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I was thinking about the most influential groups in the last 30 years - not necessarily the greatest nor do I necessarily enjoy them, but those that ushered changes in music. I thought it would be interesting to see what other opinions were. These are in no particular order.

1. Run-DMC - they ushered rap into mainstream in 1987.
2. Nirvana - effectively killed the hair bands of the 80's.
3. Metallica - I hate them, but you can't argue their influence on band and their music kept heavy metal alive through the grunge years.
4. Cross Canadian Ragweed - they are just too cool.
5. The Clash -

The Clash were a 70s band. They peaked with London Calling in 79. Rock the Casbah really showed that they were done as a creative element. If you include them you should also include the Talking Heads and Bruce Springsteen.

Hmm, you are probably right. I was thinking the Clash made their big leap in 80.

I could include Bruce. I was trying to dismiss single name singers - Madona, Michael Jackson, etc. The E-Street band has been pretty much intact since the beginning. My arguement with Bruce is that, while he might be a good singer, can you say he was that influential? Did they spawn a movement, or can you say a bunch of people copied their sound?

I also thought about NWA for rap. They spawned - Dre, EZ E, Ice-T, and Ice Cube. They were not main stream and didn't usher in making rap main stream, but you can't argue their influence on Hip-Hop.

Bruce was one of the first of a bunch of singer songwriters, although you could argue that it was just a continuation of guys like Seger and Dylan. Likewise, Stevie Ray Vaughn was probably instrumental with spurring a blues revival, probably helped out by the Blues Brother movie.

Otherwise, I'm of the opinion that 1980 was basically the last year of good music and anything worthwhile since then, was a throw back to the 60s and 70s. Of course that probably has something to do with the generation I was born to.

I have a theory. At the end of the 60s, there was a void due to the breakup of the Beatles and the deaths of Jimi hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. This opened the door to bands like Black Sabbath, led Zepplin, Deep Purple, etc. The last half of the 70s, early 80s saw the deaths of John Bonham, Keith Moon, Lynard Sknyrd, Sid Vicious, Marc Bolan, Bob Marley, and John Lennon. Again this left a void, opening up the doors for the next generation like Van Halen, GNR, Bon Jovi, etc. The end of the 80s and start of the 90s saw deaths of Kurt Cobain, SRV, Mike Hutchins, and Peter Tosh. I guess that the old generation needs to get out of the way for the next group.

In this little discussion, I wanted to exclude the foundation of rock - and you mentioned a lot of the bands that people stand on the shoulders of today.

I'll respectfully disagree with you on the good music opinion. I do agree that there isn't much out there that is decent that is commercially played. However, there are tons of great local and underground bands.

A whole genre (sp?) of music has sprung up that almost no one is talking about. Americana is a catch all of all types of music that just doesn't fit a category. Most of the bands that fit in this category have basically told the music industry to screw off. They make the music they want to play and if commercial success comes, then fine. If not, they are happy playing their music. I mentioned CCR in my original post. No body is playing them because no one knows how to catagorize them.

My point is that there is a lot of really good stuff out there, but you have to go looking for it. You want find it being played on the radio.

I'm still not quite ready to give you the E-Street band. I'm not yet willing to concede that they are that influential.

Here is another random thought. I excluded single name singers. You could make the arguement that Garth Brooks is one of the most influential singers in the last 30 years. His commercial success effectively killed the country music genre. The crap they put out now is cookie cutter factory made stuff. Honestly, I can't tell a country song from a Hall and Oats or Lionel Richie song from the 80s anymore.

I'd have to put Def Leppard in cause, well, they brought in the whole 80's hair band thing that Nirvana killed. I'd also trade out Nirvana for Pearl Jam because there was/still is a bunch of groups more influenced by them than Nirvana (Creed, Staind, etc, even if you don't like these bands they've sold a lot of albums).

I'd probably include either REM or U2 in there, as they practically created the alternative genre. And as far as rap goes I think someone like Public Enemy was more influential (unfortunately) than Run DMC. The harmless hip hop of the 80's and early nineties was killed by the Gangsta rap of the public enemy type. And while the early gangsta rappers were groundbreaking and actually had a purpose (informing us whities of the horrors of the ghetto life), the current crop will never succeed like they did.

I'd also have to include Garth Brooks or Time Mcgraw or someone of that nature. Even though to most country is something you either love or hate, plenty of people love country, as evidenced by the amount of country albums sold. That's all I can think for now!

Funny I posted my post right as you were posting this. Most country artists are single name singers unfortunately, so I don't think that's fair to do

And as such, add michael jackson to the list

My list (with single persons)-

1. Metallica
2. U2
3. Def Leppard
4. Michael Jackson
5. Garth Brooks

Without single persons-

1. Metallica
2. U2
3. Def Leppard
4. Pearl Jam
5. Public Enemy

Of course, one could make a case Britney Spears has been more influential than everything I have above!

I'm a little limited in my musical tastes as they were generally formed by 1970. In my opinion, the last great band ended when John Bonham died. Since then there have been a few interesting bands like the Black Crows, 3 Doors Down, Big Sugar, Nickleback, etc but they're mostly derivitive throw backs, the last gasp at traditional rock music, so to speak. I never developed a taste for alternative music although I'd have to admit that REM and U2 were certainly leaders. It wasn't until Santana put out Supernatural that I started getting excited about music again. One gets very tired of Madonna and Maria Carey really fast.

I will have to agree U2 and REM would have to be thrown in the mix.

To illustrate Hoose's statement on the fact that a lot of the innovative bands have told mainstream to screw off, try streaming this
http://www.whro.org/home/html/liveradio ... tenna.html
Put out by NPR, and it has a sister program entitled "Out of the Box" with a double entendre; 1. It's very new stuff, and 2. it's "out of the box" in the sense that you won't find it on mainstream radio.
You can find it under whro/public radio
Tim

Tim I might have to check that out. I'm always looking for new time, but sometimes its such a hassle to actually look. Heh.

And Hoosegow, I think after 30 replies this thread should morph into "the 5 most infamous bands in the past 30 years", cause I think that thread would be more fun

Shame on you, there have not only been awesome bands since 1980s (Duran Duran anyone?) but there's been whole awesome genres since then. I agree that for guitar bands nothing'll ever match the era of Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles etc but in the 80s you had synths coming in and taking over. And yeah fair enough bands were using synths in the 70s but it was only in the 80s that they got a whole genre to themselves.

Electronic music is the most exciting it's ever been just now, the contemporary band scene doesn't really interest me, but electronica's whooping ass.

If you don't know the sort of music i mean here's a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-US91WU8zA

wicked track that, and if you liked that here's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tatccHVfuhA

Enjoy! Tracks are by a guy called Aphex Twin, they came out in the 90s. He was pretty much the first guy to do tunes like this, and has been VERY influential since the 80s. Sad thing is a lot of folk don't even know music like that exists

I listened to Pink Floyd, Genesis (pre Phil Collins) and Yes back in the 70s so I don't think of electronic music as being new. My son is just discovering ELP. Anyway, you could add Radiohead to the list.