ExRx.net

I'm going with

1) Nirvana
2) Dr. Dre (Chronic album)
3) Metalica
4) Wu Tang
5) Gunz n' Roses


(I misspelled some I think)

Honorable mentions in no particular order:
Van Hallen
Pearl Jam
Biggie/Pac
Kanye
Eminem
Dave Matthews
MJ
Jay-Z
P. Ditty (as a producer marketer)
Public Enemy

influential?

grandmaster flash (and the furious five?)
a 2nd for: nirvana; possibly faith no more
electronic music: kwaftwerk
the sex pistols just missed it in terms of the time limits, but look what they did - it's not just about talent anymore...
spice girls took the girl group to unnecessary levels of fame and revised mainstream pop

however i haven't had a 'what the hell is this?' moment in a while

i'd echo sentiments about the throwbacks - a revolution occured with beatles/stones/zep/dylan (or pete seeger, depending on your folk/rock perspective) and we're hearing echos

rundmc were excellent. the crossover tracks with aerosmith/anthrax broke genres.

I don't really care who's most influential. For example, Madona sucks. Her music is aweful, but she still managed to influence an entire generation of crappy pop singers (who also suck).

For the start of the 80's hair band thing, I would site Van Halen rather than Def Leopard. However this started in 1978. Bon Jovi was the first to really take the crazy poofy hair to the extreme. However Van Halen clearly has their roots in the Led Zeppelin style, but further removed from the blues. Kind of like the relationship between Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.

I am going to go a in a different direction. I will site an obscure band called Venom. They really launched thrash and black metal, releasing their first album back in 1981. Metalica was the first to fuse the heavy metal style of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden with the fast energy of punk bands like the Misfits.

There is of course Run DMC and Nirvana as people have mentioned. There is also Ministry who took electronic music in a new, very heavy direction.

So I would say.....

Venom
Metalica
Ministry
Run DMC
Nirvana

Why Public Enemy over NWA?

there's quite a heavy rock music/hip hop bias in this thread

I'm going to add Daft Punk, they did loads for the dance music scene, and let's not forget Derrick May or Juan Atkins, who pretty much invented techno.

Also in Europe at the time you had guys like Front 242 taking new wave to the next step

and lets not forget polka legends Romy Gosz, Lawrence Duchow and the Red Raven

And this is the reason for this thread. I have no clue about techno-music. Honestly I think it is a bunch of crap, but I bet some of the old timers say the same stuff about what I suggested.

I do remember Front 242 back in the 80s. Did they pioneer the techno movement?

I do love a good polka band. Just ask the 100's of people I scared at the last festival I attended.

My Grandpa was in a Polka band, he's ukranian so yeah. The Prime Minister at the time liked his music.

I think the thread will also show the differences in American influential bands vs what everybody over the world thinks. In America country, rock, pop and rap dominate the airwaves. I'm not sure about other places but supposedly two bands I really dig named Nightwish and HIM are pretty mainstream in Finland or Norway or wherever they are from (not sure exactly), but for the most part relatively unknown here in America. The only technoish band I can think of, The Crystal Method, might be an influence on plenty of techno bands (I am not saying they are just using them for an example), but since here in america techno pales in comparsion to the four I mentioned earlier, they aren't very influential by comparison. So, that's why I guess there is a rock/pop/rap bias

Someone should start a thread on the most destructive influences in music over the past 30 years. Just off the top of my head I can think of autotune, Disney, boy bands, music videos, American Idol and Guitar Hero.

Have you noticed that to have a successful video you have to be a hot looking women, or at least have one in your video? What would happen if Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin started today? You would never hear them.

Aretha has the voice of an angel. Janis had the voice of an angel tested by the devel. Dang I love both their music.

Front 242 aren't techno, but they were one of the first to do a type of music that evolved into the European techno scene. It was called Electronic Body Music for those of you that care. It paved the way for some of the best European techno we have today, like The Hacker and Blackstrobe

Techno was very much an American invention, started in Detroit in the 80s.

weird al yankovic probably hasn't influenced anyone, but satirical polka rock makes my day.

i know frank zappa was only in it for the money, but wasn't satire, just off-the-planet

and moving from polka to gypsy, gogol bordello twists my brain