Criteria: This list is to improve the difficulty of determining impact on the rock artists list. This list ranks artists based upon their overall recognition and admiration from the musical industrustry.

1. The Beatles
2. Elvis Presley
3. Bob Dylan
4. Ray Charles
5. Stevie Wonder
6. The Rolling Stones
7. James Brown
8. Aretha Franklin
9. Prince
10. Bruce Springsteen
11. The Beach Boys
12. Michael Jackson
13. Chuck Berry
14. The Who
15. Led Zeppelin

I think good candidates for the top 5 would be Presley, Dylan, Domino, Stones, and The Beatles.

How would that be any different from the existing Greatest Rock Artists list? Isn't that pretty much a combination of commercial, musical, and cultural impact?

Yes, but this excludes influence and popularity.

Commercial impact is very similar to popularity. So the list you're proposing is essentially a list with the criteria for the Greatest Artists list, minus influence. I don't see much point to that.

If you did make such a list, it would be hard to justify Dylan in the top 5. Influence is one of his 2 strongest criteria on the Artists list.

Alright, then we could remove commercial impact and keep cultural and musical impact. That should make it more interesting. Which artist do you think had the biggest overall impact on rock, Brian? I'm thinking Elvis but I'm not too sure about his cultural impact.

Elvis is probably the #1 artist of all time in cultural impact. The Beatles are the only artist that's even on the same planet with him in cultural impact. The Beatles are probably the #1 artist of all time in musical impact, with Elvis very high, arguably #2. So those 2, in whatever order, are definitely the top 2. I think Sampson has done at least one long post about Elvis' cultural impact, which you might want to do a search for.

I'm still not sure I'm in favor of such a list as a main site list, though it could be interesting to chat in the forum about artists who would so considerably better or considerably worse on this listy than on the artists list. One who'd do better here would be Bruce Springsteen. The influence criterion hurts him on the Artists list, so it helps him to have that one removed.

I think the Beatles easily beat Presley in cultural impact. The entire generation that grew up with the Beatles started wearing long hair, and experimenting with drugs, and becoming part of guitar oriented rock bands.

Don't for get that Elvis was in the limelight for just two short years before he was drafted and gone in the army for two years. How much cultural impact can he have while he's walking a guard post in Germany?

Elvis already had huge cultural impact before he was drafted. But I agree that the drug thing is also huge. Society is different in important ways because of the increased use of drugs.

There used to be lines out the door in stores on the day that the new Beatles album was released. That kind of thing never happened with Elvis. People's lives revolved aroound what the Beatles were into at any particular time. Charles Manson even based much of his shit on what he perceived the Beatles were telling him on the White Album.

Elvis was just a huge star. To the Beatles fans they were a way of life.

I know I've argued about this before, but I agree with Bruce here. To me, the big thing is that the culture didn't look all that different in 1963 than it did in 1955, but it looked HUGELY different in 1970 from 1963. Now, obviously, that can't all be placed on The Beatles, but I think they were very important in all that.

Anyway, I think this list wouldn't really accomplish anything new.

A couple changes that took place after '55 in which Elvis played a big role were the extent and permanence of the popularization of rock, and the shift in marketing for all kinds of products from adults to youth.

and the sex appeal.

But that started before Elvis was big, things like Davy Crocket hats and hula hoops and rock and roll were marketed to kids before Elvis was known nationwide. Once Alan Freed came to NY in the fall of 1954 the white kids picked up on rock and roll rapidly. Check out this chart from NYC's top 40 station, before "Heartbreak Hotel" had become big.

WMGM Top 10 Survey

For the Week of March 5, 1956


TW LW
1 1 ROCK AND ROLL WALTZ - Kay Starr (RCA Victor)
2 2 LISBON ANTIGUA - Nelson Riddle & His Orchestra (Capitol)
3 4 THE POOR PEOPLE OF PARIS - Les Baxter & His Orchestra (Capitol)
4 8 WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE - The Teenagers featuring Frankie
Lymon (Gee)
5 3 NO, NOT MUCH - The Four Lads (Columbia)
6 6 MORITAT (A Theme From “The Three Penny Opera”) - The Dick Hyman
Trio (M-G-M)
7 7 THE GREAT PRETENDER - The Platters (Mercury)
8 5 SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR - Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca)
9 10 MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS - Dean Martin (Capitol)
10 9 BAND OF GOLD - Don Cherry (Columbia)

There's already three classic rock and roll songs in the top ten in NYC BEFORE anybody there knew who Elvis was.

So the top 2 is going to be

1. Beatles
2. Elvis Presley

I'm thinking The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan should be top 5.