10 most important figures in 20th century music

Well to appreciate the change Crosby wrought you have to go back and listen to a singer like Billy Murray singing You're a Grand Old Flag and then listen to Crosby's race ahead/ drag behind phrasing in 1931 on "Out of Nowhere" and the way he goes from a whisper to a swell (the way he whispers into the last verse) and the intense personal emotionality of the performance. Or his 36 recording of Pennies From Heaven. It's the difference between brashly and impersonally belting out a vaudeville tune, and whispering a personal emotional expression into a listener's ear. You won't hear the profound difference it is by just listening to an album of Crosby because no one sings like Billy Murray or Al Jolson anymore and the Crosby approach is too familiar and underpins almost everything we've become familiar with. And you have to go back to Crosby in the '30s, not album era stuff.

 

Very well put.
Just to preface with, I have way less than any layman's knowledge of Bing's style, career, etc, etc,. But this description lines up with some of things I have read about the quick progression of modern pop music, pre -WWII.

 

...and The Four Freshmen.

 

Even though he lived and worked in the USA for 32 years?

 

I would maybe drop Miles Davis in favor of just Charlie Parker or Louis Armstrong. Also, if you give Black Sabbath the credit of starting metal they should be on here. That is a very large and diverse genre in it's its own right with nothing to represent it that I have seen so far.

 

Great question. Virtually impossible due to the limit of ten, but here goes:

Louis Armstrong
Frank Sinatra
Miles Davis
Elvis Presley
James Brown
Smokey Robinson
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
Giorgio Moroder
Prince

Given that we’re a fifth of the way through this century I’ll add two for the 21st:

Eminem
Kanye West

I reluctantly didn’t include:
Bessie Smith
Bing Crosby
Jimmie Rodgers
Bob Wills
Jacques Brel
Lou Reed
George Clinton
Joni Mitchell
David Bowie
Radiohead

 

On Debussy:
You seriously think La Mer, Images, Children's Corner, the Sonatas, Pelléas et Mélisande, Estampes, L'isle joyeuse, The Préludes, The Études, etc. etc. aren't important?! An interesting opinion.

Also strange that you think my listing of Webern, a magnificent composer, implies that I think he "is important as Schoenberg." That doesn't follow, I'm afraid.

 

This is an extremely difficult question. My take assumes that musicians/composers are the most important contributors since without musicians/composers, there is no music (even without recordings, music still was performed and listened to).

Igor Stravinsky (anyone who writes a ballet score that incites a riot is doing something right)
Arnold Schoenberg (the Second Viennese School was perhaps the most significant movement in 20th Century classical)
Woody Guthrie (brought a voice to remote, hard-living folks and inspired someone down my list a bit)
Charlie Parker (not a personal favorite, but how many horn players tried to play like Bird in the '40s-'60s and beyond?)
Thelonius Monk (countless covers and tribute albums in the jazz community; still very relevant today)
Miles Davis (Birth of the Cool; two great quintets; fusion; he's Miles, so he's on the list)
John Coltrane (the man who couldn't remember to take the horn out of his mouth (a reference to Miles, above); one of the most intrepid performers in any genre ever)
Bob Dylan (someone who I refused to get into for a long time until one day when a cinder block fell on my head. Duh; an enigmatic wordsmith who lies every time he opens his mouth unless he's singing. Then you get truth. You don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows)
John Lennon and Paul McCartney (In 1965, the Beatles were trying to sound more like Dylan and Dylan was trying to sound more like the Beatles, so all three belong here)

 

I agree with including Bing Crosby.

Bing blurred the lines a bit before Elvis broke through. His style of crooning was very appealing and quite a few artists (Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como etc.) have tried to follow in those footsteps. The artist that delivered “White Christmas” also plenty of great songs, many from films in which he starred in (“Pennies From Heaven”).

 

Bing and Frank were both close to being on my list. For what it's worth, Bing's first concept albums predated Frank's first concept albums by a decade or so.

Bing:

1939 - Music of Hawaii, Victor Herbert Melodies, Vol. 1 and 2, Patriotic Songs for Children, Cowboy Songs, George Gershwin Songs, Vol. 1

1940 - Ballad for Americans, Favorite Hawaiian Songs, Christmas Music

1941 - Hawaii Calls

1942 - Under Western Skies

1945 - Merry Christmas, Don't Fence Me In, Stephen Foster, What We So Proudly Hail, Favorite Hawaiian Songs, Vol. One and Two, Jerome Kern

1947 - St. Patrick's Day, Victor Herbert, Cowboy Songs, Vol. One, Our Common Heritage, El Bingo - Latin American Favorites

Frank:

1948 - Christmas Songs by Sinatra
1949 - Frankly Sentimental
1950 - Dedicated to You, Swing and Dance with Frank Sinatra
1954 - Songs for Young Lovers, Swing Easy!
1955 - In the Wee Small Hours
1956 - Songs for Swingin' Lovers!

Bing's albums weren't usually very sophisticated concepts, but neither were young Frank's. It's hard to compare two singers as album artists who were either at their peak during the 78 or lp eras. I can't say which one was better or more influential or innovative. I'm just glad I remembered I forgot the Carter Family and didn't have to decide.

 

Thanks for the catch. I had a momentary time-line brain glitch and forgot about how far into the 20th century Debussy composed his best stuff. A very good argument could be made that Debussy goes on the list.

What I meant about Webern and Schoenberg is that, on a list with only ten spots, I can't justify both of these composers because of how similar they are in many respects, and so I would argue to leave off Webern because I believe Schoenberg is the more important of the two. Apologies for not being more clear.

 

Steve Hoffman has mastered at least a couple of Bing comps IINM -- that would be a good way to get an overview.

Make sure you also get (if they're not on a comp or two that you get) the songs "White Christmas," "Christmas in Killarney" and some of his other Christmas songs.

 

Yes, I'm no expert or huge fan, but Bing was my first pick. As far as I understand it he was the first person who needed to sing with a microphone because he played in the biggest venues due to his popularity.

 

Could you suggest one and link to it on either Spotify or YouTube? Is The Essential Bing Crosby a good starting point? I know "White Christmas", and to be honest I find Bing's voice to be warm and pleasant but rather bland. I also recall as a child watching the Road films, and almost dreading the parts where Bing would start singing as he was so boring - there was no swing, as with Sinatra. And, of course, there's the duet with Bowie, where Bowie sings rings around Bing, pushing him into a position where he appears to become a backing singer. There is something of a hill to climb for me to see Bing Crosby as something more than a middle of the road popular singer. And, for me, when Bing sings a Sinatra song he flattens it, as with "Witchcraft": Bing - Sinatra. I know that Sinatra took complete control of the song he was singing and would direct the musicians, so becoming more than a singer, he was an auteur - which led to him creating fully realised albums, rather than simple collections of songs. From his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra (1946), he was interested in putting together songs that formed a unity or concept. Did Bing do this? From the little I know of him, he appears to me to just be a jobbing singer rather than someone who had the ambition and drive to create albums such as In The Wee Small Hours (1955) and Songs For Swingin' Lovers (1956). I think we had to wait until The Beatles and The Beach Boys before we got another artist who would have the ambition and ability to create such unified and perfectly crafted albums.

 

Louis Armstrong
Duke Ellington
Jimmie Rogers
Bing Crosby
Cole Porter (or perhaps Richard Rogers)
Frank Sinatra
Charle Parker
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
The Beatles
Bob Dylan

...I know, too many

 

Nat King Cole was also popular, and had an intimate and warm voice. I would take Cole over Crosby from what I'm aware of both of them at the moment, but I'll admit that I don't know that much about Crosby, and am wanting to learn more given the number of people here who are saying he was significant. I've tried The Essential Bing Crosby, but that hasn't worked for me. If someone could direct me to a decent album, and perhaps give me guidance on how to listen, I'd appreciate that.

 

Some great choices there.

 

This is the way pop music was sung before Crosby. It was brassy, belted out so that it could be heard in the back of a theater. The rhythm and phrasing was straight and stiff, entirely squared off and on top of the beat with even, almost martial note duration, and with kind of a generic quality to the reading of the lyric:




Then Crosby came along in the late '20s and early '30s, and in part borrowing from jazz singers like Armstrong reimagined the phrasing of pop singing as not being four square right on top of the beat with very event and square note durations but racing ahead of or dragging behind the beat, adding a little filigree at the end of a line, singing quietly and conversationally not with brassy projection, reading the lyric no like it's something generic but personal. It was a revolution in popular song style that became the only way popular songs are sung. Sinatra was a great singer and a great stylist. Personally I like his music better than I like Crosby's. But he didn't change the way all pop music was sung the way Crosby and Armstrong (and the third I'd put in that group is Holiday) did. Without Crosby there is no Sinatra, or pop singing as we came to know it in the 20th century. Pop singers would still be singing in the old school style that someone like maybe Ethel Merman kept alive. Crosby and Armstrong and Holiday weren't necessarily the only singers making these changes. But Crosby was by far the biggest and most popular and the guy who cemented the new style in place.

Since I can't put two pieces of media in the same post, I'll post some conversational, stretched phrasing, lyric reading Crosby in the next post or posts. But I suggest you read up on the impact and influence of Crosby in the '20s and '30s and then into the war years. Sinatra is a great artist. But his inpact and influence on 20th century singing isn't the same as Crosby's. But like a lot of revolutionary things that become commonplace, it's hard to understand and see the revolution after the fact, you have to be able to go back to the pre-revolutionary mindset and imagine what that was like. Like trying to imaging how humankind thought about thoughts and feelings before Freud.

And don't get so hung up on albums and a measure of music. Albums aren't music. Making a concept or thematically unified album isn't exactly an important revolutionary change in music. People were writing thematically unified music for stage shows or operas or suites of songs or whatever for a couple of hundred years before albums. And people were making unified thematic albums right from the birth of the album. Recordings are kind of a lagging indicator when it comes to revolutions in music, and that was especially true for most of the 20th century -- it's first 60 years or so in particular. To be able to understand 20th century music too you have to put yourself back into a mindset where albums and records aren't really the measure of music.

And then on top of all that Crosby invested in the Ampex tape company, helped bring magnetic tape and condenser mic technology to the US (in fact he gave an Ampex tape machine to Les Paul which got Paul started on the path to multitrack recording). His impact on music in the 20th century is enormous.

 

I guess this list is just for pop / rock music..

 

Crosby in '31:

 

I was expecting more people to suggest The Byrds.

I've long had a problem with the importance given to The Byrds. For me they took ideas from Bob Dylan and The Beatles, but didn't hugely develop them. There are claims that they initiated psychedelic music, but I can't see that, as they just seemed to be part of a trend at the time, and psychedelic music would have happened anyway as it was already happening around them. The jangle sound of 12 string guitars came from The Searchers via The Beatles, so even if McGuinn had not plucked his 12 string Rickenbacker, bands like The Smiths and R.E.M. would still have formed and played their Beatlesque jangle. Same with folk rock and country rock - this was simply copying what The Beatles were doing. Folk rock, country rock, psychedelic music, and jangle rock would all have happened without The Byrds.

I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise, as I recognise the appreciation that The Byrds get, and I suspect that I must be missing something.

 

Duke Ellington
Charlie Parker
Frank Sinatra
Bill Monroe
Hank Williams
Chuck Berry
B.B. King
Ray Charles
Miles Davis
Bob Dylan

i'm just sticking to styles of music i'm familiar with.No doubt there should be some from other styles to,such as classical.

 

Nope it's for all music including soul and funk and classical and jazz. In compiling my Top Ten I left out a number of significant figures that I was aware of, and also some that I forgot, and some that I hadn't considered. The idea is to get a discussion going. Selecting a Top Ten is a challenge but it's also fun. While there is some benefit from someone doing a vague tut tutting in the sidelines, it's really more interesting and fun to be bold and step into the discussion and offer some suggestions, or even challenge specific choices.

 

Well I have a special love of Webern, and you have to admit that an almost mystical cult formed around his music after the war. He was seen as the purest and most rigorous expression of Schoenberg's 12-tone insight.

The diamond-like concentration and concision of his work, e.g. his symphony op.21 coming in at under ten minutes long, says something immensely potent to me about the power of modernism, its reason for existing. And he was tremendously influential to subsequent composers as a model of artistic purity and austerity. I could never leave him off my list.

 

I like that. Quite strong.

Can I offer in riposte Trixie Smith from the early 1920's: Volume One. Particularly "My Man Rocks Me" - an early (and dirty!) version of "Rock Around The Clock".

She was strong and intimate with a very confident and knowing delivery. And was earlier than Crosby. But she, of course, had no discernable influence at all!