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Writer's Block: Like a rolling stone
Jun. 16th, 2010 10:02 am[Error: unknown template qotd]
Okay 2 decades means between 1990 and 2010 so (for me at least) this eliminates Michale Jackson since his great musical innovations came in the 80s. Ditto for Prince, spectacular though he was and still is, I think his greatest musical influence was in the 80s.
No surprise here, the first musicians I would cite would have to be Nirvana. They might not have been the best of the first generation grunge bands to break through, but they were the first. And probably the greatest breakthrough video since Billie Jean.
Next I would have to put Liz Phair. Pretty much any woman rocker, and not a few male ones, from the 90s forward cites her as one of their influences. Her lyrics were nasty and could make you feel like you were in the back seat with her. This has not been a great couple of decades for women in non-traditional genres of music. In music, women have always been sex bombs, tough girls, and sweet voiced folk singers. We had singer-songwriters, piano players and girl groups. Far fewer have ever hefted an axe and said, "Hell yeah, this is who I am, deal with it" (Sorta like you do,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
the_nibbler609).
That's what Liz Phair brought to the table and little girls everywhere are all the better for it.
I'm also going to throw Metallica into the mix. Yes, I know they'd been around since the 80s but they really broke through into the mainstream in the 90s. Hell, I've head my mother hum Enter Sandman (and no, I don't think she has any idea of the source of the tune).
The next two: Jay-Z and Snoop Dog. Up through the mid 90s rep music was either scary or empowering depending on your vantage point. The men who performed it put on the attitude of ruthless thugs and seemed to enjoy scaring and shocking the gentler elements of society. Then you had these two. Within a 15 years they created the image of "Rapper as Trumpesque business mogul" (I'm not putting Russell Simmons here because he was never a musician) and "Rapper as Genial Comic Relief" (Hey, that Snoop is okay, he plays golf with Lee Iaccoca). Don't know that this did much for their street cred but it certainly changed how the public perceives rap music.
I realized that yardstick for answering this has been who broke through and made a niche genre less niche. Liz Phair is an exception to this.
Okay 2 decades means between 1990 and 2010 so (for me at least) this eliminates Michale Jackson since his great musical innovations came in the 80s. Ditto for Prince, spectacular though he was and still is, I think his greatest musical influence was in the 80s.
No surprise here, the first musicians I would cite would have to be Nirvana. They might not have been the best of the first generation grunge bands to break through, but they were the first. And probably the greatest breakthrough video since Billie Jean.
Next I would have to put Liz Phair. Pretty much any woman rocker, and not a few male ones, from the 90s forward cites her as one of their influences. Her lyrics were nasty and could make you feel like you were in the back seat with her. This has not been a great couple of decades for women in non-traditional genres of music. In music, women have always been sex bombs, tough girls, and sweet voiced folk singers. We had singer-songwriters, piano players and girl groups. Far fewer have ever hefted an axe and said, "Hell yeah, this is who I am, deal with it" (Sorta like you do,
the_nibbler609). That's what Liz Phair brought to the table and little girls everywhere are all the better for it.
I'm also going to throw Metallica into the mix. Yes, I know they'd been around since the 80s but they really broke through into the mainstream in the 90s. Hell, I've head my mother hum Enter Sandman (and no, I don't think she has any idea of the source of the tune).
The next two: Jay-Z and Snoop Dog. Up through the mid 90s rep music was either scary or empowering depending on your vantage point. The men who performed it put on the attitude of ruthless thugs and seemed to enjoy scaring and shocking the gentler elements of society. Then you had these two. Within a 15 years they created the image of "Rapper as Trumpesque business mogul" (I'm not putting Russell Simmons here because he was never a musician) and "Rapper as Genial Comic Relief" (Hey, that Snoop is okay, he plays golf with Lee Iaccoca). Don't know that this did much for their street cred but it certainly changed how the public perceives rap music.
I realized that yardstick for answering this has been who broke through and made a niche genre less niche. Liz Phair is an exception to this.
