Just for the hell of it, what would your guys' own personal top 5 be like, off the top of your head?

Mine would probably be like this..

1. Elvis
2. Beatles
3. Brown

*^those 3 are cemented, order them however you want*

4. Dylan
5. Little Richard

The US and UK make up just as much, if not probably less than the hundreds of thousands (yes hundreds of thousands, well, maybe not that many) of rock bands throughout Asia, many of which were heavily influenced by plenty of the US/UK rock artists that toured there, or just had popular airing time (for example Beatles and Elvis in Japan and the rest of Asia, Deep Purple also has a relatively large following in Asia believe it or not), so is worldwide influence also being taken into account or is it also restricted to US/UK artists? I understand popularity restrictions, since it's hard to have accurate numbers, but where do we cut this off? You said cultural impact is considered worldwide, but I'd then say that Sabbath has much more of a combined worldwide cultural impact than Sly, though Sly may have a larger musical impact due to broad influences in many musical worldwide genres (funk, R&B, hip-hop, etc. combined would be more than metal). Considering Europe (especially Scandinavia's) absolute love for Sabbath (and it's not just indirect influence through metal, they directly love sabbath over there), and including Asia, who I also know Sabbath has existed as a part of their metal community, and I would safely assume to have more cultural impact in Asia than Sly does, though I could be wrong but I doubt anyone could prove it.

And there's the issue, we, being mainly in the US/UK, are restricted to certain views from just what we have available. I travel the world a lot, and I mean a lot, and spend probably as much time in Europe and Asia as the US. However their modern music history and culture is not ingrained into me the same way the western rock artists are, and I don't have a full understanding of some of their artists too. I'm sure there are extremely popular international acts in Asia, that due to Asia's really large population, probably are more popular by sales, and have a much larger cultural and musical impact in Asia than many artists on this list will throughout the world, and probably if counting number of bands in asia influenced by said artist, probably more influential worldwide as well. However we don't live there and most of us don't know the languages well enough to get the information anyways. So of course there's a limit on non US/UK bands (the exceptions probably being only ABBA as far as I know, if we consider Ireland to be part of this US/UK description), but then what about US/UK bands who we can find pretty obvious evidence for their impact on other countries.

It's clear this list is mainly restricted to US/UK artists, since they are the ones we are familiar with and understand, but I think it's impossible to make an objective and fair list if we say that some criteria only apply to US/UK and some apply internationally, which really is not fair if an artist happens to be obviously more popular internationally, but not as cultural impactual as say another artist, and we chose to cutoff a good chunk of evidence for one's rating and add on additional evidence for another. I understand it's hard to measure international popularity, but to a degree how are we going to measure international cultural impact any differently? And sometimes it's just obvious. There is enough evidence that suggests that Sabbath is more popular than Sly worldwide, enough evidence that you probably don't need that many super accurate numbers, there is plenty of info on European BS sales and Asian as well. But we're just going to cut that out? And then have other categories apply to international conditions? What about Influence?

If we are starting from bottom up, I recommend that if we are restricting one criteria to only US/UK since it's difficult to determine facts internationally, then we restrict all criteria to US/UK, otherwise it gives certain artists HUGE advantages over others. Either that or we consider as best we can international impact for all criteria on all artists, which I assume is too hard to do. So yeah, we should just completely stick with US/UK then, and I'm actually fine with that considering the scope of our knowledge and that we are primarily focusing on strictly US/UK bands.

Are we really going to put Elvis in front of the Beatles (though I know we aren't ordering yet and you said any order)? The debate's gone on forever, and I understand both sides enough to say if you put Elvis at 1, well, I won't argue, but I'd prefer the Beatles, and that's with MY view of the criteria. To a degree all of this is still slightly subjective, especially considering how close this all is. Also to what degree are we stretching cultural impact? I'd love to say the Beatles have more (they do internationally, but it's close), but considering that I read we are taking in how Elvis evolved the whole music industry and business in the US as cultural impact and other stuff like that, then he probably takes that too. Though I'd say The Beatles also had a large effect on the music industry and how it works, but probably not to the degree of Elvis. Influence is super hard as well, I'd like to tie it, I mean these bands are just too damn close. Here's how I would see it:

Influence: Tie, probably the breaker here
Cultural Impact: Elvis
Musical Impact: Beatles, gotta do it. What they did for the studio especially, and to a lesser degree albums (yeah I know Dylan) I feel had a bigger impact on the industry and critics that what Elvis did, though once more it's close
Popularity: Beatles

I know we probably aren't ordering yet but just wanted to put out my opinions on that before debates, I can go either way because it's too damn close but I'd like to see Beatles at 1.

Here's my personal favorite 100 artists:

1 - Fats Domino
2 - Elvis Presley
3 - Little Richard
4 - Hank Williams
5 - Joe Turner
6 - Drifters
7 - Muddy Waters
8 - Smiley Lewis
9 - Clovers
10 - Carl Perkins
11 - Beatles
12 - Buddy Holly & Crickets
13 - B.B. King
14 - Bo Diddley
15 - Hank Ballard & Midnighters / Royals
16 - Chuck Berry
17 - James Brown
18 - Howlin' Wolf
19 - Wynonie Harris
20 - Robins
21 - Orioles
22 - Five Royales
23 - Creedence Clearwater Revival / John Fogerty
24 - Five Keys
25 - Ray Charles
26 - Rolling Stones
27 - Beach Boys
28 - Jerry Lee Lewis
29 - Spaniels
30 - Temptations
31 - Elmore James
32 - Bobby "Blue" Bland
33 - Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller)
34 - Sticks McGhee
35 - Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns
36 - Dominoes
37 - Johnny Burnette Trio
38 - Louis Jordan
39 - Spiders
40 - Flamingos
41 - Moonglows
42 - Coasters
43 - Curtis Mayfield & Impressions
44 - Eddie Cochran
45 - Lloyd Price
46 - Bill Haley & Comets
47 - Buddy & Ella Johnson
48 - Ivory Joe Hunter
49 - Swallows
50 - Little Walter
51 - Jimmy Reed
52 - Everly Brothers
53 - Gene Vincent & Blue Caps
54 - Johnny Cash
55 - Amos Milburn
56 - Roy Brown
57 - Jack Scott
58 - El Dorados
59 - Dave Bartholomew
60 - Champion Jack Dupree
61 - Roy Orbison
62 - Smokey Robinson & Miracles
63 - Checkers
64 - Jimmy McCracklin
65 - Little Esther
66 - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson
67 - Marvin Gaye
68 - Tommy James & Shondells
69 - Jackie Wilson
70 - Mills Brothers
71 - Ruth Brown
72 - Bob Dylan
73 - Shirley & Lee
74 - Aretha Franklin
75 - Dells
76 - Wilson Pickett
77 - Little Milton
78 - Marvin & Johnny (Jesse & Marvin)
79 - Heartbeats / Shep & Limelites
80 - Harptones
81 - Doors
82 - Little Willie John
83 - Ravens
84 - Marty Robbins
85 - Lamplighters
86 - Willie Mabon
87 - Guitar Slim
88 - Solomon Burke
89 - Jerry Butler
90 - Roy Milton
91 - Rosco Gordon
92 - Charlie Feathers
93 - Penguins
94 - J.B. Lenore
95 - Big Maybelle
96 - Cadillacs
97 - Chuck Willis
98 - Mac Curtis
99 - Cardinals
100 - Slim Harpo

If you're asking who should be the top 5 on this list, I'd say:

1 - Beatles
2 - Elvis
3 - James Brown
4 - Bob Dylan
5 - Chuck Berry

We just go into great depth about the best ways to do the lists, how to evaluate the criteria in the fairest most in-depth way possible, how to stop personal opinions from influencing rankings and so forth... and then Neg says, "Aww, screw all that guys, so what's your top five off the top of your head?".

Gotta love DDD.

That's how I'd do it. Honestly, I think for the top 5 (or at least top 4) we've run through criteria breakdowns and had so many arguments about their placements it's pointless to do it again. Outside of top 4, well yeah we can reconstruct the list (the whole 7+ always looked questionable to me), but I think we've argued the top 4 enough to understand that's probably the proper rankings, unless we wish to open the can of Elvis vs. Beatles and Dylan vs. Brown again. We've done it lots of times, and iirc it's always ended up like this.

It wasn't related to the list at all, I was just curious....

No reason why we can't go on with the prior discussion.

I don't know how Brian does it. He's a moderator administrator, works on and edits lists, and then makes all sorts of posts on this forum.

Yes, I also appreciate him for his hard work ethic and tolerance to withstand crap that comes up every now and then at DDD.

I can't imagine how Lew is able to withstand all sorts of pressure as well.



I'm not saying your way is wrong or bad either; I'm just saying we have different approaches, and that's fine.

I agree with you guys on Brian.
In addition to what J.B. said, he's also one of the most civil and respectful people on this site.

These lists must be a pain in the ass to compile...

Then The Who is one of your blind spots, because it's really easy.



From 1968 to their breakup in 1982 The Who overwhelmingly outperformed the Beach Boys on the album charts in the USA:

1968

Who Magic Bus - The Who on Tour - #39
Beach Boys Friends - #126

1969

Who Tommy - #4
Beach Boys 20/20 - #68

1970

Who Live at Leeds - #4
Beach Boys Sunflower - #151

1971

Who Who's Next - #4
Who Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy - #11 (mostly non-hits collection)
Beach Boys Surf's Up - #29

1972

Beach Boys Carl and the Passions - "So Tough" - #50

1973

Who Quadrophenia - #2
Beach Boys Holland - #36
The Beach Boys in Concert - #25

1974

Who Odds & Sods - #15 (non-hits collection)
Beach Boys Endless Summer - #1 (hits collection)

1975

Who Tommy motion picture soundtrack - #2
Who The Who By Numbers - #8
Beach Boys Spirit of America - #7 (hits collection)
Beach Boys Good Vibrations - Best of the Beach Boys - #25 (hits collection)

1976

Beach Boys 15 Big Ones - #8
Beach Boys Live in London - #75

1977

Beach Boys Love You - #53

1978

Who Who Are You - #2
Beach Boys M.I.U. Album - #151

1979

Who The Kids Are Alright motion picture soundtrack - #8
Beach Boys L.A. (Light Album) - #100

1980

Beach Boys Keepin' the Summer Alive - #75

1981

Who Face Dances - #4

1982

Who It's Hard - #8

Are the Beach Boys really more popular? If you were a concert promoter in the late sixties, through the seventies and into the eighties (and through to today), who would you book? You really think that because the Beach Boys racked up a ton of hits from 1963 - 1966 that they are forevermore more popular than The Who? That's not the way the world works.



Yeah, I think The Who are more influential than The Beach Boys, as I explained in my post to Bruce. They're one of the keystone acts influencing hard rock, power pop and art rock. Surf rock didn't have much staying power. The Beach Boys have a ton of influence in studio techniques, but The Who's massive influence in the live arena, and the enormous impact of Pete Townshend on guitarists, Keith Moon on drummers, John "The Ox" Entwistle on bassists, and Roger Daltrey on hard rock vocalists, has to more than make up for that.



That's just not true. The Who are every bit as much in the elite of the elite in musical impact as The Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder are. This is just your Who blind spot again. Why do you think VH1 Rock Honors devoted a two-hour special to The Who featuring numerous guest stars paying tribute to The Who? Previous editions of that program honored four different acts over the two hour show. But that one was just The Who for the whole two hours. They're also Kennedy Center Honors recipients, along with Brian Wilson and Stevie Wonder, which isn't directly musical impact, but is certainly reflective of The Who's extraordinarily lofty stature. The largest poll of musicians Rolling Stone ever did was their 500 Greatest Albums poll, where The Who landed seven albums in the countdown, more than anyone except for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. That's certainly indicative of their huge musical impact.



How? What is Stevie Wonder's cultural impact? I can't think of anything apart from fame.



Well, there's only four criteria and ten slots in the top ten, so that's impossible. Of course The Who can sniff the top ten. I resent that you thought the only reason The Who are in the top ten on this site is because of me. The Who have ALWAYS been in the top ten on this list. It had nothing to do with me. So why do you think The Who have been in the top ten on this list since day one? They've been as high as #3 and as low as #8. The only impact I had on the top ten was reversing the short-lived decision to rank Led Zeppelin higher than The Who. But they've always been in there somewhere.



There aren't fifteen artists that do better across the criteria than The Who.



It's not plainly obvious when it comes to musical impact. The Beach Boys are widely considered to be a band that failed to keep pace with The Beatles. While The Who are widely considered to be prime contenders for the title of World's Greatest Rock Band. No one has ever called The Beach Boys that. They might be called America's greatest rock band, but that's because we know The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who are battling each other over the global title.



Well, like I said, I think The Who wins influence. I also think that's fairly obvious. And I still don't know what Stevie Wonder's cultural impact is. Eddie Murphy impressions?



Cute. I'm concerned that you're so convinced that you're right that you can't be persuaded no matter what I say.

You always do this Clash, focus solely on the areas the Who do well in, even when it comes to commercial impact focusing on their peak years to the exclusion of everything else. Furthermore, as a Beach Boy fan yourself, you know that their popularity fell off once Brian dropped out of controlling the group. Imagine the Who if Townshend had become a recluse. The BB's biggest album in the 70's came with Brian back as producer (15 Big Ones). But anyway you look at it, The Beach Boys kill The Who in Commercial Impact over the course of their career. Twice as many hits (The Who had just ONE Top Ten U.S. single and Townshend is on record saying that singles was the status of a great band, or something to that effect - I know you must have the quote someplace). The Beach Boys by contrast had 15 Top Ten Singles, four #1's. Even in England they're pretty much even on the singles charts, with with the Beach Boys hitting The Top Five more than The Who did in their own country! They also have more Top Ten albums and more #1 albums in the U.K. than the Who. Furthermore, the Beach Boys had Top Ten albums in America during the period when rock albums weren't going Top Ten very often. It is a far far more significant feat in context to have three Top Ten albums in 1963 alone than having them a decade or two later, just because of the way the market was for albums then. Remember, context is crucial in evaluting things over time. It is a massive blow-out in this area and there's no way, considering the other criteria have no big wins for the Who, that they can make it up. It's just not possible.

Oh, and while no one is disputing the Who's prowess or popularity as a live band, remember that the Beach Boys in the 70's were the American juggernaut among live artists. Rolling Stone magazine, back when they actually focused on music, named them Band Of The Year for 1974 on the basis of their touring alone. Don't brush aside their popularity. The Eagles, at the height of their fame, played shows with the Beach Boys and were amazed that every single song they played the audience knew every note to, it was daunting for them to try and follow and that's when they had the biggest selling albums in the world and their own greatest hits sold more than anything ever had.

I also said that in influence it is close, the Beach Boys have a slight edge as I see it, but again you're trying to give influence credit simply for them being good at what they do. Actually, Brian Wilson was far more influential to bass playing than Entwistle, even though The Ox could wipe the floor with Brian AS a bassist. But Brian was the one who introduced melodic basslines to rock and that had much more influence on the instrument and the way songs were written than how well Entwistle played.

As for Stevie. You DO realize that he is the most singularly responsible person for getting Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday, don't you? There are how many national holidays in America? Eleven... and Wonder was relentless in forcing the issue, writing the song "Happy Brithday" (which oddly enough went to #2 in the U.K.) for the cause, using his popularity and his influence to constantly pressure people in public office, including Reagan who finally met with him and agreed to sign the bill, to make King's birthday a national holiday. That's pretty freaking huge cultural impact.

But overall, while the Who are certainly among the elite in rock, all of the musical impact things you cite are also true (or similar honors have been bestowed upon) at least 20 others in rock. Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Elton John, Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Brian Wilson, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney have all gotten Kennedy Center Honors as well. Since you need to be alive to be so honored that excludes a number of other huge rock icons from getting it, so you need to assume that guys like Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Curtis Mayfield and Otis Redding would've been all but assured of being similarly honored. Fats Domino received the National Medal Of The Arts from the President, which is an honor on par, if not even slightly greater than the Kennedy Center Honors. There's more than twenty names right there, all of whom have Commercial, Musical and Cultural Impact as well as Influence to match virtually anyone. Throw in the Rolling Stones, Little Richard, Run-D.M.C., Madonna, Prince, The Everly Brothers, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson (who only recently passed away) and a handful of others of that stature and we're already at thirty names on par with that level of performer historically. What you're saying about the Who isn't untrue, but there are too many others who have similar credentials for them to be a slam dunk Top Fifteen.

But the only way to find out is to do what I've been saying all along, start from scratch and evaulate all artists under each criteria individually, then tally things up. It's not hard, but it takes awhile to do it right, since we're talking five hundred names perhaps that need to be studied intently. Maybe the Who will be higher than I estimated and you can celebrate, or they might be even lower and you can wrongly claim I have a Who blind spot, but there's only one way to be certain. I can do it if you want, but I'm not going to put in all that time and effort and usurp Brian's list in the process just to placate you unless you pay me handsomely to do it.

To me, this means absolutely nothing towards ranking the greatness of musicians.

Suppose Pete Townshend discovers a cure for cancer? Do the Who now vault ahead of everybody else on the list?

Does Ronald Reagan move up on the list of great actors because he did something great outside of acting?

Does Jim Bunning move up on the list of great pitchers because he was a US senator?

Let me go on record right now that I don't buy this "cultural impact" portion of your criteria, and I also don't buy that different parts of the criteria should all be "weighed equally."

None of the 40 or so lists I've done on the site have considered "cultural impact" and each list weighs different parts of the criteria in different portions.

How could it be possible that each portion of ANY criteria coincidentally ended up being equally important in relation to each other?

When you evaluate the greatness of ANYTHING or ANYBODY there's no way that different portions of qualities that are included in the evaluation should all be weighed equally. That's just intellectual laziness.

Geez, Sampson, if you can't even acknowledge John Entwistle's massive influence as a rock bassist, then I'm just gobsmacked. To dismiss Entwistle (and Moon, Townshend, and Daltrey) as merely good at what they do, and not also enormously influential at what they do, is just plain wrong. Hopefully you didn't actually do that when you compiled your influence list. Or perhaps you did and that might explain why you have the Beach Boys a couple notches higher than The Who.

Additionally, is it Commercial Impact or is it Chart Success? It seems like you think they're the same thing. But they're not. Do you want Pete Townshend's bank account or do you want Brian Wilson's? You sure you know the answer to that? You talk about the Beach Boys' four #1 hits. "Kokomo" was a #1 hit for the Beach Boys in 1988. The Who went on tour in 1989 and netted 50 million dollars. Net. Not gross. Who wins commercial impact for those years? What would you rather have, one percent of the Beach Boys' "Kokomo" or one percent of The Who's 1989 tour? I doubt all four of the Beach Boys' #1 hits equal the commercial impact of one major Who tour.



It happened before that, sadly. Smiley Smile missed the top forty. Friends, the last album Brian was heavily involved in until 15 Big Ones, failed to make the top 100.

I agree with this criticism. Cultural Impact should have something to do with the music. Not mere celebrity. Elvis Presley's cultural impact grew directly out of his performances. It was Fats Domino's concerts that helped integrate rock audiences. If kids wore a white glove, it's because they saw it in Michael Jackson's music videos. If Stevie Wonder lobbied Ronald Reagan for a Martin Luther King holiday, that's great, but it has nothing to do with Rock 'n' Roll. And I doubt a song that failed to hit the Hot 100 had anything to do with it. It's nice that it got him a big UK hit, though.