In 30 years, what band(s) will be considered most influential? Radiohead?

(And I love Radiohead. But I wouldn't wish that fate on anyone. Also, you are on crack.)

-- Will Spitz (wspit...), April 21st, 2005.

It's already pretty obvious that they aren't the Beatles of our generation, i.e. do not inspire a Beatle-mania-like fervor, are not as popular, etc.

I agree with Keith and Ned, but RH seems as good a guess as any.

*cough*

sorry, they're, like, children or something.

and to answer the question: you might be right, but I hope it's Aphex or someone like that. Cornelius?

The Best New Artists of the 00s
http://www.fastnbulbous.com/00s.htm

N*E*R*D
The Mars Volta
Amon Tobin
Queens of the Stone Age
Lomax
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
My Computer
Four Tet
Ed Harcourt
Plush
Colder
Hawksley Workman
Nina Nastasia
Nação Zumbi
The Strokes
Out Hud
Lucas Santtana
Daúde
Sigur Rós
!!! (Chik Chik Chik)
Ampop
The White Stripes
Otto
Rjd2
The Concretes
The Streets
Mogwai
Prefuse 73
DJ/rupture
Roots Manuva
Múm
Soul Center
The Czars
Sufjan Stevens
Menomena
Cannibal Ox
Broadcast
Max De Castro
The Darkness
The Walkmen
The Kingsbury Manx
TV On The Radio
Le Tigre
Calexico
The Twilight Singers
John Vanderslice
Interpol
The Microphones
A Frames
M83
The Black Heart Procession
Tujiko Noriko
Boards Of Canada
Poem Rocket
Spoon
Fennesz
Leila
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
The Fire Show
The Russian Futurists
Even Johansen
Eleni Mandell
Hood
The Liars
Bonobo
The Coral
Nicolai Dunger
Isis
Moreno Veloso +2
Pascals
The Delgados
The Libertines
Constantines
Broken Social Scene
Circulatory System
Radio 4
Joseph Arthur
Marshmallow
Rob
Blevin Blectum
Shannon Wright
The Books
El-P
Bilal
Dälek
Ben Christophers
The Autumn Defense
Bang Gang
Gemma Hayes
Metric
Schneider TM
The Fiery Furnaces
Fridge
Manitoba
The National Trust
Fannypack
Thievery Corporation
Architecture In Helsinki
Beulah
Röyksopp
Rokia Traoré
Chris Lee
Lali Puna
Snow Patrol
The Tyde
Animal Collective
The Aluminum Group
Boom Bip
The Shins
Explosions In The Sky
Zoot Woman
Deadly Avenger
Elbow
Papa M
Calla
90 Day Men
Doves
Eileen Rose
Neko Case
The Seconds
The Beta Band
Clinic
We Ragazzi
The Avalanches
Goldfrapp
Dead Prez
The Unicorns
Deltron 3030
Diverse
Jurassic 5
Sahara Hotnights

That's certainly true. There will never be another Beatles in that sense. But musically, I don't really think anyone holds a candle to them in terms of innovation within the realm of pop music. You always hear people talk about the first time they heard the Beatles it was unlike anything they had ever heard before. It's the same way, for me at least, with Radiohead's more recent albums. They sound...futuristic, for lack of a better term.

But they won't be of our generation!

Oh, we've got more where they came from. Wait until you hear the most influential Keane inspired band ever to come out of Northampton, Atlantic Blue. You'll shit your pants ten-time.

dude every single sentence there is batshit insane.

when I first heard the Beatles I was totally underwhelmed. there are still only about two Beatles songs I can bear to listen to.

I've always found more Beach Boys influences in pop music today.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00092ZLYE.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

I don't mind people listening to them and going from there at all -- I DO mind mummification. And that's what calling someone/thing "the next Beatles/Dylan/etc." means to me, whatever I think about the attendant music or not.

Wow, Radiohead found a way to make an Autechre album with melodies. How innovative.

If it even slightly woke up some people to the very idea that 'one can make music with these computer things!' then I'm happy with that. That most people will stop there is its own worry.

Yes, I can see it now: Thom Yorke releases a solo record called The Madcap Roffles then goes and lives with his mum in Oxford for the next 30 years!

-- Tom (freakytrigge...), April 21st, 2005.

Sounds pretty much OTM to me.

Well yeah, but I think there's a lot to be said for introducing ideas in a pop context for the first time even if they're not 100% original or new.

Maybe, but regardless you have to concede that they're pretty much the most influental band ever, if you take that to mean how many people started playing music in the first place because of them, or how many people drew from their music while creating their own. If I had a dime for everytime I read "I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan blah blah..."

Are kids really picking up guitars today because of "Paranoid Andriod" or whatever? I don't think so. For every kid rocking out to Radiohead or the White Stripes, there's 20 more playing Phish tunes.

It's like, I can say "Oh Public Enemy got me into hip-hop" or something and it's about 65% true, but there were other impulses that led me to listen to PE in the first place and it would just be too difficult to try and work them out at this distance.

i.e. certain narratives in rock history are very seductive and end up seeming truer than they might have really been.

How would people have actually answered this 30 years ago?

For instance, would you call Cheap Trick innovative? I think that'd be a stretch. But they're very influental.

You do not have to concede this at all. As it is said, "Muddy Waters invented electricity." The Beatles later stuff, yes musically influential, but initially, they were a manufactured product...the first such product to come out playing the stuff they did after the lull of the late 50s and early 60s. The Beatles happened to be where they were and rode the wave like no one had before. They did develop into a great band, and undoubtedly had a lot of influence (well past Oasis...jeesh). Who will be this generation's Beatles? Its kind of hard to say...kind of like who will be the next Michael Jordan or the next Bill Clinton - these were people who revolutionized (for better or worse) their respective arenas in ways people hadn't done before, and are constantly imitating afterwards. Its impossible to predict, mainly b/c the innovations they have in store are such that they will true innovations and not just creative rehash.

I love creative rehash, btw.

Wow, Radiohead found a way to make an Autechre album with melodies. How innovative.

This in itself does sound fairly innovative (I mean, innovative 'enough') to me. But of course they've done more than that, including working with elements from modern jazz and classical/electroacoustic music.

That said, I don't think they even have the mass appeal of Pink Floyd, not post-OKC anyway.

3xpost

They can't even be credited with that, since Autechre albums are already melodic enough ("LP5" in particular). I will credit them with finding a way to make an Autechre album with Thom Yorke whining on top of it, but we're hardly talking about uncovering buried treasure here.

Pop-punk (or whatever you want to call it) has been commercially very successful for over a decade now, and Green Day can be given a lot of the credit for that. If the trend continues for another 15-20 years (which is not to say that it will, but IF it does) then Green Day would be an appropriate answer to the original question.

Right now, it's relatively easy to isolate their contribution to music . I agree that somebody associated with hip-hop would make a better answer, but in a considerably more inventive field it's more difficult (at this time) to single out only one act that is "most influential".

3xpost

Criteria: - These Rock Albums were chosen for their musical & lyrical quality, creativity, originality, impact, and popularity.

Greatest Rock Albums of the '00s
http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_albums00s.html

Radiohead only artist with 2 albums in the top 10.

Cul de Sac
Disco Inferno
Roy Montgomery

OTM

I never bought the argument that punk bands, in the words of Springsteen, "changed the rules of the game." Punk rock b/w '77 adn '79 never meant shit commerically. ELP, disco, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and ELP had and continued to have hits.

As for the original question, I mean, why bother? It reminds me of those MOJO and Select articles that come out every couple of weeks in which a new writer tries to find something new to say about "OK Computer" or The Stone Roses.

Because of The Beatles, the music industry evolved to accomodate original artists. The LP became an artistic statement, rather than a collection of singles and stuffer. They revolutionized audio production with George Martin. An entire generation hung on their every word and note.

Radiohead, a fine band, may strongly influence future musicians. But it's ridiculous to think another band will ever have the influence on music that The Beatles had.

*runs away*

His influence is at the very least, disproportionate to his body of recorded work.

90s
http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/b1_is_1990_and_b2_is_1999

80s
http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/b1_is_1980_and_b2_is_1989

70s
http://rateyourmusic.com/top_albums/b1_is_1970_and_b2_is_1979

should be added to urban dictionary as a definition of OTM.

-- Ian Riese-Moraine. To Hell with you and your gradual evolution! (eastern_mantr...), April 21st, 2005 3:18 AM. (later)

yay! i dang well hope so

The "credit" passes to Radiohead because Radiohead fans greatly outnumber Autechre fans, and the former group weren't listening to electronic music before Radiohead decided to dabble in it.

Funnily enough, I've never head an Autechre song that sounds anything like anything I'd ever want to listen to.

1. Massive popularity and availability
2. Lasting appeal/universality of said appeal
3. Huge output of material

SO - likely answers? U2, Metallica, or something we haven't seen yet.

Boring, not what I would hope for, but probably true...

The next act to do it would have to be someone who not only pointed the direction for which music and culture would go but was also a representation of the generation that they came from and the ones that would follow. Many of the things the Beatles did in terms of lifestyle were shocking for their day but are commonplace in today's world. The other thing is that the Beatles weren't immediately groundbreaking in many ways when they first arrived, playing simple merseybeat songs and having a clean image, thus allowing them to gain entrance into middle-American (middle-class British?) homes and earn their trust. The Beatles looked and acted in many ways like the generation before them but they possesed just enough of that extra something that showed they were also what was to come. The next act would have to be a consistent #1 act for a time and would have to already have a lock on the minds of young people before the cultural upheaval.
None of the acts mentions ever have had that kind of acceptability in middle-America (or have come close to it). See, from there they can morph and slowly deviate the culture from within, since they are already popular with youths and can influence them. From there would come the influence that would make them as "big" as the Beatles. No music acts can be as popular like that anymore (imo) because of the expansion of the media, which now creates overexposure and the too-much-information side of the business that can make an act lose its mystique very quickly.

Radiohead could easily be one of the most dated groups 30 years from now. They could represent what would be considered "pseudo-experimentation" with electronics (by future generations) and would be the epitome of late-20th century subjectivism and introspection, at least lyrically.

In the same way listening to a rock record from before the late-60's can sound incredibly naive and silly (think of all the love songs and how few of them sound like that today) so all the stuff we take for granted today could be completely laughed off by future generations as being irrelevant.

The next Beatles will probably bridge gaps and possess attitudes of past generations mixed with all kinds of weird beliefs and attitudes that would appall some of us. You never know.

As for the ones considered most influential in 30 years, I would guess most of them are not yet formed. Not a lot of the bands most influential on today's music were formed by 1975.

True, but also some kind of coincidence timing.

Plus, there are acts that have been considerably more influential than their actualy commercial popularity would suggest, such as Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk or Joy Division.