 1995's Maxinquaye).

Her trip-hop-inspired lean continued heavily on her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (released March 29), manifesting in the skittering melancholy of "xanny," the eerie dreariness of "goodbye," and the ambient, stormy sorrow of "listen before i go." Eilish also veered into heavier electronic industrial avenues on tracks like "ilomilo," a song preoccupied with death, and "you should see me in a crown," an explosive and diabolical dance-floor slammer with a pit-in-your-stomach beat.

When Billie Eilish cited something off Nearly God as an influence there was a real penny drop moment

would love a source for this if you have/remember it matt bc i believe it more than deej does

yea my question is, is this a writer saying "this reminds me of trip hop" or is this billie eilish actually drawing on trip hop

Does an influence have to be direct, with no intermediary artists in the chain?

Billie Eilish fell in love with trip-hop after she heard it the place where the true heads get their fix: in the lobby of a hotel

i.e. where I've heard Massive Attack for 20 years

she does literally sing about a hotel lobby in one of her new songs!

Tricky has mentioned Billie Eilish in a few interviews but is skeptical that she is directly influenced by him:

Recently, someone posted a picture of me from 25 years ago, and the guy said, “Wow it’s funny, Tricky looked like this 25 years ago and all rappers look like that now.” Another person posted a Billie Eilish song and said, “Basically Tricky.” And I thought, “What the fuck does that mean?” So, I heard the song, and I thought it was quite funny, because she might not even know who I am. Some people are influenced by me through other people. The guy from The xx said that he’d been influenced by me, and Billie Eilish could have been influenced by them and not even know who I am. It’s quite weird.

but see, if she was influenced by the xx in that scenario, that's still Tricky "shaping the next 25 years," right?

(also, who knows what kind of dusty crate-digger shit her bro is into; but he counts here, as well...)

i don't know if i've ever heard Tricky in my life

i don't think it's that difficult to draw a line from billie's newest album to everything but the girl. it's not a 1:1 crossover but a lot of similar qualities imo in terms of mood and tone if not quite the production. even some of her earlier music i.e. "ocean eyes" ... like you could put them on a playlist together and it wouldn't sound of place. there is other stuff of hers that is more directly similar to contemporary music but it's not exactly some sort of revelatory point to say that billie herself is directly influenced by xxxtentacion as opposed to music that is 25 years old

Moka’s list from 4 days ago was great

the best of trip hop was some of the best music of the mid 90s. There were so many dumbed down versions of it in the late 90s though that it lost currency

drum and bass from the mid 90s is still influential, even if the influence has been attenuated

some records from 1996 that I still admire

Sleater-Kinney - Call the Doctor
Tricky - Pre-Millenium Tension / Nearly God
Belle & Sebastian - If You’re Feeling Sinister
Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

also less mainstream

Current 93 - All The Pretty Little Horses
Ryoji Ikeda - +/-
Photek - The Hidden Camera
Sheila Chandra - ABoneCroneDrone
Plug - Drum ’n’ Bass for Papa
Ground Zero - Revolutionary Pekinese Opera
Derek Bailey - Guitar, Drums’N’Bass

One of my faves is Harry Pussy - Ride a Dove (but I don't think that influenced bupkis)

FKA Twigs also sounds influenced by Aaliyah and Massive Attack. I think she has actually confirmed those as major influences for her?

I’ll count her as being active in 2021

Although she sounds influenced by Mezzanine specifically and that one is 1998…

I adore Everything But The Girl in every phase and don't hear the similarities yet. What songs did you have in mind?

Broadcast released “The Book Lovers” in 1996 and that run until their abrupt end is pretty unimpeachable/influential. I remember being thrilled when Hayley from Paramore covered “Colour Me In.”

One of my faves is Harry Pussy - Ride a Dove (but I don't think that influenced bupkis)

was gonna mention missy—if not musically, the ultramodern chrome blobject fisheye lens aesthetic exhibited in her 90s music videos is one of the principle influences on recent neo-y2k revivalism—but i just checked and ofc supa dupa fly came out in 97

XP

first thought was similar - Royal Trux but I honestly have no idea (or probably anyone tbh) have a clear “influence” trajectory wrt them.

Timbaland a great cornerstone for that year, even while being behind the board.

lil kim definitely

― 100 flacs (noz), Wednesday, October 13, 2021 5:23 AM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

With Cardi B and Megan thee Stallion being so huge this feels pretty hard to argue with

Can we count Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie as 1996? All of its singles with the exception of “bullet with butterfly wings” were released 1996.

Wolf Alice sound super influenced by SP. Munya, Mø have covered them recently. Fruit Bats released a full covers album this year. I’ve been hearing their influence here and there but can’t think of more atm. Wolf Alice were the ones that sprung to mind first.

Now with the “90’s sound” making a full comeback I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a Corganaissance of sorts in the following years.

If grunge makes a comeback or has an influence in the following years I’d bet heavily on Smashing Pumpkins being one of the main inspirations given that they had a slight psychedelic, more melancholic and most importantly less testosterone-fueled than other bands from the era.

yeah, I would agree to that. To me, who was never a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan but enjoyed some of their music, it seems like a lot of their stuff has aged way better than that of other big rock bands of the same era (Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam). This mostly goes for their more subdued stuff, I heard "bullet with butterfly wings" and that song does not sound good to me in 2021.

ehhhh aic is low key majorly influential on almost every dimension of metal but they had kinda started falling apart by '96 anyway

first Pearl Jam album has aged well imo

Aic ruled

Soundgarden ruled

I know, this thread is not about “ruling”