For me Stevie Wonder helped change my perspective on love & music. Fresh outta highschool I was a lyric-preferring hip hop head, and was only slowly beginning to listen to other music-mostly stuff my parents enjoyed like salsa, reggae etc. But it was only here & there and none of it instrumental music. I couldn't understand it! Than one day I heard Stevie Wonder. I knew of him but I always thought of him as that corny, sappy dude from the 80's, I never knew how funky, melodious and natural his seventies work was or how euphoric his 60's stuff was. I got hooked I think by listening to stuff from SITKOL on youtube and particularly knocks me off my feet & As.

I was so in love with his music I went a few days later to go buy one of his seventies works &(because of my then lack of money) had to choose between Talking Book or Innervisions:-? . I chose the former because it had more songs on it; more bang for my buck. I put it in my car one day when I had nothing to do and....was so disappointed. I thought it sucked! At the time I only liked about three tracks. Eventually(thank god) I adjusted my ears & heard Innervisions on youtube & was floored. Never heard his music the same way since. I wanted to consume everything he'd ever recorded. I was a fan-atic.

Stevie was revelatory for me in terms of music as a whole. I never approached music in the same way again. I no longer was content with just a beat a chorus and some verses. I was in love with the soulfulness of his voice & wanted to hear more soul singers, in love with the jazz tinge & wanted to hear more jazz composers, in love with the funk & wanted to hear more FUNK! Pop, funk, jazz, soul. Stevie was the hinge that opened up the door of music for me.

I love Stevie Wonder. He helped shape what I would later value in romantic relationships, what I appreciate in life, what my musical tastes are. If I saw him walking down the street I think I"d cry like a baby & give him a hug. Not ashamed to admit it.

Anyone or anything have this kind've influence on you(bar prince or prince affiliates)?

I don't know why you'd bar Prince, but...

The music that changed my life is the music I first heard - and later played. Classical music. Handel's Messiah, in particular - which was written in three weeks and is one of the most sublime works of art in the history of mankind.

It's hard to deny the existence of a divine presence (in the form of inspiration, at least) when you listen to something like that.

Too many musicians' music have changed my life or impacted it in some kind of way:

Prince

Marvin

MJ

Stevie

Mary J. (early Mary)

Tina

Janet

James Brown

George Clinton

The entire Motown label

Hendrix

Bowie

A lot of '60s/'70s rock

Funk

Early hip-hop and its later golden age (1988-1997)

You know, it goes on and on...

[Edited 9/28/10 11:42am]

I would say Guns N' Roses changed my life as a young teenage black girl in the 90's. It was unheard of at that time and where I grew up to be listening to that kind of music. I absolutely fell in love with metal because of them and it got me into many other rock bands after that. I was damn near ridilculed but I could care less at the time. It also started to shape who I was as a person. I started dressing like a rock chick. At a time when it was all about hip hop. There's also Grace Jones who I got into in 2000. I love how bold and avant garde she is and also doesn't care what people think. Now it's trendy to dress the way she did but back when she was doing it, it was truly innovative.

Now I see myself as a die hard 80's Electrofunk/New wave fan and there are several artists now that have influenced my life. Like The System, Rick James, Prince, Vanity 6 etc....

[Edited 9/28/10 12:49pm]

In order:

James Brown 1960's

1970's:

Pfunk

Bootsy

Ohio Players

Isleys

1980's forward

Prince

1990's Mint Condition

James, George, Sly, Gil, & Marvin

oh!!! And Curtis & Jimi

[Edited 9/28/10 13:59pm]

There have been literally hundreds of artists or songs that shaped my worldview.

Metallica

Prince

Grateful Dead

Bay Area house music

Aphex Twin

Ani Difranco

In that order, except Metallica and Prince were basically the same moment for me. Lots of other artists/music have opened my eyes to new experiences and points of view. But those six actually had a real affect on my life.

Rick James

Prince

The Heatmakerz

In no order...

Stevie Wonder

Isley Brothers

The Who

Zeppelin

Hendrix

Clapton

Jeff Beck

James Brown

Allman Brothers Band

James Jamerson

Buddy Miles

Steely Dan

Chicago

Carlos Santana

War

The Beatles

Earth Wind & Fire

Curtis Mayfield

Otis Redding

Aerosmith

Lenny Kravitz

Hip-Hop

Nine Inch Nails

Joi Gilliam-Gipp

The Time

Issac Hayes

P-Funk

Prince

Miles Davis

Herb Alpert

The MC5

Fishbone

Living Colour

Guns N Roses

And many many more

[Edited 9/28/10 18:13pm]

MJ

Prince

Stevie Wonder

Hendrix

Teddy Riley

Bob Marley

James Brown

Vivaldi

Beethoven

Any MPLS Sound

Zapp And Roger

Janet Jackson

All funk!

[Edited 9/28/10 18:12pm]

[Edited 9/28/10 18:13pm]

So many different genres but these artist's have had a huge affect on my 19 years:D

Bob Dylan

Prince

Bruce Springsteen

Ray Charles

Stevie Wonder

Little Richhrd

Frank Zappa

Rob Zombie

David Bowie

Albert King

Robert Jhnson

Janis Joplin

Led Zeppelin

Public Enemy

Depeche Mode

N.W.A

The Beatles

Dolly Parton

Joni Mitchell

Jimi Hendrix

Ozzy

The Cure

Nas

Aretha Franklin

Marvin Gaye

Tina Turner

Blondie

New Order/Joy Division

Nine Inch Nails

Beastie Boys

R.E.M

Metallica

Megadeth

Wendy & Lisa

Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark

Bach
U2

Tears For Fears

Motley Crue

Ice Cube

Dr.Dre

The White Stripes

Madonna

Radiohead

The Smiths

Sly & The Family Stone

Parliament/Funkadelic

James Brown

Michael Jackson

Janet Jackson

Bjork

Eurythmics

Clapton

Elton John

Billy Joel

Alice In Chains

Whitney Houston

W.A.S.P

That about covers it

janet jackson she just did it all with her dance 4 me

Prince: Ever since I saw his gay ass on "American Bandstand" looking and acting gay as hell but not playing the type of dorky shit such as classical music that so many straight people stereotyped us as being into. The bitch has playing hard funk and hard rock and was doing it harder than straight people were. At the same time, he was flaunting his gayness and not only did he not give a damn what you thought of him, he eventually became such a bitch that a lot of straight people would actually fear because he was such an evil revengeful bitch. This definately inspired me to be my damn self, flaunt it, be a bitch about it, turn my nose up and look down on trashy motherfuckers who think they're better than me because in actuality, I'm the one that's better than them.

Shitney Houston: She came on the scene in 1985 with her extemely dull ass music and sold so well that others such as Anita Faker, Deady Jackson, Mikki Howard, Regina Belle started taking over the R&B airwaves and outselling the artists that were making good shit. This meant that R&B radio was becoming dull as hell so I started looking to the underground at that time and discovered house music. Then, when I totally came out of the closet in 1990 and started going to gay clubs and found a totally different underground scene with house music, I became completely bored with what was being played on R&B radio which was full of adult contemporary and eventually stopped listening to altogether when shit hop took over. It's because of Shitney that I explored the underground because she had made R&B radio almost unlistenable.

Shit Hop: Throughout the 1990s, especially the later years when house music had abandoned almost all it's funkiness and turned into acid or trance type music, I became bored with the underground scene. Then I had to depend more and more on the radio since I wasn't liking what I was hearing in the gay clubs anymore. Shit hop had been a thorn in the ass since the early 1990s but I could overlook it because there was such a great gay underground house scene that I said to myself "If the straight motherfuckers are so fucking dull that they like that shit hop bullshit, they can have the fucking radio because at least us gay motherfuckers know how to party in the clubs". Well, as it turned out, the damn shit hop bullshit eventually took over the black gay club so it eventually turned every damn body dull, both straight and gay. That's when I said "fuck that shit" and started getting more and more into rock. Pop/rock at the time, was very dull also. The damned accoustical era had come around and there were folks like Jewel and others who were on pop radio but sounded like fucking country music. I just said fuck it altogether and started buying old rock that I had never bought when I was growing up because I was too busy buying funk. But it's because of shit hop taking over everything that I started looking elsewhere and expanding my tastes to include rock. Hell, I've even been getting into shit like The Andrew Sisters also and stuff that I would have never listened to growing up. Hell, any of it's better than shit hop.

George Clinton & P-Funk cause they taught me it's not a bad thing to be different from the rest.

Jupiter One.

They made the world seem small to me.

I love those guys I kiss them and hug them every chance I get.

I can't say that any music or musician changed my life, but I can say that some music has had a huge impact on how I view the world and how I appreciate music.

For example: Bob Dylan - the greatest lyricists of our time Marvin Gaye Al Green Prince The Rolling Stones The Beatles Carlos Santana Tony Bennett k.d. Lang

There are many more, but these are the ones who really had an impact. I've been listening to these folks for many, many years.

[Edited 9/30/10 11:00am]

[Edited 9/30/10 11:01am]

Back in my day (I'll be 62 in 7 weeks) Frank Zappa was the one who was always up in society's face and he brought it off with such intelligence and sarcastic humor.

This guy was the real deal. No social phoniness was too sacrosanct for him to bust. I'll include a few late 60's clips for you. I hope you use this post as a kind of music education mini-class to learn about an absolute one of a kind musical genius of an important era in rock history.

This may seem like novelty music to the younger folk of today but if you can imagine stuff like this up in the face of a crew cut, bow tie culture that was steeped in Father Knows Best and Leave it to Beaver as being cutting edge... well all I can say is I hope you get how really, "Holy Shit!!! it was for the time.

This was waaaay beyond the typical flower power, peace and love or British Invasion stuff of the day, sorta like Dark Side of the Moon was cynically antithetical to the sunshiney vibe of Sgt. Pepper but Frank was way more blunt.

He pissed a lot of parents off and freed a lot of kids up to say fuck what anyone else thinks, I'm going to be me.

See what you think.

Frank's commentary about the struggle for civil rights 2 full years before Martin and Bobby were killed:

This one poked fun at the Beach Boys clean cut kind of crowd:

This one blew the whistle on the whole go to college and get a good job myth as well as talking about taboo sexual fantasies:

"Plastic" was a term used by the hippie culture to refer to the phoniness inherent in trying to pretend you were a wholesome member of the American dream population:

A medley of sorts excerpted from Frank's Sgt. Pepper broadside, We're Only in it for the Money:

Ok, not really any profound message in this next one but Ray Estrada on bass and doo wop vocal. What a talent! FZ wrote the notes which were just off of what your ear was expecting enough to make the piece really interesting. Frank always had the best talent around him.

This next one is not safe for work (or anywhere for that matter). Make sure you are not going to offend anyone who may be within earshot before you press play. It's a much later work but it shows Frank still had his biting social commentary mojo working:

[Edited 10/2/10 0:22am]

I got into FZ when I was 16

but recently if I read or watch him talking, he doesn't sound like a very nice person

I catch Zappa Plays Zappa every time they visit my town still though

Dweezil is cute

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My first experience with music was supplied by this man. The reason why I fell in love with music. The reason why I started writing songs, dancing, and singing. Nearly every song I've heard makes listening to it a new experience. I didn't just admire him as an artist, I admired him as a person. I NEVER cried about an celebrity's death until the summer of 2009 (and cried A LOT). His death officially signaled the end of my childhood

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same as above. Helped shape my fashion sense too

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My SECOND experience with music. Every song inspires me to get better at songwriting. So many songs touch the deepest part of my soul and connects with me. I hope to write a song as beautiful as "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer" "You Will Know", or "Lookin' For Another Pure Love", or "Blame It On The Sun", or "Overjoyed" Stevie Wonder is a gift from God. I've found myself tearing up while listening to some of Stevie's songs

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When I was 14, Craig's first album opened my eyes to other genres other than R&B, Hip Hop, and Rock. I discovered UK Garage and House through "Born To Do It". Soon, I'd be listening to Kano, Artful Dodger, Ms Dynamite, Dizzee Rascal, Sunship, MJ Cole, Wookie, and hunting for any UKG mix I could find.

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sparked my initial interest in producing/beatmaking. Part of the soundtrack of my teenage years

Prince turned me into a PERV

I don't believe any specific musician really changed my life. As much as I love/loved Prince, I think I'd be the same person I am today if I was never into him--his albums would just be absent from my collection.

Types of music, that might work--there was that one moment while going out to clubs to hear industrial music in the early 90s when the DJ played The Sisters Of Mercy's "This Corrosion" and I was mesmerized watching the goths dance to it in unison--like nuns during the rapture, lol. From that moment on, I had to find out as much as possible about that type of music and jumped into the goth scene with both feet which lasted a good decade at least. Even now it's still black clothes and boots 365 days a year. I suppose that was a life changer.

...changed my life?

The Rolling Stones

David Bowie

Roxy Music

Duran Duran

Depeche Mode

Madonna

Prince

Michael Jackson:

I could literally write thousands of words about how deeply Michael and his music affected my life, but it still wouldn't be enough, so I'll try and keep it short. For the better part of a decade, Michael WAS music to me. The two were synonymous. If it wasn't Michael, J5, The Jacksons, Janet, 3T, or anything Jackson-related, it just wasn't important. I'd watch Moonwalker literally everyday, play the Moonwalker video game, make my own MJ compilation tapes, try and track down books and magazines about MJ...I could keep going! The culmination of my fandom was seeing the HIStory tour in London back in 1997. Such an incredible experience.

See, I had a very difficult childhood. My mother passed away when I had just turned 5 years old. I got shuffled around between family members, and a few years later, my father remarried and I never got along with his wife since the beginning and it caused a lot of difficulties which I won't go into, but it's no exaggeration to say that Michael and his music helped me make it through those difficult times and gave me feelings of hope, inspiration and the ability to pull myself out of any bad situation and make timeless art.

Tupac Shakur:

So, after my father remarried, he and his new wife decided to move to a completely different place, out by a much smaller city than where I was born and raised, and there was a lot less ethnic minorities in that city, so my sister and I stuck out like a sore thumb and this is where, at the age of 11, I really started to encounter racism on a serious level. I don't know what drew me to Tupac's music, but I heard him for the first time not long before he died, and I liked him. Around the same time he passed, I heard "To Live & Die in LA" and 'Pac became my new obsession. I became a serious fan, collecting everything I could find. I've been songwriting since I was 8, but 'Pac inspired me at the age of 11 to be a rapper. (I'd go on to sign my first deal at 16, sell 30,000 records independently and get signed to Sony/BMG off the back of that....)

Tupac helped me through the dark times of my young teenage years, where I was just wildin' out, getting locked up for petty crimes, selling drugs, running the streets, getting expelled from school, etc. I went from being a fan to having a relationship with many of his associates, friends and family, when I got to make a BBC documentary about him in 2006 for the 10th anniversary of his passing. I was flown out to LA to make the documentary and became good friends with the likes of Johnny J (RIP), Quincy "QD3" Jones III, Candyman 187, Leila Steinberg, and more.

Prince:

Prince was one of those artists I was always aware of, but I didn't become a serious fan until I was around 13. I remember buying "Rave" not too long after it came out and just buying as much of his back catalog as I could find. Prince literally redefined the way I saw and heard music, and though I have more sentimental memories of Tupac and MJ from my younger years, most of the time I'd say Prince is my #1 favorite artist because his musical/songwriting range and depth is just so vast that he continually blows my mind, over, and over, and over again and inspires me to push myself to do things I never thought I could do. Plus, as a large consumer of music, his prolific nature appeals to me. He just has so much music in so many different styles that you can never get bored of it. I've seen him live on a number of occasions now, my collection now outnumbers both my MJ and Tupac collections. Not to mention, through his influences, and the community, my musical knowledge has increased exponentially, and I owe all that to Prince!

Other artists who I would say have changed my life but I don't feel like writing about would be:

Nirvana (RIP Kurt - missing you)

Zapp/Roger (RIP Roger and Larry)

Nine Inch Nails

Jesse Johnson

Joni Mitchell

ZombieKitten said:

I got into FZ when I was 16

but recently if I read or watch him talking, he doesn't sound like a very nice person

I catch Zappa Plays Zappa every time they visit my town still though

Dweezil is cute

Dweezil is a monster talent on the guitar; better than his dad actually but Frank was the genius composer that wrote the stuff.

Yeah, Frank was not out to win any popularity contests, that's for sure. His cynicism was extreme.

I wouldn't want to be him but he certainly was a genius. So many artists are driven by their angst.

I remember when I stopped listening to him. He did something very nasty to his audience at a college campus concert I attended in the western suburbs of Chicago. I'm thinking it was maybe '73.

He got us all wound up with an audience participation song. He instructed us to hold up our thumbs as if they were Bic lighters everytime he sang, "Show me your thumb."

We were all going along with it and having fun when at some unexpected point he sang, "Show me your thumb if you are dumb" and the song stopped cold as Frank turned his back to the crowd.

I can't recall if that was the last song of the evening but it certainly was the last song of my status as an enthusiastic fan.

Thibaut said:

George Clinton & P-Funk cause they taught me it's not a bad thing to be different from the rest.

Real talk.

As a child of the 1980's, Prince and MJ were the beginning and end of my musical experience at the time. Both brought different things to the table, but in both cases, I like the fact that they were able to compliment each other so effortlessly during their peak in the 1980s. Each new album was an event. Living the the burbs, I couldn't identify with hip hop (despite being born in Brooklyn). When we moved to Miami (and having parents from the Caribbean,) I also started to dig Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and other reggae artists alot more, getting me more in touch with my "roots".

As I grew up, a friend of mine introduced me to the music of 2Pac and I started to dig the hip hop scene a little more. I couldn't really relate to everything Pac was saying, but The Struggle is the same. "Souljah's Story" remains my all time favorite rap song . Masterful storytelling by an MC that left too soon (his DeathRow stuff was garbage IMO).

By the time I got to college, my interest in David Bowie grew as did my greater appreciation for the work of The Beatles, specifically George Harrison. WIth Bowie, it was the constant changes. With Harrison, it was the never ending spiritual quest (My all-time favorite song is Beware of Darkness).

DakutiusMaximus said:

ZombieKitten said:

I got into FZ when I was 16

but recently if I read or watch him talking, he doesn't sound like a very nice person

I catch Zappa Plays Zappa every time they visit my town still though

Dweezil is cute

Dweezil is a monster talent on the guitar; better than his dad actually but Frank was the genius composer that wrote the stuff.

Yeah, Frank was not out to win any popularity contests, that's for sure. His cynicism was extreme.

I wouldn't want to be him but he certainly was a genius. So many artists are driven by their angst.

I remember when I stopped listening to him. He did something very nasty to his audience at a college campus concert I attended in the western suburbs of Chicago. I'm thinking it was maybe '73.

He got us all wound up with an audience participation song. He instructed us to hold up our thumbs as if they were Bic lighters everytime he sang, "Show me your thumb."

We were all going along with it and having fun when at some unexpected point he sang, "Show me your thumb if you are dumb" and the song stopped cold as Frank turned his back to the crowd.

I can't recall if that was the last song of the evening but it certainly was the last song of my status as an enthusiastic fan.

that's really not nice

also in interviews I've seen him rolling his eyes and acting all superior, as if everyone is beneath him. Well yeah, sure there are idiots in the world, but behaving like that only makes HIM look like one!

his son is way nicer than him, always smiling and chatting after the shows

I guess there is no pressure on him to be a star, since he is just doing this for fun and profit, nobody is expecting him to be a genius artist, he gets to travel, play music and have a nice life thanks to his dad, he is always going to have a crowd to play to wherever he chooses to travel!

ZombieKitten said:

I got into FZ when I was 16

but recently if I read or watch him talking, he doesn't sound like a very nice person

I catch Zappa Plays Zappa every time they visit my town still though

Dweezil is cute

I am going to see Zappa Plays Zappa on Dec.1 at The Warfield In SF. I am really looking forward to hearing the Apostrophe album in its entirety. I have not seen them since 2006.

A couple of bands that changed my life were Led Zeppelin and Nirvana.

[Edited 10/2/10 19:20pm]

[Edited 10/2/10 19:22pm]

rmartin70 said:

ZombieKitten said:

I got into FZ when I was 16

but recently if I read or watch him talking, he doesn't sound like a very nice person

I catch Zappa Plays Zappa every time they visit my town still though

Dweezil is cute

I am going to see Zappa Plays Zappa on Dec.1 at The Warfield In SF. I am reaaly looking forward to hearing the Apostrophe album in its entirety. I have not seen them since 2006.

wow you lucky duck!!!!!

I'm not sure when he is back here

I'll have to go check his tour schedule