Rank 15 in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
Joy Division (New Order) — Gram Parsons — George Michael — Eminem — Tom Waits — Donna Summer — Quincy Jones
Rank 15 in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
Joy Division (New Order) — Gram Parsons — George Michael — Eminem — Tom Waits — Donna Summer — Quincy Jones
This is the third of our exhaustive list of articles wanting to rank everyone in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. Hopefully you know the drill by now, if not, these are the previous two
In the second of those articles the last entry was 14. Martha and the Vandellas — Paul McCartney — John Lennon — George Harrison following the Hitmagist Ranking rules
Which is essentially that we don’t accept that there is a one on one ranking possible and we put these together, explaining the three Beatles there they are of course also in the hall as the Beatles, sharing the number one spot with Chuck Berry.
So, the foregoing established, let us continue
15. Joy Division (New Order) — Gram Parsons — George Michael — Eminem — Tom Waits — Donna Summer — Quincy Jones
Again we have to consider that I am trying to rank these things by influence and not by likes and dislikes because if it were by what I liked Tom Waits would be much higher and Eminem and Donna Summer probably much lower.
Influence wise, I think Eminem lasted one decade as a force— approximately. I use one decade as being one generation of music. After which he was no longer directly influential but only influential via those who were influenced by him in the decade that was his.
Looking at his chart performance you might want to give him 2 decades, which fair enough, but I think it is the same as memetics, an idea that has expanded to the whole population starts to lose its value as an idea, this is why you get people saying something is too popular and turning their nose up, not just because they desperately want to be cool but because the widespread phenomenon no longer gives the frisson of newness which is really what inspires and energizes creative people.
Most people can only last one decade to inspire. It is the top tier who can last multiple decades, and whose work from previous decades can still inspire later decades. So I think Eminem is really inspirational for 1 decade, and then he has another decade where he is reaping the rewards of massive talent and ground breaking music.
Perhaps I says this because he is somewhat to my taste but not so much that I love everything he does. I think his greatest thing is he allowed a way back for white people into hip hop after the P.R. disaster represented by Vanilla Ice. People might think that is not so great a thing but I think that having the dominant musical environment be exclusionary would be a bad thing in the long run. Obviously it would have happened anyway, because art must always be conquered by those it attempts to keep out, but what is important is not just that it will happen but how, and Eminem was the how.
And so I put him here, we are really getting to the point where influence is almost as unreliable as ranking by quality. Because as yet we do not have a foolproof algorithm to define influence.
Perhaps he should be in the 14 level but I put him here because while I can see he was influential, I cannot properly gauge that influence. I mean bbno$ did recently describe himself as “the gen-z eminem” which implies some level of lasting inspiration, people only call themselves their generation’s X if the X is widely considered important and if only really clueless people would say “Who”
[embed]Who? How Long Are You Known And How Long Do You Influence?medium.com
Tom Waits, Gram Parsons, and Joy Division might get a Who? Even from relatively musically knowledgeable people of the present generation. But remember this is mainly about influence, and while fan recognition is good it is not the primary measure of influence. I think Waits and Parsons are both reasonably influential people for their decade of prominence and the decade after, because they have never broken through at a great level they were able to maintain their influence on new artists longer, they were always just about to break and never did and thus seemed slightly new and refreshing while also, maybe, slightly familiar. Again here I am probably putting Parsons too high. Hard to tell.
In the case of Joy Division/New Order — a lots of people might say “Who?” but they will also say “That’s Them!?” when you play this the first few seconds of this
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The band that represents the cool alternative 80s clubs where disaffected teen hang out in every period show seeking to be edgy.
Of course some influence lasts longer in specific locations
Because kids will ask their parents, “Who?” and the parents will answer, and then the kids will seek it out and be motivated.
George Michael by this metric will obviously not become a “Who?” until the end of civilization and recorded music, because he has a hit Christmas single, and he can always be identified by that.
Probably the only person who could be counted as a true “Who?” for our present generation is Donna Summer, perhaps she should rank lower. But like Eminem she was very influential for one decade and then… essentially nothing. Maybe that also argues for her lack of importance, I sort of think it might be because she was a black woman. Or maybe just because a woman, most women black or white don’t seem to last in the mental influence part of the brain once their attraction for other regions starts to decay.
Quincy Jones is probably the most famous producer, on a name basis, and he had such a wide range of things he did, it is reasonable to put him here I think. Of course he was not just a producer, he was also one of the best Jazz and R&B musicians of his generation.
Let’s put some here — from !969 Walking in Space
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Which also tracks to this great NASA video.
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He is definitely one of the people however, whose music influences primarily the musicians who work a lot on their craft. Which is probably in most cases the most important type of influence one can have in any artistic field.
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