50 Albums That Changed Music (or not)

Actually grunge did have an effect on Britpop. After Cobain died nobody could face having to listen to Pearl Jam so we started looking around to see what banRAB were on our own doorstep.
 
That's who I was forgetting. Even if they had a lot of proto-punk influences, they were one of the first glam rock banRAB to showcase their flaraboyance.

The New York Dolls - s/t (1973)
 
I can't stand lazy articles like this. "This album changed music. Really it did. We're not going to go into any detail in telling you why, but TRUST US."
 
Just about all of their "without this, there would have been no..." claims were insane. Right, without Kraftwerk, electronic music never would have existed. Without (one of) the pioneers, it never would have occurred to anyone. By that reasoning, Chuck Berry should be atop the list. Without his music, all guitar-driven rock and pop never would have happened.

The Spice Girls selection was silly. It's like they felt they were being very clever, "You thought the Spice Girls were empty and inconsequential pop, but in fact they were massively influential." They manage to undercut their own reasoning at each turn. Cynical marketing-driven pop groups had existed for decades...but the Spice Girls are influential for that. "Girl power" was a cynical, male-created gimmick (which was well understood all along)...but the Spice Girls empowered a generation of girls. If they wanted to go the route of "pop group created for marketing reasons," they should have gone with the Monkees. They would have ended up with far better music in their list, to boot.

Also, what irony using the "empowered girls" argument for the Spice Girls and then ranking Kate Bush below the Spice Girls. Bush was far more empowering and far more influential.

There are a nuraber of good picks, but the ordering and reasoning are fairly silly. Also, Led Zeppelin is a big omission. Possibly overrated in the US and underrated in Europe, Zeppelin was still massively influential to rock as a whole, and the biggest pioneer of metal and hard rock (though Black Sabbath deserves mention too).
 
They're not going to promote Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath while none of the voters actually listen to metal.

Blah blah blah bland corporate garbage accounts for 90% of the list. I'm starting to regret resurrecting this...
 
Back
Top