>>>>>Did the Sex Pistols have more merit or influence than Elton John, Barbra Streisand, Rod Stewart, Willie Nelson, Carole King, Donna Summer, John Denver, Otis Redding, Barry White or the friggin' Bee Gees? Man!<<<<<
Yes, I would say that the Sex Pistols were more influential than any of the ones you mention, because they broke with existing conventions, and established a style that was emulated by many new artists. The ones you list were popular, but not ground-breaking.
BYW, Carole King recorded in the 1970's, but she was a big composer in the 1960's, and was far more influential that way. Barbara Streisand started in the 1960's, but her style is 1950's, she's pre-rock, more like Frank Sinatra-type stuff. Otis Redding is 1960's. The BeeGees started in the 1960's, became popular with the disco era in the 1970's, but they didn't invent disco. Nor would I call disco "ground-breaking."
As for Public Enemy, they didn't invent rap, it was invented by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, I believe, but Public Enemy was certainly an early, extremely popular rap group. Whatever you or I think about rap, it's new, different, and very popular, and has influenced a lot of things outside its genre, including soundtracks and advertising.
At a loss on the Beastie Boys, although I do like "You Gotta Fight for the Right to Party." I much prefer Nirvana or Nine Inch Nails, myself. It's hard to actually pick an artist of the decade, in the early seventies, for example, there were the singer-songwriters, like Carole King, in the mid-seventies there was corporate rock, like Journey, Boston, Chicago, Styx, in the late seventies it was Punk and New Wave, like Elvis Costello. The early 60's were very different than the mid-60's, the Beatles did change everything, but in the late 1960's there was stuff like the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, and the Velvet Undeground, who gave birth to Punk and New Wave, and were a decade ahead of their time. A truly groundbreaking band, one of the most groundbreaking of them all.
But this is just about rock, there's also classical, jazz, blues, we haven't even scratched the surface. |
