885 All-time Greatest Artists list

[GeneralHankerchief]

Thought the Frontroom might be interested in this.

A local (non-commercial!) radio station, 88.5 WXPN, is currently playing a countdown of the 885 greatest artists of all time as voted by its listeners. This list is extremely eclectic, with everyone from Bach to Duke Ellington to AC/DC represented here.

This is the third year the station has done something like this. The first year it was Songs (Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road), and last year it was Albums (Beatles - Abbey Road). Most likely it'll come down to Bruce or the Beatles this year, seeing as how Bruce is the hometown fave and how everyone loves the Beatles. However, I'm hoping that the votes are split and Teh Floyd takes the top spot. I did my Frontroom duty and voted.

There's a podcast link lurking around the site somewhere in case you're interested in listening. If you do, be warned: The DJs are full of themselves, and they only play the list at certain times a day.

If you want to wait to listen until the top few, I'll post a warning.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Short update:

They just finished Artist #50: Sting. I'm not sure of the exact procedure, but from 50-26 they'll do four songs per artist, 25-11 five songs, 10-2 an hour (without commercials), and they're not sure what they'll do for #1.

The countdown is expected to finish up sometime Monday evening EST, so midnight-ish for GMT.

[Quietus]

Thought the Frontroom might be interested in this.

A local (non-commercial!) radio station, 88.5 WXPN, is currently playing a countdown of the 885 greatest artists of all time as voted by its listeners. This list is extremely eclectic, with everyone from Bach to Duke Ellington to AC/DC represented here.

This is the third year the station has done something like this. The first year it was Songs (Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road), and last year it was Albums (Beatles - Abbey Road). Most likely it'll come down to Bruce or the Beatles this year, seeing as how Bruce is the hometown fave and how everyone loves the Beatles. However, I'm hoping that the votes are split and Teh Floyd takes the top spot. I did my Frontroom duty and voted.

There's a podcast link lurking around the site somewhere in case you're interested in listening. If you do, be warned: The DJs are full of themselves, and they only play the list at certain times a day.

If you want to wait to listen until the top few, I'll post a warning.

http://www.xponentialmusic.org/vote/...tist_picks.php

Artist Picks:
Mason Jennings - 5. Bob Marley
Rob Squires/Big Head Todd and the Monsters - 3. Bob Marley
Shannon McNally - 4. Bob Marley
Willy Mason - 1. Bob Marley
Todd Snider - honorable mentions: Bob Marley
G Love - 4. Bob Marley and the Wailers
Dan Lebowitz/ALO - 6. Bob Marley & the Wailers
Jim Campilongo/ The Little Willies - 9. Bob Marley
Benjamin Taylor - 2. Bob Marley

XPN Hosts & Staff Picks:

David Dye, Host & Producer of World Cafe - 4. Bob Marley
Roger LaMay, General Manager - 4. Bob Marley
Michaela Majoun, XPN Morning Show Host - 6. Bob Marley
Bruce Warren, Asst. General Manager for Programming - 9. Bob Marley
Jim McGuinn - YRock on XPN Host - yrockonxpn.org Program Director - honorable mention: Bob Marley
Mike Daly, Sales Director - 4. Bob Marley
John Myers, Line Producer, World Café - 4. Bob Marley
Andrew Davis, Production Assistant/Programming Dept. - honorable mention: Bob Marley
Patti Singer, Underwriting Sales Rep - 3. Bob Marley
John Bartol, Director of Non-Broadcast Distribution - 5. Bob Marley

Bob's cleaning up.

109 Bob Marley And The Wailers | Exodus 1977
136 Bob Marley And The Wailers | Natty Dread 1975
222 Bob Marley & The Wailers | Catch A Fire 1973
410 Bob Marley And The Wailers Live 1975
423 Bob Marley The Wailers | Kaya 1978
454 Bob Marley |Rastaman Vibration 1976
487 Bob Marley | Uprising 1980
527 Bob Marley | Babylon By Bus 1978
540 Bob Marley Survival 1979

Nine Bob Marley albums in the albums list!!

http://www.xpn.org/885ATGA.php



ARTIST & WXPN STAFF ALBUM PICKS

Michaela Majoun - XPN Morning Show Host
4. Bob Marley and the Wailers Exodus

David Dye - Host of World Cafe
5. Bob Marley And The Wailers - Natty Dread

Bruce Warren - WXPN Program Director
8. Bob Marley –Rastaman Vibration

Donna Simpson Of The Waifs
3. Bob Marley - Legend

Rilo Kiley (band list)
7. Bob Marley - Kaya

Tom Langford
10. Bob Marley - Burnin

Norah Jones
10. Bob Marley - Natty Dread

Jack Johnson
8. Bob Marley And The Wailers- Catch A Fire

[Craterus]

86. The Ramones

That's not too bad. At least they beat the Sex Pistols.

[GeneralHankerchief]

Marley and co. got #14, Quietus.

Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day. They'll be counting down from #12. The top artist should be played at 7 PM EST, or about midnight GMT.

[Reverend Joe]

The Allman Bros. got #25 and Creedence got #121? That's bull****. Creedence is in the top 50 of best artists/bands of all time, and that's being conservative. The Allmans had, what- 2 decent albums, 1 good live album and a shoddy postmortem for their best guitarist? (Not to mention the long downhill slide afterwards.) Creedence, on the other hand, had 5 amazing albums, that could still be played on the radio today without showing any age ("Ramble Tamble" in particular: that song isn't just "updatable", it's transcendent), not to mention the best live album I have ever heard (with the possible exception of "Bless Its Pointed Little Head", which might be the best simply for presenting the Airplane in a raw, unadulterated live form.)

And I am not sure classical should really be lumped in here. It really has different standards than blues/postblues music.

[Quietus]

Marley and co. got #14, Quietus.

Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day. They'll be counting down from #12. The top artist should be played at 7 PM EST, or about midnight GMT.

Fourteenth is great because:
1) It is a listener poll not an industry poll where Marley ranks top or close.
2) it's a North American poll
3) while it is an eclectic list, it is still predominantly guitar-based rock music poll (owing to the audience).
4) Ten years ago, Marley would go 30-something tops on a similar poll with 1-2-3 conditions above. I'm surprised he scored with nine albums on last year's poll. The only Island Label album missing were Burnin' and the post-humous Confrontation.
5) Marley is still accessible to a wider audience in many types of genre, while, say Bob Dylan isn't going to be hit with Techno or R&B fans per se.

86. The Ramones

That's not too bad. At least they beat the Sex Pistols

That's not bad alright. A lot of my faves aren't even on the list. Heck, Fela Kuti is way down to 468

For some perspective, a sampling of select popular names:

Prince at 39
John Coltrane at 49
Beach Boys at 53
James Brown at 106
Rod Stewart at 220
Earth, Wind & Fire at 221
Hall & Oates at 282
WAR is not even listed.

And I am not sure classical should really be lumped in here. It really has different standards than blues/postblues music.

Classical music was popular music back in its day.

I still believe that as long as music is good, it will remain popular. If a music sounds 'dated', its because it's not influencing the current generation of music.

A lot of Beatles songs sound dated because they no longer influence new music like they used to. Now Gawain will probably disagree if he reads this....

[GeneralHankerchief]

Top ten artists:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

10: Joni Mitchell
9: Pink Floyd
8: Neil Young
7: Grateful Dead
6: Led Zeppelin
5: U2
4: Bruce Springsteen
3: Rolling Stones
2: Bob Dylan
1: Beatles

I'm a bit disappointed, really. There's no way that Bruce should have been anything past #3, especially with this local crowd. And the Stones placed about four spots too high. Floyd and U2 also should have been higher on the list. Oh well, there's always next year.