10 most important figures in 20th century music

Elvis's taste in music was amazingly wide and eclectic. He loved everything from opera (Mario Lanza) to Hank Williams Sr., and Dean Martin to Nat King Cole). His influence on current and very young members of the pop culture are still pretty dramatic to this day. Everyone from Millie Bobby Brown to Dua Lipa have been to Graceland recently, and a ton of current country music artists today count him as a major influence on them as singers or entertainers. Oh yeah, some pretty big director is making a motion picture about his life (Baz Luhrhmann).

 

I think his 'influence' was intense for a short period, relatively speaking. I mean, he died 44 years ago and any real influence he had in the 50s/possibly 60s had all but disappeared before he even died.

And I don't feel that being a conduit, a gateway, makes him the influential one. YMMV, I fully appreciate that.

 

Igor Stravinsky
Erik Satie
Steve Reich
Miles Davis
The Beatles
Bob Dylan
Joni Mitchell
David Bowie
Captain Beefheart
Chuck Berry

 

Fine, I guess I'm not up on that necessarily, but I do not hear it in their music particularly, which is what I took from the thread title.

I don't have a beef with/about Elvis, by the way. There's plenty of decent stuff in there, but when I think of the lasting influence of Elvis, the actual music is pretty low down the list. That's just me, which is why I posted as I did. I guess if we extended to 20, he still wouldn't be on my list....

 

to clear up any past ambiguity/confusion,

my definitive list for the thread :

dans aucun ordre particulier ..

Billie Holiday
Duke Ellington
George Gershwin
Charlie Parker
Munir Bashir
Claude Debussy
Igor Stravinsky
Pierre Boulez
Maurice Ravel
Cole Porter

 

Fair enough, my friend. We all have our own musical biasses and we also have some blinders on at times. I pretty much ignored the significance of The Beatles music for a very long time. I was stuck in my Elvis and country music genre period. I always liked a lot of The Beatles songs, but somehow I saw them as some sort of competition to Elvis when I was younger, and I was always more into vocalists than bands for many years. I now have The Beatles stereo album box set and I love it.

 

Tall order. Big world, vast panorama that I have only viewed through a pinhole. Through my glass, darkly :

Scott Joplin

Florence Mills

Maria Callas

Anton Webern

Igor Stravinsky

John Coltrane

Ravi Shankar

Fayrouz

Jimi Hendrix

Wendy O. Williams

 

Louis Armstrong
Frank Sinatra
Chuck Berry
Elvis Presley
Patsy Cline
James Brown
Leonard Cohen
The Orb
Underworld
Lana Del Rey
Bonus: The Beatles, Joy Division, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen

 

Robert Johnson
Frank Sinatra
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
The Carter Family
Hank Williams
The Beatles
Jimi Hendrix
Bob Dylan
Eddie Van Halen

I'm not really versed in jazz or classical so I know I'm omitting some influential people.

 

Choosing rock/pop music as the only genre I would be able to comment on. I realise there’s plenty of pioneers I’ve skipped over (you don’t get X without Y), but these have had a seismic impact on rock/pop music I think:

Muddy Waters
Chuck Berry
Elvis Presley
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
David Bowie
Madonna
Michael Jackson
Kate Bush

 

This 100%.

 

Lots of great lists. One person I haven't seen mentioned that I would seriously consider, Leroy Anderson, in particular his contributions of instrumental special effects.

 

Shostakovich
Gustav Holst
George Gershwin
Louis Armstrong
Bing Crosby
Miles Davis
Frank Sinatra
Billie Holiday
The Beatles
Bob Dylan

 

^^^THIS
Anybody that denies his influence on those icons to come and does not honestly put him in the ten most influential is, as Andy Dufresne said, being "obtuse".

 

As an alternative to the likes of crooners such as Bing Crosby, he was quite significant: Elvis broadened the definition of singing, pop and otherwise, to a broad audience.

 

Carter Family
Robert Johnson
Louis Jordan
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
Bob Dylan
Beatles
Frank Zappa
Muddy Waters
Hank Williams

 

Abba: the model for a lot of teen pop to come.
Bob Marley: the model for world music to come.

 

From a commercial standpoint I more or less agree with the popular choices: Elvis, Dylan, The Beatles, Miles Davis, Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Madonna, Chuck Berry, Kurt Cobain, The Rolling Stones. Less overt choices might include The Stooges, Grace Slick, Django Reinhardt, Burt Bacharach, Serge Gainsbourg, Maurice Ravel, The Sex Pistols or Charles Calello.
.

 

Stravinsky
Webern
Schoenberg
Ives
Cage
Stockhausen
Varese
Copland
Xenakis
Cowell

 

Louis Armstrong
George & Ira Gershwin
Billie Holiday
Richard Strauss
Gustav Mahler
Frank Sinatra
Elvis Presley
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
Joni Mitchell
Michael Jackson
Nile Rodgers

12 is a better number....

 

If you don't include Igor Stravinsky, just forget it. Never post again claiming to know a lick about music.

 

John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Bing Crosby
Elvis Presley
Buddy Holly
Frank Sinatra
Bob Dylan
Jimi Hendrix
Kate Bush
Dean Martin
Hank Williams
Doc Watson ...started them all!
Gordon Lightfoot
so I added a few...I left out more.

 

Chuck Berry
Robert Johnson
Miles Davis
The Beatles
Little Richard
Bob Dylan
Prince
Joni Mitchell
Aretha Franklin
Grateful Dead

 

Robert Johnson