Most Influential Artist of the Decade
 

I was originally going to title this "most influential album," but I'm too lazy to look up sales figures (no, I'm not basing it solely on that), so here goes:

1950s:Elvis. The King of Rock and Roll; ushered in a new direction in popular music.

1960s: Beatles The first boy band, and the only one with decent music.

1970s: Zeppelin. The world was falling apart; they remain one of the most influential bands in rock today, and if you listen to Achilles Last Stand, you can hear heavy metal being born.

1980s:Madonna and MJ. The two biggest pop artists at a time when glitz and glamour were king.

1990s:Nirvana. After the excesses of the 80s, Nirvana epitomized the "grunge" movement which would set a new direction for rock.

2000s:? I don't know. I can't think of any band that was just huge in the 2000s, and the three biggest sellers to have come out of the late 90s or the 2000s were Backstreet Boys, Linkin park, and Lady Gaga- who has only been active for two years. If I had to pick one, I'd say Linkin park, because ***** rock seems to predominate among the younger kids these days, but to me, the 2000s were pretty much a musical void.

311 or tool...but they were kinda 90s guys too :\

I barely heard anything from then in the aughts or whatever they're supposed to be called. I did go to a Tool show 2 years ago though... that was awesome.

Tough one Cash..I'll be back..seems as the industries been a tad stagnant in breakout artist,or maybe I'm going blind to some of the newer stuff...The Black Keys jam

Man. thats tough. I will give mine. Now remember I am a METAL guy.

50's: Elvis
Jerry Lee Lewis; Elvis is the King but JLL was the man!

60's: The Beatles
Led Zepplin; basiclly the start of metal.

70's: Black Sabbath; THE foundation of METAL TO THIS DAY!
VAN HALEN; What else is there to say?

80's: Metallica; Metals first Nationally legit group and ruled through the 90's.
Dead Kennedies; my into into Punk.
Motley Crue; Who doesn't like the Crue?
Cinderella; they brought blues into 80's hair metal.
SLAYER; Perfected what metal is (PERIOD)!
The Bestie Boys; they brought Rap to the white folks and are still kicking ass!

90's: Nirvana
Alice in Chains (My all time favorite band)
Sound Garden
Pearl Jam

00's: This is tough I have only heard a couple of "new" Bands that are really putting out good music and that is...
KORN; They showed that metal was not dead!
SLIPKNOT; Keeping metal on the cutting edge.

Influential to whom? This is an excellent topic to discuss. There are no right answers really.

I don't think you can really discuss the 70's unless you want to include the Eagles, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Led Zeppelin, even Rod Stewart and don't forget John Denver. While birthing Metal (I like metal minus thrash) that was the decade of the singer/songwriter...and even Disco and Punk.

For example, I loved Elvis, but he died when I was a kid. I know lots of musicians who don't really care for him...one guy once told me Elvis wanted to be a blues singer but just didn't have it in him, which isn't to say he didn't excel in other areas.

I love these kinds of discussions. How many artists today were influenced by Johnny Cash, and from which decade would he qualify? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

very good points saintfan!

Cash is beyond labeling. He's like a god....he was just always there!

why thank you.

Decade is 10 years = 2000-2010... i think many have decade confused with century, anywho i'll say Lil Wayne kinda ruled (dominated?) this era 2000-2010.. his name is everywhere! his music is heard everywhere and everybody wants him at least featured on their latest album and Unfortunately he's still young and has only gotten bigger and has gotten an even larger following and show no signs of getting out of the game but only growing, He has a certified gold "ROCK ALBUM!!" he has several platinum selling albums all of his non-studio material AkA (mixtapes) were #1 Billboard singles and hot radio play's, he's featured in many band's albums, R&B artist, Pop artist (including Britney spears and Madonna) Country artist and rock artist have done cover's of his songs (milli and Lollipop).


Under him a whole bunch of newly signed and veteran hip hop artist started following his lead, even though T-pain started bringing back the use of Auto-Tune earlier 6 years ago, it didn't get really popular until Wayne started using then Kid-Cudi evolved from it, then Kanye started using it, Game started using, then it exploded and every rapper had to use it..
Now he has Young Money and half of the people signed to that label has a similar sound like he does (most don't use Auto-tune) but they have a similar rap delivery over a beat like he does and use a ton of metaphors.

No way he's left out of this convo no matter how much ya'll might hate the genre of music or the guy himself.

Next i'll say Beyonce'

Then

Rihanna

Then

Linkin Park

Then

Taylor Swift

Then

Britney spears

Then

My Chemical Romance

Then

Black eyed peas

Then

Evanescence


Lady gaga although popular now, has only popped up on the scene a couple of years ago but she deserve to be on the list as well so i added her last.

Rock I'd have to say Green Day. They just kept turning out decent songs. There was a lag from 2000-05 but after that it seemed almost every year they had a decent song out.