The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time
VH1 has quite presumptuously compiled a list of the 100 greatest (musical) artists of all time and has a series of shows announcing who they are. Â Supposedly, the list was compiled by surveying over 200 musicians from all over the musical spectrum and tabulating their answers. Â The shows are somewhat interesting, partly because of the ridiculous nature of the task that VH1 has undertaken with such blase unconcern, but partly because of the people they interview to explain their choices. Â You get Alexa Ray Joel talking about her dad, Chili from TLC talking about Jay-Z, Ted Nugent talking about Metallica, Scott Ian from Anthrax talking about ABBA. Â It’s kinda surreal. Â Lists like this are total crap, for the most part, and this one is no exception (Talking Heads and The Doors at 64 and 65???). Â But it’s hard to argue with their top five:
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Michael Jackson
Led Zeppelin
Rolling Stones
You can see the whole list here. Â Let me know what outrages you most.
Posted on September 8, 2010, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 56 Comments.
Steve Evans
RJH
Scott B.
John C.
Susan M
Aaron Brown
ninemoons
arandomjohn
kulturblogadmin
Kyle M
Brad
KulturBlogGuest
MCQ
Wm
Rebecca
Ivan
Geoff J
btdgreg
Clark Goble
Aaron R.
Tim J
Now that you mention it, there is one rating that outrages me. Cream at #61? This completely ignores what Eric Clapton did after he left Cream. Some of his best music was produced after he left Cream. They should substitute Eric Clapton for Cream, and rate him in the top 30, at least.
I also agree that the Doors deserved a better ranking, possibly in the top 30 as well. Jim Morrison was a musical genius; he could do a wide variety of styles.
Tom Petty should be higher up on the list as well.
Beyonce is higher than Little Richard. Hahahahahahahaha.
Nirvana made the top 20? Come on.
Rage Against the Machine at 48 and VAN MORRISON at 73? That’s just ridiculous.
Depeche Mode? Or heck, even, The Cure? And Coldplay? And U2, Nirvana, The Police, Rage, Green Day, etc.
And yet no The Smiths or Joy Division.
At least a group Clapton was in got a mention. Steve Winwood gets nada, either as a solo artist or as a member of Traffic.
And how did Cheap Trick get on the list? (And I’m not a hater.)
of all time? What about Handel? Ella Fitzgerald? Lame.
We should do our own list.
No mention whatsoever of Grateful Dead. But at least they found room for N.W.A. {eyeroll}
Also, not a single nod to any of the behind-the-scenes artists: the engineers, mixers, etc.
NWA were actually pretty important in the hip hop world.
I think their problem was in trying to cover all genres. Or wait, they left out country, didn’t they?
But this is what VH1 DOES! I find it funny they even call themselves a music channel anymore when all they do is pop culture nostalgia.
Anyway, this reminds me of a comment made on an article over on Cracked.com about one thing America does well (specifically talking about the History Channel’s series America: The Story of Us) and that is confuse celebrity with expertise.
They really shouldn’t include recent acts like Jay-Z and Outkast in a list of “all time”. I like them, but there are SO many others I would include ahead of them.
Susan: only one country singer: Johnny Cash at #35. Elvis (sometimes country) should be higher than Prince.
Can’t believe they left off the Eagles.
Justin Timberlake? Seriously?
And WTH is this: Parliament-Funkadelic – only one I didn’t at least recognize.
Paliament Funkadelic is George Clinton’s band. Definitely deserves recognition, but not as high as 49, especially considering who they left off.
I’m not sure why, but I think Whitney Houston at 60 makes me the craziest. She had a great voice, and had a couple of hits, but 60th of all time???
They just way overstepped in calling this list the greatest of all time.
New list: 100 Greatest VH1 Lists of All Time.
Sweet! I love these shows. They are so cheesy…
Elvis not being in the top 5 reflects a pretty bad bias IMO. That’s not to knock Dylan. But come on.
What’s the most atrocious is putting Prince above Elvis.
There’s a definite bias towards the 70′s in the list. Don’t get me wrong. That was a fantastic decade. But the early 60′s and 50′s is just not accorded the respect it deserves. (Although they did at least put the Beach Boys in at 15)
Van Morrison / Them at 73 is just ridiculous as well. And Justin Timberlake thrown in at 66 seems done purely to have a few people from the last decade. Even though he pales compared to most of the other names on the list and highlights was a dreadful 15 years it has been. I cringed more than a little that KISS was on the list at all.
No Supremes in the list either. And I like Coldplay but do they honestly deserve to be on the list? OK, more than Timberlake but still. Once again I feel like they had to put some recent acts in but were struggling.
Coldplay should be nowhere near this list. There’s no way they have proven themselves worthy of being in the top 100 of all time.
They really need to qualify this list as “Pop/Rock artists”.
Otherwise where are Mozart, Bach, Beethoven etc? Not to mention Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, etc.
It’s well-established that Mozart and Beethoven were just copying Bob Dylan anyway.
And Bach was a hack.
FHL – you know Parliament and just don’t realize it.
I’m still thinking we should do our own list. If I had time to mess with it…
In general VH1 exists purely to let quasi-celebrities whose 15 minutes of fame ran out a decade earlier and 3rd rate comedians have something to do while pontificating on pop trends people unable to leave the house watch to feel like they were in their early 20′s again.
They used to have some good shows like Behind the Music and then some actual analysis of classic albums and the like. They still get repeated on and off. But more and more it’s been ridiculously cheap reality TV fare. Rumor has it that MTV will be changing their name next year since all they are now is reality TV and cheap game shows targeting teens and twentysomethings who don’t have much of a social life. (i.e. are oversexed but can’t do much about it other than watch MTV)
It’s not that surprising since everyone who watches music videos does it with YouTube now. MTV and VH1 are kind of pointless in their classic sense. You have to reinvent yourself on the basis of what sells. And making bad lists of “top X” so that people get inflamed and discuss it is a good way of staying quasi-relevant and at least generating page hits for their flash ads. (And maybe actually driving someone to watch VH1 again)
There are new episodes of Behind the Music being aired. I don’t know that I’d call it a good show, though. I mean, compared to real documentary work.
I think they occasionally have an Unplugged on, too.
My favorite VH1 show used to be Bands Reunited. what happened to that? It was so great to see those musicians from the bands that you loved long ago get ambushed and talked into reuniting for a one-off performance. I can’t figure out why they don’t do that stuff anymore. Did Frankie GTH sue them for trespassing?
Bands Reunited was AWESOME. I loved the ABC one…
Yeah that was a really great show. Dunno why it wasn’t continued.
That’s interesting Susan. I didn’t know they were doing new Unplugged. Behind the Music is a bit formulaic and yeah, I’d not call it fantastic documentary film making. But at least it was informative and interesting.
Bands Reunited was fantastic. The Frankie Goes to Hollywood was great but the best was the one with Flock of Seagulls (which I hadn’t know was two brothers) was best. They hadn’t spoken since the band broke up. Seeing the mom’s face when they got back together really was touching.
Dang, I never saw the Flock of Seagulls episode. It was funny how almost all the bands had some personal issues that caused them to split up, and getting them back together helped heal those wounds.
Oh wait, it’s not Unplugged they’ve been doing–it’s Storytellers. I have my DVR set up to record any new Behind the Music or Storytellers episodes, and there’s been at least two Storytellers…just can’t remember who they were.
For those who like band reunion shows, you might be interested in Do It Again:
Huh. I guess the Information Society guy, Kurt Larson, had a really bad experience when they tried to get his band back together.
I remember watching that show that I got the feeling that a lot of the bands were less than thrilled when Aamer Haleem showed up on their doorstep. From what Kurt Larson says, it seems like the problem came down to money. He was offended that VH1 would interrupt his current livelihood to film their show. VH1 was making money on the show (presumably) but they didn’t give any of that money to the band members who agreed to come together and perform. Hm.
He may have a point, but it was still a fun show, and seems to me that it actually deserves some credit for getting bands back together that might otherwise never have done so.
My favorite episode was Kajagoogoo. For some reason, that was really fun to watch.
Frankie GTH was funny because the lead singer was such a diva. They never did perform.
I didn’t see the FGTH episode either. Kajagoogoo was a really good episode. And I loved seeing the Alarm–man I love that band.
Also good was the Motels.
MCQ, that’s kind of silly. They’d get money in increased royalties for old hits due to folks running to iTunes. They’d get money if they toured. They should look at it as a way to relive the old times.
I agree. I thought Larson was being a bit of a whiner. But at the same time, I understand his position. He was saying that VH1 was pitching this as being all about the music and getting the band getting back together for the fans, but it was really all about filling programming time and getting ad revenue. He saw it as the band making money for VH1 by getting back together at their request. He wondered why they should do that when the band could do the same thing on their own time and their own schedule and make just as much money. He was ignoring the opportunity to be on national TV, of course. Isn’t that worth something?
I think that part of the problem was that he had made a decision about 8 years earlier to never watch TV again, so he didn’t own a TV and had never seen VH1 or Bands Reunited. He had an anti-TV bias that prevented him from seeing the potential of the show. Sad, really.
Just to clarify, silly for the bad. Not you.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that Cream is amazing and as pop/rock stands the test of time. Eric Clapton is immensely talented but I can listen to Cream more frequently than his solo stuff.
Looking at the list, several concerns:
1. Sade at 50? More like 500.
2. Elvis should be #6, sorry Jimi, you’ll have to settle for 7.
3. I agree with the outrage directed at Prince. Top 20, but not top 10.
4. Nirvana right next door to The Who? Seriously?
5. Sade at 50?
6. The Police at 40?
Ok, let’s do our own list.
The first question is what to call it. Greatest Artists of All Time is hopeless. How about Greatest Pop/Rock Artists of All Time? Since we’re probably not going to include country or hip-hop even if we want to, we shouldn’t pretend like we are.
Nominations are now open.
I thought about doing our own list all day yesterday but when I started trying to think of what bands to include my brain started tying in knots and I realized that ranking artists is kind of stupid!
You at least have to have some kind of criteria. Longevity? Influence? Originality? What else?
Ranking artists is stupid, but fun!
As for criteria, I think it should be the whole package. Part of what irritates me about the VH1 list is that people like Whitney Houston get included on the strength of a great voice. But that alone should not get you on the list. You should be strong in at least a few important categories.
The most important category in my mind is influence. In other words, how many other artists used your music as a starting point or followed in your footsteps? Then originality. Who changed the landscape? Who created a new sound all their own? I’m not sure Longevity is all that important, but it has some applicability. Another criteria could be simple popularity. It’s not fashionable to say so, but popularity means that you struck a chord with a lot of people. Motivating a lot of people to part with their hard-earned dough and buy your record means you are doing something right, especially if you are able to do that many times.
Any other criteria to include or some to dis-include?
I agree Susan. You need some sort of criteria and then a formula for that criteria. So you start with a list like this one. Then you have everyone judge the bands on a scale of 1-10 for each of the criteria. Then you average the score for each area. Then you apply the agreed upon formula for combining the criteria and finally rank.
Otherwise you just have everyone submitting the bands they are most familiar with or like.
I can see popularity as a weigh-in factor, but it’s not necessary. Look at someone like Nick Drake. His influence and impact are huge. But he was never popular while he was alive.
Are were doing nominations and then voting? How will you calculate the votes?
Oh didn’t see Clark’s comment. That looks complicated but fair.
Not to make it more complicated, but I think you’d also need to weight the criteria.
Yeah I agree.
PriceWaterhouse has now been retained to calculate the weighted votes. Please submit your share of their $10,000 fee to me.
The problem with PriceWatherhouse is that half of that 10-grand goes to pay for the fancy envelope.
I think the most basic criteria for a song would be whether I stop to listen to it every time I hear it on the radio.
Sadly, that would probably make John Mellencamp very high on my list.
I am so ashamed.
Yeah but this list isn’t for songs, it’s artists.
We should do a “most underrated artist” list. Mellencamp would definitely be on the list for me.
One list at a time Clark.
Ok, so we’ll call it the 100 Greatest Pop/Rock Artists, and we’ll exclude country and hip-hop right off the bat cause we’re just like that.
We’ll start with the nominees below. Put them in the order you want, add subtract or multiply any artists you want, and give us your list.
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Michael Jackson
ZZ Top
Led Zeppelin
Yes
Boston
Rolling Stones
Crosby Stills & Nash
Jimi Hendrix
Prince
The Eagles
Elvis Presley
Oasis
James Brown
Stevie Wonder
Bob Marley
UB40
David Bowie
Muse
The Who
Nirvana
The Beach Boys
Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon
Spinal Tap
Madonna
Queen
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Pink Floyd
U2
Marvin Gaye
Kings of Leon
Bruce Springsteen
The Clash
ELO
AC/DC
The Velvet Underground
Blur
Chuck Berry
Neil Young
Smashing Pumpkins
Aretha Franklin
Kansas
Elton John
Radiohead
Aerosmith
Foo Fighters
The Cranberries
John Lennon
Black Sabbath
Guns N’ Roses
Sonic Death Monkey
Tina Turner
Johnny Cash
Paul McCartney
Bon Jovi
Fleetwood Mac
Sly & The Family Stone
The Kinks
The Police
Van Halen
Metallica
Ray Charles
Interpol
Joni Mitchell
Iron Maiden
Al Green
Ramones
Rage Against the Machine
Parliament-Funkadelic
Sade
Billy Joel
Beyonce
Little Richard
The White Stripes
Peter Gabriel
KISS
Iggy Pop
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Cream
Eric Clapton
Train
Genesis
Foreigner
Talking Heads
The Doors
Otis Redding
Def Leppard
R.E.M.
Janis Joplin
Van Morrison
The Cure
Rush
Lynyrd Skynyrd
James Taylor
Judas Priest
Mary J. Blige
ABBA
Steely Dan
Barry Jive and the Uptown Five
Earth Wind and Fire
Curtis Mayfield
The Band
George Michael
The Cars
The Bee Gees
Elvis Costello
Kenny Loggins
Green Day
Blink 182
John Mellencamp
Pearl Jam
REO Speedwagon
Carole King
Journey
Matchbox 20
Styx
Pretenders
Stillwater
Depeche Mode
Pet Shop Boys
No Doubt
Steppenwolf
Joy Division
Hall & Oates
Foghat
The Smiths
Alicia Keys
Prince should be ranked above Elvis. Prince is the greatest living musician today. Prince has had a longer career, released more music, and has accomplished more than Elvis.
PEARL JAM BEHINT JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE REALLY!!!
The King is always greater than any Prince.
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