female artists already are naming Beyonce as an influence

None of these disposable rappers and singers like Chingy, Akon, Lil Cease, Lil Jon, Sean the lips Kingston, Beyonce etc
Maybe Prince and Madonna still, perhaps Kanye West and Britney Spears (her behaviour), Amy Winehouse and Kelis if they ever straighten themselves out.

thekidsgirl said:

It'll be hard to avoid it. She's just so damn popular, not to mention gorgeous, successful in lots of media (film, video, modeling, music), and even kinda talented.

She might not be doing anything new or great, but she's making a big mark in terms of celebrity, and people are going to copy it--like Usher & Justin.

I think Xtina will influence some, too. Partly due to lack of competition.

dag said:

And what about radiohead?


The pop charts aren't a reliable source anymore, but there are top bands/artists out there.

tane1976 said:

I want call Beyonce a disposable act, if that were the case she wouldn't have got past Destiny Child! I don't believe she has the impact of Aretha, Tina, Diana or even Janet or Whitney but I do believe she would be one of the few, current artists that would be remembered 10 yrs from now and be seen as an influence.

BlaqueKnight said:

Hey Blaque, if you think it's the 80's teen generation which is struggling to stay relevant with today's youth, you should see the baby boom generation artists who are refusing to quietly get off the stage, even though most of them have long gone past their prime.

As for DJ's, you have a whole generation of kids who grew up seeing DJ'ing as its own musical art form. In the USA, it's mainly a hip-hop influence thanks to people like Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Jam Master Jay, Eric B, and Terminator X, but overseas its more about dance and techno music, as you have legendary DJ's like Frankie Knuckles, Cajmere, Tricky, Massive Attack, Fatboy Slim, DJ Tiesto, and Paul Oakenfold. At least these pioneers used their samples and pre-programmed beats to create something entirely unique. Unfortunately, this led to just as many lazy DJ's who use the same samples over and over again without any creativity.

728huey said:

Yeah, there is that, too. Its like they have taken it upon themselves to keep the "real music" going since the 80s babies are doing such a piss poor job of it. Somebody has to keep the fires burning. Too many of the disposable stars from the early 90s have either folded or submitted to the pull of hip-pop and are hiding behind the scenes ghostwriting and getting cut a check on the side.

728huey said:

You're right on point here. Electronica and dance are the provinces of the art of DJing now. Jazzy Jeff and Pete Rock have moved substantially if not exclusively into the dance remix arena. So-called DJs in hit-pop are rare. Primo still lays it down on his tracks, as did Dilla (RIP) and as does Malib, but hip-hop DJing is becoming a cut=and-loop enterprise for the new generation.

BlaqueKnight said:

motownlover said:

I agree with you.

Musician artists from the 1960s-1980s were presented as "superheroes," as their work contained originality. While these older musicians were influenced by those before them, they also introduced original work themselves, adding to the influence of those before.

Most popular musicians of today are cheap clones of the old. If there are those whose originality will be influential in the future, it will likely be those who aren't as popular as they ought to be today - like Radiohead and the Flaming Lips.


I also believe that Prince will be revered more and more as time goes on. Prince's work as a composer especially has been one of the most influential unrecognized forces in contemporary song structure. The influence of Prince will continue to grow over time.

Hell, these kids today only know Lionel Richie as "Nicole's Daddy". And don't even ask them who The Commodores are.

vainandy said:

Richie's biggest hits are twice as old as these teens are.

Did we really know who the Ink Spots were? Or the Flamingos? Or Louis Jordan? Or any other artist whose heyday was 30 or 40 years before our teens?

We can't judge kids' ability to identify artists by our standards.

Great music by these great artists will definitely make a way for the future.

namepeace said:

I knew hello and all night long well in the 80's though I was really young, I always assumed those were timeless classics that everyone knew...I guess not

And you know something, I've noticed that when you guys talk about the sad state of affairs in music, you tend to refer to Black music. Yes, it is in pretty bad shape, that goes without saying. But I'm actually talking about music in general. But since Black music (Soul, Funk, R&B, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Jazz, Blues, etc.) has always been a very integral part of popular music, I can kinda see why you guys always talk about those genres and not about Country.

Any influential figures in Country? I hear that Brad Paisley is really gonna go places.

But anyways, yes, music definitely does need a kick in the face (especially Black music). But those artists I mentioned are ones that I can definitely see becoming a great part of music history for the future, if they choose to keep it going.

alphastreet said:

Yeah. Although I think that the newer generations are recognizing some 80's music . . . as camp classics. "Hello" included, for the video alone.

No, I don't expect for them to have heard of someone like Con-Funk-Shun, Midnight Star, The Dazz Band, or The Gap Band, but Lionel Richie was huge. Of course they should have heard of him.

When I was growing up, I was fully aware of people like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Richie Valens, The Big Bopper, etc.

They always have been until nowadays. Kids nowadays have so many outlets for music today such as radio, satellite radio, video channels, the internet, etc. that they never have a period of the day, when they are totally without their type of music and being exposed to other decades of music.

When we were growing up, there was strictly radio and television only. There was a limited amount of radio stations for each genre unlike the multiple avenues nowadays. When we got tired of radio, we turned on the TV and there were only three networks back then. If they had a musical show on TV about the 50s, you either watched it or didn't watch anything.

vainandy said:

When I was young there were more references to those guys. I could go into Cafe 50's and hear Chantilly Lace, and Johnny B Goode was played by Marty McFly Ritchie Cunningham sang Blueberry Hill (not that that's where I learned of those people!).

It seems like Lionel Ritchie has kind of disappeared, not just his new stuff, but I don't hear the old stuff getting played. MTV keeps playing Thriller occasionally, but not Hello (well, maybe VH1 I Love the 80's )

It seems a lot are answering this question as if it were worded "Do you like the contemporary artists that will be viewed as influences 10 years from now?" Whether you like them or now, many of them will and do have influence.

NDRU said:

I've heard pretty much the same thing said of Mariah - as big as she is, which of her songs are considered classics that get play still?

Just a few names:

- Björk
- Radiohead
- Mark Ronson (the producer of Amy Whinehouse)
- The Neptunes
- The Artic Monkey's

Okay, some of these names are busy for quite some time, and its not clear if their influence will last for over decades, but please dont focus on modern R&B and 'Shit-hop' (One of the few things i agree on with Vainandy..lol) to look for innovators with class and freshness.

After posting this some other names did come-up who i would like to at: (indeed) The White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand, but also Queens of the Stone Age and, in the alternative metal department, Tool and System of a down.
[Edited 2/15/08 16:00pm]

NDRU said:

But y'all are full-fledged music heads and were going to be in any generation! Not to say they don't exist anymore. But many casual listeners our age don't know about acts before their time, much less young fans who've grown up in the age of consolidated media.
[Edited 2/15/08 16:22pm]

I didn't become a full fledged music head until around 1978 or 1979. I had long heard of those 50s artists in the early to mid 1970s as a small child. My parents weren't music heads either so they didn't introduce me to them. I heard of them through television and the media. There were a ton of variety shows in the 1970s such as "Sonny and Cher", "Captain and Tenille", "Flip Wilson", etc. that would sing covers of old songs and even have the old guests on from time to time. Not to mention radio playing those old hits from time to time.

Yeah, media today sometimes goes back 15 years or so but if you look back 15 years from today, you will come up with the exact same thing as today, which is shit hop. In 1975, if you went back 15 years , you would come up with the 1950s rock and roll, followed by various style changes in music since then. Just look how completely different music of the 1970s sounded from music of the 1950s and the changes in the years between. There has been no style change since the early 1990s and that is the problem these days. Music today sounds exactly like it did in the early 1990s....slow to midtempo, Fisher Price sounding drum machines, samples, and shit hop. That's the reason kids today don't know about huge stars of the 1980s such as Lionel Richie.

Back in the 1970s, we only had three television channels and a limited number of radio stations but we had variety from hell and styles were free to change naturally on their own without some stuff shirt record executive and major corporations forcing them to remain the same. However, today there over 100 television stations, various radio and various satellite radio stations. With all those stations, you would think there would be an endless variety. Instead, you end up with multiple stations of shit hop. It's damn rediculous.
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[Edited 2/18/08 7:30am]

vainandy said:

Oh, okay.



Well, the media construct has changed significantly. In music and television. Both media keep producing two-dimensional stuff through mass markets -- hit-pop and reality television, respectively -- because it's cheaper. And mass radio tightly controls the airplay list. So in the larger formats, the sound becomes more predictable.

But the digital age has not necessarily made the product less accessible. The networks might not have Sonny and Cher or the Flip Wilson Show, but there are still the late-night talk shows, as well as many niche music channels that feature different artists making very good if not necessarily great music. And the Internet allows for discovery of new music. Not to mention the tons of "classic" formats on the radio, on cable television, et cetera. It's not easy to find on the radio and network TV, but it's not that hard to find it everywhere else.

But none of that is relevant to my point. Most young listeners have a fairly limited frame of reference. They want to listen to what they or their friends are listening to. Many still find "alternative" (in the general sense) music locally or via the internet. Nevertheless, many if not most of them really don't care to know who Lionel Richie is. Or, for that matter, Freddie Jackson. Or Morrisey. They associate a kind of novelty to these acts. To them Richie's "All Night Long" is like a song like maybe "You Send Me" was to us. Familiar and liked, maybe, but not particularly relevant to this stage of their lives.



.
In the 70's, the networks could afford to be diverse. Other than the sometimes-hard-to-find UHF station and your local public station, there were only 3 games in town. Now, they're competing against 100's of channels on the digital box, not to mention the Web. As far as radio stations, I believe more of them were locally owned, which contributed to the great variety you could EASILY hear on the radio back then. Now it's a little different. But come now, it's not any less diverse; just less accessible. Internet Radio still exists (for now). You can still find any type of music on your television or the Web.

I think the problem is that less artists are creating the type of music that you crave. You're not alone. Even among hip-hop heads who pray that hit-pop will die a horrific death, like (intentionally quoted) "disco." But that's a whole 'nother story. Black music is due for a new revolution. But no amount of radio play or TV play is going to help that come about. Like rap music, societal changes will contribute to that.
[Edited 2/18/08 9:24am]

And my generation was no different. I never said I liked that music from the 50s, I just said that I was fully aware of it. If I had the option back then that these kids today have with numerous outlets for their kind of music, I would have turned the station on the television or went to the many other options to find my type of music just like these kids do today.

The reason my generation was more aware of music before their time, is we had no other options and were forced to either watch something on the three major networks or watch nothing at all. Kids today don't have that problem.

Also, even the grocery stores, restaurants, and department stores exposed us to different types of music back then whether we liked the music or not. Stores back then either played classical music or adult contemporary type music like Barry Mannilow. These days, I've heard shit hop in the grocery stores. Not the hardcore stuff, but still shit hop. I even heard shit hop coming from a television that was in a Chinese restaurant and that really tripped me out.


.


Yeah, the networks have all that competition these days but they are all competing for the exact same thing which makes no sense. As for the music video channels, actual music videos practically don't even exist on video channels anymore unless you buy a higher priced cable package which is too expensive. Hell, even basic cable is too damn high.

You are right about stations being locally owned back then. It also added more variety by having local shows (which don't exist today). We had a local "Soul Train" type dance show called "Black Gold". We also had a local dance show called "Hour of the 50s" (an "American Bandstand" type show where the dancers dressed like the 1950s and danced to 1950s music....even though it was the early 1980s). We had a country music dance show. Even if we weren't into those types of music, we would tune in because we had few other options. We mostly watched to make fun of them but we were still being hipped to other types of music, regarless of our intentions.




Less artists, my ass. Hell, no artists are making anything even near what I like except for Prince and Jamiroquai.



Oh, disco should have lived forever! That was my first love and probably my favorite since the funk that followed it's death was heavily influenced by it's tempo and danceability. Disco may have died a horrible death on the pop/rock side of things but it's influence continued on the R&B side through the early 1980s.

I would love to see shit hop lose it's pop audience though because that's the only way it could die. If white people would lose interest in it, I think black people would move on to something else because they have always been trend setters and never drug things out for 15 long years in the past.

vainandy said:

Well, isn't that a good thing?




How do you think a jazz fan who came up in the 1940's and 1950's felt about hearing disco everywhere (s)he went in the 1970's?



Not BET Jazz, TV One, or any of the other digital radio stations specializing in other sounds.



Indeed.



We've been over this. I think they're out there. They're just harder to find.




"disco" (quoted intentionally) got co-opted and watered down from the original product coming from the clubs and streets in the early 1970's and before. That's what I meant. It's still being heard in a lot of the smart electronica stuff being produced these days.



They will, eventually. Its commercial leaders aren't trodding any new ground. It will become background noise at some point. But if rock and pop were giving them real competition, we wouldn't be here.

[quote]

namepeace said:

As a child, I would have loved to had all those options. As an adult, I'm glad I didn't have all those options because I would have only tuned in to the things I was interested in and would have been totally unknowledgeable to anything else in the world. Even some of the exposure to things I didn't like back then, has shaped my tastes as an adult. Me having all those options back then would have been like giving me a choice of being able to go to school or not and every kid would love to quit school.



Disco everywhere in the 1970s? In the 1970s, all I ever heard in the grocery stores and restaurants was classical muzac piped in from the ceiling. The only restaurant I ever heard disco in was Pizza Hut and that's because they had a jukebox.



I've seen some good old videos and concerts on BET Jazz sometimes but they never let you know previously when they are going to air them. Not even on their website either. As for TV One, I don't even know what that is. I don't think we receive that in our area. If we do, it's on a higher priced cable package.




The problem is, shit hop is today's "pop". I've heard some new rock (I don't like the new rock but at least it is still being made) but it is being played on stations that play only rock. Every time I pass by a pop station, all I ever hear is shit hop. The pop stations are playing more shit hop than the R&B stations.

It's going to take a serious rejection of hip hop and synths as well as the passing of decades to undo the damage.

Influences? PLEASE.

All the "producers" sample and water down. All the "bands" do the same.

All the real talent is buried or snuffed out or are victims of the shit hop and synth generation.

"New rock" is just as shit and uninspired as shit hop.

If they're a prefab band or nu metal sludge or a throwback band or one of these "pop punk" tools it doesn't matter that they're playing instruments or that they exist. They're spinning music's wheels and stunting the art.