I just took a quick glance. Looks like they did a pretty decent job.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/revie...821230,00.html

Everything in the "jazz-funk idiom" can be traced back to Headhunters? Frank Sinatra invented the "singer as song-interpereter" type of singing in 1956? Black Sabbath and the Ramones 20 spots behind Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith?


Uh....ok.

Not bad, not the order I would place many of them and many have been left off more influential. I would put Grandmaster Flash before Run DMC and NWA in terms of influence. No Sly Stone, no What's Goin On and any political or social commentary in R&B.


I am not even getting into the Spice Girls, Mary J. Blige, Human League, and The Strokes type choices.


Velvet Underground sold next to no recrods, but still found a way to influence so many bands and genres, it's actually funny.


Oh yeah, Miles was doing Funk in Jazz several years before Herbie. Herbie just commercialized it with Head Hunters.


Coltrane's A Love Supreme is more influential than Kind of Blue.


Finally, Louis Armstrong is the most influential musician of the 20th century. Hot Five and Hot Sevens, Baby!

Horses is an incredible recording, but too high on that list. The Sinatra comments are funny, and it's not even his best recording, or most influential.

Doesn't really feature any "singer as interpereter" stuff, either, or if it has any, not nearly as much as In the Wee Small Hours.

What's Going On is at #6.

OK, I'm not saying the list is perfect but remember it's not the 50 most influential artists but actual records. Standard long playing 'lp' I suppose. So, like, my first question is 'Hey! Where's Lead Belly?' But I only know him through collections, is there a single 'lp' like 'King of the Delta Blues Singers' that came out in his day? I'm not sure. Same thing for Ella, Sarah Vaughn or Billie Holiday.

Another thing is when judging the depth of influence I tend to keep going backwards in time to a fault. Like, if you influenced the influencer you must be even more influential. Sometimes, that may be faulty logic. Satchmo, I think you may have fallen in this trap stating that Grandmaster Flash is more influential than Run-DMC. I think Jam Master Jay actually invented the hip hop sound that still pretty much defines the genre today.


Yeah, I hear you. I mean those all seem more like what might actually be in their cd players instead of what should be on the list. Like you said, Hot Five and Hot Sevens comes to mind. So does Never Mind The Bollocks.

No Joy Division?

I do like how Radiohead were "honored."
Without this ... Coldplay would not exist, nor Keane, nor James Blunt.

Holy shit, isn't that enough to get a band lynched?

Chic didn't get a whole lot better respect:

Without this ... no Destiny's Child.

As much as I love Headhunters, that album hardly invented the concept of the "jazz-funk idiom," although it became it's most popular representative.

I do have to say, however, it's nice to finally see someone else say that Tori Amos owes her career to Kate Bush. That is the sentence that stopped me from going yet further and ripping on about almost half the entries.

He was saying that without Sly Stone, What's Going On never would've come out the way it did, therefore Sly should be higher on the list than Marvin. His sentence was an abbreviated version of "If you had no Sly Stone, you would have no What's Going On."

The two volumes of King of the Delta Blues Singers were released in the late 60's, they were compilations put together a long time after his death. Billie, Ella, and Sarah all have plenty of albums, but I think it'd be difficult to pinpoint one as their most influential.

Thanks for the info.