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44 Talking Heads
Fear of Music (1979)
...
Without this ... Paul Simon's Graceland might never have been made.
LH
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Don't get me wrong, I love this album and it deserves to be on the list, but WTF is up with the
Graceland reference? Later Talking Heads albums would have more of a world music angle but "I Zimbra" is the only song on this album with any kind of world flavor at all. I'd say this album was a much bigger influence on new wave and postpunk as well as more modern bands like Radiohead and Modest Mouse than it ever was on Paul Simon.
And speaking of people who brought world music to mainstream American and European ears, why is there nothing by Taj Mahal on this list?
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26 Stevie Wonder
Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
This influenced virtually every modern soul and R&B singer, brimming with timeless classics like 'Isn't She Lovely', 'As' and 'Sir Duke'. The 21-tracker encompassed a vast range of life's issues - emotional, social, spiritual and environmental - all performed with bravado and a lightness of touch. No other R&B artist has sung about the quandaries of human existence with quite the same grace.
Without this ... no Alicia Keys, no John Legend - contemporary R&B would be empty and lifeless.
EJS
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I don't know, I think
Talking Book a much better album personally, and it's a couple years older. Based on the way it sounds compared to
Songs in the Key of Life, I'd also say it's musically more influential as well.
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The Spice Girls
Spice (1996)
The music business has been cynically creating and marketing acts since the days of the wax cylinder, but on nothing like the scale of the Spice phenomenon, which was applied to crisps, soft drinks, you name it. Musically, the Spice's Motown-lite was unoriginal, but 'Girl Power', despite being a male invention, touched a nerve and defined a generation of tweenies who took it to heart.
Without this ... five-year-olds would not have become a prime target for pop marketeers. Most of all, there'd be no Posh'n'Becks.
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Oh whatever. The Spice Girls are far from the biggest or most influential manufactured pop band or the biggest or most influential girl band. Any number of bands belong in this slot over the Spices Girls.