Jester

Uhm, Frank Zappa.

mr dave

uhm, how?

prolific - absolutely, i just don't see where his influence is.


and to the person who posted before you. how can you say Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve sounds like the Beatles when they had to pay ALL the royalties from that song to the Rolling Stones because it was a clear ripoff of one of their songs?

__________________
i am the universe

byrdsdylan65

Well who knows who invented genres not that it matters because it's very arguable the Beatles were at the start of folk rock and psychedelic rock. The Byrds got the idea of both folk with rock and the 12 string jangle pop sound from the Beatles. It was already noticed by other folkies also.

BARRY McGUIRE

What were the key motivations behind your switch from the commercial folk you were doing with the New Christy Minstrels to folk-rock?

"But times changed, and I changed, and I didn't feel that way anymore. The Beatles were happening. I think that was probably the main thing. The Beatles just changed the whole world of music".

As for psychedelic rock if you listen to take 2 of "Norwegian Wood" you could hear clearly they were heading into psychedelic rock. As it is you can argue that songs like "Eight Miles High", "Shapes of Things" are rock songs with eastern influences. "Tomorrow Never Knows" was intentionally meant to sound psychedelic and it was also extremely progressive for it's time.

Maybe the most influential thing they did for rock music was broadened the scope of songwriting and the increase use of studio resources.

In the book Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles and it has an interesting quote from Pete Townshend of the Who. Pete says the Beatles brought songwriting into rock and roll. What he meant was the Beatles brought a complete arsenal of recourses into their songwriting and this broadened what a pop song can do.

Also having over 10,000 cover versions of their songs sort of blows away most self-contained rock bands. Oh by the way also they clearly influenced progressive rock, basically invented power pop and "Tomorrow Never Knows" is one of the most influential electronic songs. Basically every self-contained rock band owes something to the Beatles as it was really them that made the solo/frontman/artist/magager not as important as it was in the 50's.

guerillabedlam

I chose The Beatles. In their short tenure they had Bubblegum pop, rock, folk, psychedelia, and even attempted some other generes in various songs.

So often when im listening to other music not even related to rock do i hear The Beatles.

All i have heard from Badfinger sounds like a bad attempt at Beatles 2.0.

I've heard the Beatles in Nirvana (about a girl), Chemical Brothers (Private Psychedelic Reel), MGMT(Weekend Wars), Oasis (Don't look Back), Klaxons (Golden Skans), The Verve (Bittersweet Symphony).

Those are just a few examples and there influence is far reaching to other bands on this list and heavily throughout the 70's and 80's

Jester

The way he interjected humor into his work and exercised (arguably) more genres than any other composer, the fact that he was a huge figure in fighting censorship, and if Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band can be considered a concept album, then Freak Out! is the first concept album. He wrote hooky, funny pop songs to crazy, fucked up avant-garde jazz/rock, and has some odd, odd lyrics. He was an excellent satirist, and he was probably the most prolific record maker of his time. Maybe. His ideas are DNA for all sorts of stuff.

In short, he broke down a lot of genre barriers, wrote some of the best records, was an excellent satirist, and stood for freedom of speech more than anyone else.

FadedMyxomatosis

How can 1 band change history too much? I like Led Zeppelin alot but can't call them the most influential rock group ever. Same with The Who. They influenced many bands which led to an overall influence in rock. But hey, you can't call 1, 2 even 5 bands the most influential. Music evolved, these bands helped it evolve. See. They all had their own sounds. Led Zeppelin sounded nothing like The Who... Hendrix nothing like Bob Dylan... you just can't compare.

mr dave

right. that's what makes him prolific. you're also right that the Beatles were around first (VU was the same time).

but what makes someone influential is how the future follows in their footsteps. while it's becoming very popular to name drop Zappa, there still aren't that many groups that draw a clear influence from him. especially not compared to a group like Led Zeppelin or the Who (which just about every other rock band you hear today still owes a major debt to).

drawing influence is not a matter of comparing the band to their contemporaries but comparing them to what came after them. in which case it's folly to deny LZ, at least up until the point when screaming like you had a downstairs zipper accident became the vocal style of choice. speaking of which, who deserves the credit for that influence on the masses? Chino from the Deftones or was there someone doing that style before him?

__________________
i am the universe

Jester

I meant come before him in a sense of influence, not chronologically. I know the chronology.

Yeah, I understand that there is not much direct influence in rock bands from Zappa - that's why I withdrew his name and replaced it with Velvet Underground or The Beatles.

But, still, in the defense of my first (and probably wrong) claim, people can take indirect influence from artists. It's not all about copying their sounds.

The reason I took back Zappa's name is because he has a style that's not very easy to copy or take from, but the reason I originally put his name there is because he had a lot of good ideas that are still used today.

However, Velvet Underground recreated all kinds of genres, and The Beatles set the stage for pop music that followed.

Jester

The point that you can't compare is kind of relevant to the point.

No, there's no definitive one-man-show when it comes to influence, but that doesn't mean it's not fun to compare top artists for influence. I see where you're coming from, but don't make it less fun, homie.

Jester

Actually, maybe not Frank Zappa. The Beatles and The Velvet Underground probably come before him.