So your bar is how good of a sales-/showman someone was instead of their contribution to music theory and development?
This is an interesting notion, because you have to quantify Dylan and thatâs good exercise for the brain. I can see the appeal of Aphex, mainly as a melodic / ambient parallel to Dylan as a lyricist. A mad method of comparison, but thatâs where we find ourselves.
In terms of genre impact / disturbance, I might go with the early founders of jungle / d&b, and put the sampler in dance alongside the electric guitar in folk. Again, it doesnât really work, because the original question doesnât really work. But that doesnât stop it being interesting.
I canât fathom not respecting Dylan, even if you donât particularly like listening to him. If heâd written A Hard Rainâs A-Gonna Fall and then jumped in front of a bus, heâd still be a legend in my book.
Surprised Radiohead and Boney M have been overlooked so far
Supergroup of dreams.
As I said, Dylan was one of the people most responsible for what the modern song is.
This is your hot-take. Not mine.
All of them were very successful and popular (even little kids loved them) and influential for decades. The closest i can think of in the em world are Westbam and Marusha!
modern beatles for me, but I wouldnât really see them as electronic. only partially
What fish is the broccoli of the vegetable world? There must be one.
Gonna have to say chicken
There were reasons why Johnsonâs music wasnât widely available in America for a long time.
It was the same reasons that made his massive influence over American music so easy to dismiss.
Listen to one of Johnsonâs tracks, any of them, then listen to Dylan, Guthrie, Elvis etc. and then tell me who the real daddy is.
Donât get me wrong, Dylan was good at what he did and a great lyricist, but heâs just another in a line of innovators. If you dismiss the Prodigy for not being Dylan, then you must dismiss Dylan for not being Johnson.
Dylan himself spoke many times of how large an influence Johnson was on his music.
In one way - approaching the ABABCB form with high aesthetic ideas and using modern technology - I agree.
In another - a group of incredibly skilled artists that rewrote modern music for decades to come after - NWA.
Beatles: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.
(only half serious. I just wanted to get some early hiphop into the conversation)
Beastie Boys did it first
Never, 2 live crew.
Let me add this quote to your post:
Delta blues artist Robert Johnson, whose âwords made my nerves quiver like piano wires. They were so elemental in meaning and feeling and gave you so much of the inside picture. Itâs not that you could sort out every moment carefully, because you canât. There are too many missing terms and too much dual existence⌠Thereâs no guarantee that any of his lines⌠happened, were said, or even imagined⌠You have to wonder if Johnson was playing for an audience that only he could see, one off in the future.â
Bob Dylan: âChronicles, vol 1â
I donât dismiss Prodigy for not being Dylan. I mentioned: maybe one day they will prove to have the same influence as Dylan (I doubt it). My point was that Prodigy doesnât (yet) have the same scope of influence. I personally donât see them nearly as innovative as Dylan, but thatâs subjective.
I know Dylan was influenced by him - everyone was - but my point was Iâm not sure Dylan was formed by Johnson.
The ignorance⌠Yeah, you summed up Bob Dylan there.
Bro that is flag material right there.
ok buddy
New order. Went from defining Post punk to electronic when it was far from trendy, were highly influential and are still popular doing the same thing over and over again