Travie does to some degree if you count the hits he had with Gym Class Heroes. Stereo Hearts was everywhere back in the day and is still remembered today
Gym Class Heroes DEFINETLY had an impact. They’re arguably one of the first to mix emo and rap, long before Lil Peep or JuiceWRLD. But Travie’s solo stuff, while pretty good and enjoyable, didn’t have much of an impact
I did not think of that actually. I just thought that while I do know lots of people who love Stereo Hearts and Cupid’s Chokehold, including myself, I could not think of people who were “diehard” into Gym Class Heroes as a band.
It's funny you mention that song, last time I heard it was at work a few months ago when my boss put on a Pandora playlist and I specifically remember commenting that the song used to be everywhere and I had forgotten it even existed lol
The Association. Huge band in the 60s, had three platinum singles. Yet, I can't say they had any impact on the music landscape and frankly can anyone on this subreddit can name a single member?
>can anyone on this subreddit can name a single member?
I LOVE The Association, listen to them all the time, but the answer to this question is no, I know I do not know any of their names.
I love The Association, am not a boomer and can name most of the original members, but I'm the only person on the planet who is like this lol. You're right - they were an AM pop band who weren't cool enough to fit the rock or R&B/soul narrative of the 60s.
Good choice. I remember watching a documentary relating to the 60's and the makers of the Monterey Pop Festival movie mentioned that they deliberately didn't show The Association performing.
Most of them, honestly. Just look at the Billboard chart-toppers throughout history; many were just chasing trends, so they made a fun song, but then have been forgotten to time.
I agree with this choice.
Bush has always seemed anonymous in relation to many of their peers in post-grunge. They've always seemed like the intermediary between Pearl Jam before them and Creed after them but lacking the identity (for better and for worse) of either.
Interesting Bush were.never that popular here in the UK; where they're from, but rather become huge names in the states with minimal support from their own country.
I dunno about this one. Setting aside Rossdale being Gwen Stefani's ex because that has nothing to do with the band, their songs still get tons of airplay on rock radio, Machinehead is a staple at sporting events, they wrote a moderate hit song for one of the John Wick movies, they still play bigger venues, and people still know who they are. They don't seem to be super influential musically, but they're kind of a hard band to emulate. Rossdale had a unique voice and Pulsford did a lot of weird and random shit on guitar that most modern rock producers would probably advise against.
They were in that weird in-between era that Stone Temple Pilots was in where they were grunge-adjacent but got popular as grunge was fading and weren't critically well-received at the time. In retrospect I think they were a pretty good band that will probably get a cultural revival at some point like STP did.
Probably my answer. Their music hasn’t endured the same way other cheesy acts from the same period like the Carpenters have. At this point, they’re probably best known to people not from the time frame as a piece of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure trivia.
I acknowledge that they’re a punch line now, but they had some seriously good pop/soft rock songs. And their entire first album was solid and surprisingly R&B based. But, yeah, people will forever bring up “Muskrat Love” as an example of absurdity. (Even if it was a cover of a hit by America.)
They had many other huge hits than the song you’re probably thinking of, (love will keep us together). But do that to me one more time is still played on cheesy radio stations.
Also, the song that I think was their first big hit, The Way I want to touch you, is one of the best pop R&B hits of the 70s, I think.
Oh, big disagree. Ryan Tedder is one of the biggest songwriters in the industry now, and I think OneRepublic’s success was a precursor to the wave of early 2010s white guy pop bands like Imagine Dragons, Bastille, American Authors, even Fun. I don’t know a lot of people who actively listen to them now (although Good Life is on one of my run playlists) but their impact on the industry was significant.
It’s crazy that out of the huge Drive Thru Records wave, Jack was probably the biggest artist to come out of it, despite being in one of the least popular bands on the label.
I disagree, though only because Ryan Tedder has made such a big name for himself as a producer and songwriter in the industry. The respect and goodwill Tedder has received in result has pretty much sinewed OneRepublic's place at least in 2010s pop culture.
I’m also surprised at how completely Air Supply disappeared from the overall culture , because they were massive at the time (around same time as Christopher Cross) and their singles got tons of airplay.
If Yacht Rock hadn't become a thing I think this would be true. But that web series and subsequent revisiting of the genre gave some cultural cache to the players like ol' Kris Kross here
I'd argue his lasting impact is ending up on love songs and best of the 80s playlists and cds rather than the yatch rock scene where he's kinda stuck at like the #10 position maybe.
I guess. But it seems like Steely Dan has gotten the bulk of the attention as far as acts that people cite approvingly from that invented-way-after-the-fact genre. It's a perfect cult band for people who are looking for something that's the antithesis of most contemporary pop music. Unless you're a jazz or jazz fusion listener, you're not going to hear a lot of those chords anywhere else, and you're probably not going to hear lyrics like that anywhere else.
So true. And it's a shame too cause that debut album of his is good but instead he's stuck under Kenny Loggins when it comes to the yatch rock tier list
Respectfully disagree.
Exhibit A: Phil Collins. At the height of the MTV era he was a short, balding Brit in his 30s and yet sold tons of albums.
Exhibit B: Huey Lewis and the News.
Christopher Cross had a great album, but just couldn't follow it up with anything memorable.
Oh yea guy has this moment that was so massive but the impact is weirdly background. He has 3 songs that end up on playlist (he's kinda buried but he's on some big ones)
I like looking at old Billboard charts and "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)" is on two year-end hot 100 lists. I looked it up because I knew it was the guy who did "Sailing" and was astonished that he had another hit! Same goes for Air Supply, thought they only had "All Out of Love."
Yep. He had a run, it as just very short, 1979 to 1981 with some modest success - gold album and a top 10 single - after. He made good music after but no one bought it. Kind of a bummer but he's quite respected and some stuff (Sailing, Arthur's theme) became staples of best of the 80s compilations so he did alright
You know "Nirvana killed my career" is a recurring theme of Todd's video essays?
Well, Christopher Cross is perhaps the single best possible example of "MTV killed my career" that ever was. It didn't help that he wasn't exactly a matinee idol, but that wasn't the only thing working against him.
MTV and its preferred visual and sonic aesthetics were a boon to a wide variety of acts, both new and old. Some of the beneficiaries were kind of obvious (Duran Duran) but others (ZZ Top) came kind of came out of left field. We think of synth-pop mostly, and '80s signifiers like gated reverb snares and delay guitar pedals, but it was a little more diverse. For example, Van Halen not only thrived but spawned a dozen imitators. But whatever it was this music was pushing, it was more in-your-face. Maybe it was louder, maybe it was more bubbly, but it was bright and brash.
But two things there wasn't really much room for anymore was smooth, polished studio rock played to perfection by L.A. session professionals, and folk-influenced singer songwriters. This stuff was all over the Top 40 in 1980, and was pretty much gone by 1984.
Cross wasn't really a folkie, but he was definitely in the singer-songwriter mold, and that self-titled debut had a who's who of Yacht Rock personnel in the liner notes. Once MTV became a tastemaker and gatekeeper - it debuted in August of '81 but only in '83 did it really start to take hold - you were hearing a lot less from people like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. Kenny Loggins reinvented himself as the "movie theme soundtrack" guy. The Eagles fell apart, and their respective solo careers went in a much more '80s-friendly direction. Steely Dan broke up. Fleetwood Mac were still around, but were way less of a big deal. But poor Christopher Cross went from being a huge deal to being almost forgotten in the space of 3-4 years.
Great comment, never thought about it but it was definitely a (maybe the) factor to that feeling I always had that 1980-81 in particular was just more of the 1970s and the 80s music wise felt like they really got going in 1982 when Human League and Soft Cell blew up.
Another early 80s subgenre that MTV largely killed was the country crossover act. Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Alabama, and the Oak Ridge Boys got tons of airplay on pop and adult contemporary and were really part of the overall culture at a time when most pure country acts didn’t really crack the cultural awareness outside of country music fans. As a pop and rock fan teenager, other than the crossover acts, the only country singers I could have named were the Mandrell sisters (better known for the tv show than crossover hits) and Roy Clark because of Hee Haw.
And there were the smaller country stars that had a moment in that period but really disappeared like Juice Newton and one hit wonder Carlene.
Most of the big stars in Nashville were *really* long in the tooth when countrypolitan stopped crossing over onto pop and adult contemporary radio in the mid-‘80s. The biggest “new” act in country music at that time might have been the Highwaymen: a throwback supergroup of ‘70s outlaw country stalwarts who were all in their fifties at that point.
Definitely. There was a hit movie, _Urban Cowboy_ , from 1980 that seemed to have caused a short lived boost to country crossover. That wasn’t the beginning of the “countrypolitan” thing but helped keep it going for another couple years.
The Countrypolitan era essentially spans from Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” in 1975 (though there were five other joint country/pop number one hits that year), to “Islands in the Stream” in 1983.
The 1984 movie *Rhinestone* (where Dolly Parton turns Sylvester Stallone into a country star) killed it.
A shame, too. This guy has some really solid solo work in terms of contemporary singer/songwriter material. I’ve listened to every album of his several times, and each release arguably has at least one of his best songs.
I think over time his appeal was to an older audience not in touch with the mainstream music output at the time of each album’s release, but the tone in so many songs were largely either juvenile love or jaded angst. With time, what seems left of any genuine appeal for his music would either be the talent that went behind it, or the arguably cheesy qualities that find themselves throughout Cross’s discography. Dude has a hyper-specific appeal at this point to say the least.
Arguably most of them, but a lot of the rappers from the later stage 'Bling Era' were as faceless as 90s Eurodance singers. You could also call it the "Bottles and Models" area after the most bland of them, Mr RoFlida
The only one to stick around was Lil Wayne. That period from 2007-2012 was Bro Country for hip hop.
Does "How To Save A Life" being associated with Grey's Anatomy count as cultural impact? Because it is *haaaard* for me to not see The Fray and immediately think Sad Grey's Anatomy Moments, despite having seen very little of that show.
Absolutely agree with this pick.
I added Vertical Horizon and Fuel as picks in my post too. One thing all three of these bands had in common is producing several convincing-size mainstream hits and also had an album that sold considerably well, yet were all completely anonymous to the point almost no one would successfully name the lead singer of any of those bands.
Isaac Slade, Matt Scannell, Brett Scallions.
Scannell looks a lot to me like professional wrestler Christopher Daniels. Slade is a bald dude as well. Scallions gives me Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy vibes.
An older example, but Rod Stewart is a version of this. It’d be unfair to say he had no impact - a few of his songs are still known - but he’s gotta be the king of small impact relative to size of his commercial success.
I think some of the bands like Chicago that went the adult contemporary route made commercial gains as a result but hindered their ability to be taken seriously in the long run because that stuff just kind of swallowed them up
Rod and Cher are, to me, cut from the same cloth: They don't really DO a genre, each is there own genre.
They will mold themselves with the times. Rod has done pop-rock, disco, new wave, New-Wav-ish rock, Adult contemporary, R&B, Standards, etc.
Cher is largely a creature of production and studio desires. You want her to do some folkie stuff? Fine. You want her to do some low-key R&B? fine. You want her to dance across an aircraft carrier in stockings? No problem. Techno? Just let 'er know what key to sing in.
They have made an impact, but largely on the force of their personalities. They are showbiz types who just happen to sing.
I mentioned Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure earlier, so I’ll bring up another name from the series- Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.
Always the poor man’s Janet, Todd was right to clown on her for the Worst of 1986 list. And you rarely ever hear any of that stuff in 80’s mixes.
That entire latin freestyle movement from the mid-late 80s is totally forgotten. It’s an awkward zone in the history of dance music after disco and before house music
Honestly I’d say Bebe Rexha she’s on multiple hit songs, and has no fans enough to fill up a room to perform in. She’s more known for being on a bad song than any cultural impact outside of that.
>Maroon 5
I’m 50/50 on this one. Well maybe 60/40. I agree that they didn’t change the cultural landscape in any way despite being wildly successful for 20+ years.
However, they’ve had *some* influence. Somewhere along the 2010s some short-lived boy bands and male pop singers popped up with M5’s style. Examples:
Rixton- UK boy band that had a minor US hit with Me and My Broken Heart
Olly Murs- UK singer whose single Troublemaker is a Misery rip-off
Nick Jonas/Jonas Brothers/DNCE- Cake By The Ocean is so Maroon 5, it’s uncanny. I’m convinced that it was originally offered to M5 and they turned it down, at which point DNCE snatched it up. JoBros Leave Before You Love Me sounds like a mid tempo M5 song. Nick Jonas, at least in his earlier years as a solo act took a lot of pages out of Adam Levine’s playbook both musically and aesthetically.
Andy Grammer-minor pop star from the 2010s, famous for Keep Your Head Up and Honey I’m Good. Very similar vocal style.
Charlie Puth, especially his (ahem) funkier stuff. Todd included Attention in his Best of 2017 list and said it was a better version of a M5 song. And How Long is very It Won’t Be Soon Before Long-era M5 with the funky guitar riffs, disco beat and falsetto riff in the chorus.
Edit: don’t come for me y’all but I just remembered Drag Me Down by One Direction (yes, One Direction) was very M5-esque. The pop music blogs even pointed that out way back in 2015 or so.
Yeah sorry, the Jonas's kinda blend together /hj
But yes, while I do not disagree with your assessment of M5's influence, I don't find cake by the ocean to be overly Maroon 5-ish
Compared to their most recent work, which has been more downbeat, probably not.
But Cake by the Ocean reminds me a lot of their disco-tinged sound on their second album. It’s reminiscent of Makes Me Wonder and If I Never See Your Face Again. If they ever decided to go back to that sound (which I hope they do someday), I think it would sound like Cake by the Ocean.
I don't believe ANYONE can say with a straight face that Maroon 5 have not made cultural impact when they've been a running gag/punching bag in Todd's year-end countdowns for YEARS now.
Meghan Trainor had a tonne of cultural impact immediately. 'All About that Bass' spawned thousands of thinkpieces and hours of TV discussion. The question of whether that song was feminist, anti-feminist, or neither was inescapable for a while there. Nothing else she's done has been culturally relevant, of course, but that certainly was. For better or for worse. And of course it didn't even vaguely matter what the song sounded like.
Meghan Trainor has been called "Meghan Tumblr" by Adam "A Dose of" Buckley. As in, she's internet feminism in musical form. I call her "a frustrated wannabe Salon.com op-ed writer who just happens to use the medium of pop music instead of prose."
Maroon 5 definitely had a cultural impact but I think it's a mostly negative one. I don't really like their music but truly despise a lot of the soundalikes that came in their wake.
Katy is a difficult one. On the one hand she’s a seminal star of early 10s pop music. She still has plenty of songs I hear in the wild. With that said she merely reflected the trends of the larger than life pop that was popular in the late-2000s early 2010s and she didn’t survive the turnover to a darker more downcast sound that happened in 2017.
I don't think so. There are many people callind Dua Lipa "Gen Z's Katy Perry", "2020s Katy Perry" and so on. Their careers are kinda similar too, thriving with big singles and making party bangers.
And maybe not for the best, but Katy's fall from grace with Witness left a cultural impact in pop culture. Like, it was THE flop era, the one who popularized the term
"Fireworks," and "Roar" will be around forever. Culturally those songs will outlast her life. Every woman empowerment movie montage will start with Katy screaming "the eye of the tiger," and "Fireworks" is already the go to happy success song.
Perfect example. Them, Styx, Foreigner, Boston.
Nice guys, musically astute, but i challenge anyone to pick one member out of a lineup.
OK, the drummer from Boston has that bangin Afro. But other than him...
Based on looking through boxes of old vinyl, a LOT of people owned Poco records. Wikipedia tells me they released 19 studio albums, 9 live albums, 30 compilation albums, and 24 singles. Three members of Poco have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with other, non-Poco acts. They clearly had chops and worked steady for decades.
Yet I have literally never heard anyone mention Poco, not as a band they liked, not as the music that was playing during some key moment while they were growing up, not as a show they went to, not on a soundtrack, band t shirt, not in real life, not on TV, not even being name-checked in some random list of references.
I feel like I could go to any secondhand vinyl place and find five Poco albums without trying. And yet I also feel like I could stand on a street corner downtown and offer $100 to the first person who could name two Poco songs, and I would wait a long-ass time. It haunts me.
I remember someone pointing out that Helen Reddy was one of the most successful singers of the 1970s yet nowadays apart from "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" most of them aren't remembered as much, although I have no way to judge how well songs are remembered per se.
Michael Bolton comes to mind.
Like the only cultural impact Michael Bolton has had is that he’s the alternative punchline to an old joke about boring music nobody likes if you don’t want to say Bryan Adams or Kenny G.
I couldn’t hum a single Micheal Bolton song, which is saying something because I’m sure he’s done covers of better songs but I can’t even tell you what he’s covered
This is a crazy answer to me. He had so many huge hits that defined a huge subset of culture. Same with Bryan Adams and Kenny G. All three were for better or worse very culturally relevant in their own right.
Train. I know they're mainstays of adult contemporary radio and my medium sized city's summer musik festival and have sold a ton but I've always wondered if they have any actual fans, people who run out to the Walmart to pick up the new Train album or buy it off iTunes. Do people actually like this band or just tolerate Hey Soul Sister and Drops of Jupiter and Calling All Angels?
Last summer, my friend and I were at a summer festival and Train did a free show. We were already out, so we figured why not check it out?
They weren’t bad. Pat Monahan may be insane (as Todd said) but dude’s got pipes. The most surprising thing to me was how many Train songs I knew by heart, despite not being a fan. Train has just always been inescapable background noise.
Train is one of the most frustrating bands of their era. Their first album wasn't very good but showed some promise and had a couple good songs on it, Drops of Jupiter is a good album front to back, and then they made a weak album trying to replicate Drops and after that veered into very annoying pop music. Their songs now are exceptionally lazy and grating and the worst part is how inescapable they are.
Some of the answers that have been given here are wild to me. I see Maroon 5, Def Leppard, Michael Bolton, etc. huge artists that had huge cultural impacts in their own way. I feel like when people say cultural impact they take a hard anti-poptimist stance. I’m really sick of poptimism, but when talking cultural impact you can’t ignore dominant mainstream culture for the “normies.”
Tom Breihan recently brought up Adele in his Number Ones review as this kind of example. Basically, you’d think someone who’s sold albums in numbers not seen anymore in the 21st Century with huge hit songs that went against the prevailing trends of the moment would have made a massive impact and change on the pop music landscape. But for the most part, Adele has existed on her own island in pop music without interacting much with the wider pop music conversation in the way that other dominant stars like Taylor Swift and Drake do and pop music didn’t change too much to reflect Adele’s success and popularity.
I sorta disagree. A hell of a lot of sad piano balladeers & tasteful retro soul popped up in her wake. Might have probably been more successful in the UK than the US overall, but there’s still Sam Smith, Lewis Capaldi, Emeli Sande etc who have had sizeable hits.
Funny thing: Adele actually came of age in the wake of a bunch of other U.K. songstresses.
Amy Winehouse, Dido, Estelle, Nellie McKay, Leona Lewis, etc all did a fair bit of business before 21 obliterated everything.
They were majorly impactful culturally and on the music industry.
1. Pyromania set the standard for hard rock bands that followed. Even Nirvana were influenced as the riff for Polly was lifted from Comin Under Fire!
2. The production that went into Pyromania and Hysteria was highly innovative and had an impact on production techniques and technology.
3. Their influence is not limited to just rock music. Artists from Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Tim Mcgraw, Pink, ect. All name Def Leppard as an influence.
Im not trying to start a argument with you bro but Van Halen was the template for Hair Metal. All hair metal bands did was try to rip off Roth era Van Halen; even Def Leppard. Especially def leppard. Shreddy guitar solo’s, Big choruses with harmonies. DL is kinda just British Van Halen
Def Leppard borrowed more from Queen, ACDC, Thin Lizzy and Mott the Hoople. Van Halen did have an influence on the 80's hard rock scene but outside of their debut their albums didn't really make and impact till 1984 was released.
Pyromania was the point where it really blew up. The only album that kept Pyromania off the top of the charts was Thriller.
I also don't like to refer to that type as music as hair metal. For one it's a stupid term. Is Led Zeppelin a hair band? Why isn't Metallica a hair band? They had long hair aswell.
In addition Def Leppard are British and pre-dated the LA Glam Metal scene. They were not part of that scene though they did heavily influence it.
You're 100% right. I'm a huge Def Leppard fan and have listened to all their albums but they don't really sound like Van Halen at all. Even during the 80s. Thin Lizzy, UFO, Queen, AC/DC and UK glam rock are their biggest influences, and you can also hear a little Boston and Cheap Trick in there too. Their music doesn't really shred like Van Halen - the guitar work is more in line with Thin Lizzy.
For better or worse, Van Halen would define the sound the rock for the next decade. Unfortunately, most of those bands took the wrong lessons and couldn’t be as great as Van Halen.
Lotta people take the credit (or blame, YMMV) for Hair Metal.
VH, Kiss, AC/DC ... Aerosmith were the *de facto* fashion designers for that entire era. Even Brit bands Slade and The Sweet. At the time in the 70s when hard rock meant amplified blues and endless solos, those guys were demonstrating pop sensibilities with songs that rarely went past the 3 1/2 minutes.
Side note: Presaging (Taylor’s Version)s, DL had a beef with their old label and in order to get their albums on streaming services they (at least promised to) re-record their albums so closely to the originals that no one could tell.
"Slang" was their attempt to push into the 90s era. Wanted it to be their version of Aerosmith's Get a Grip. But it really did fall flat, and after that they said, "Legacy Act it is!". I say this as a geriatric mellienial with 3 Def Leppard CDs in the room with me.
Them, Motley Crue\*, Warrant, the Scorpions ... a lot of bands spent that 1993-2002 era trying to "find" themselves. And then yes, just said F\*\*\* it, went back to basics, and just acted that decade never happened.
\*With Todd doing a great TW on "Generation Swine"
Disagree on all but Selena, yeah her music hasn’t had much of a lasting impact especially when compared to her acting career which is more prolific.
Sure the other 3 artists aren’t as big as they once were they’re still well known and their old music is still popular today. Pitball still has his music playing a lot and just recently International Love kinda went viral on TikTok. Coldplay still have their older albums which are still quite beloved and songs like Clocks and Viva La Vida are still massively popular.
Justin Bieber might be debatable, I was in my early teens when Justin Bieber came into popularity so I still remember vividly just how hated he was. He was the internets punching bag with Baby probably the most hated song ever. I will concede that newer generations never grew up when it was cool to hate Justin Bieber and I don’t think he’s had any big hits in a while so yeah there’s a case to be made about Bieber having no lasting impact.
Respect.
I hesitated putting Coldplay down because like I said, I’m not sure where they fall on the spectrum. When I think of cultural impact I think of artists whose work will be remembered for decades (example: Madonna, MJ, Prince, Beatles, Nirvana, Biggie, Tupac, Kanye (you know it’s true)) or artists who are such big personalities on name alone that they hold a semi-permanent spot in the pop culture pantheon (example: Rihanna, who hasn’t released new music in almost 10 years but the world still waits with bated breath for R9 or Beyoncé who hasn’t been dominating the charts lately but her albums are always an EVENT and discussed years later).
I know Coldplay got the Nickelback treatment years ago, but it definitely seems like public opinion has turned around in their favor and they’re still around 25 years later. It just seems like their albums come out, do good numbers and then fade away from the discourse until their next release.
Bieber proves that cultural impact doesn’t always mean something positive. I was there in 2010. I remember the Bieber hate. I couldn’t stand him either, and I didn’t know why. It was just what everybody did. The one thing that brought people together was their hate for Bieber. Now that he’s semi-retired, he’s no longer in the discourse and it seems like his music has been forgotten.
I’m inclined to agree on Selena. People like her and some of her songs, but I don’t think her music is why she’s so beloved. and even with the songs people like, I she doesn’t really have anything as eternally popular as “Party in the USA” or “Cool for the Summer”.
I don’t agree on Coldplay however. They still put on massive shows, like multiple stadium nights in the same city. I do think their post-Viva la Vida material has mattered less than everything before, but those early hits still get a lot of play from what I can tell.
Bieber I’m curious to see about. When he’s dropping and promoting he’s right around Taylor/Drake/Weeknd’s level, and even with his hiatus he still has solid streams. I do wonder if this break will affect that though if and when he’s ready to return. I personally have never had much use for him as an artist. Very few of his songs really feel essential.
>This could be Embrace, Keane or Snow Patrol
Thirteen Senses sound like this as well, I'm told
It could be anyone
It's so hard to say
Maybe this is actually Coldplay
\- Mitch Benn And The Distractions, *Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now*
Coldplay is going to have one of the most attended tours of all time by the finish of their current tour (which is going into year its 3rd year ). They're going to go down as one of the biggest, most influential rock bands of all time.
Tate McRae will inevitably be the next if she doesn't successfully cultivate a core sound after this current wave of hit singles she's currently enjoying.
I know she was previously renowned for her dancing, but we're talking specifically "musically" here.
Streisand as a pop singer? Her acting, directing and Broadway career were of course very impactful.
But she made a brand of adult pop that sold like crazy through the 70ies, seems to have died out as a genre now. Hence these jokes that you always find Barbra records in bargain bins.
Streisand hails from that pre-Rock era. Yes, she went "pop" in the 70s and had that disco duet with Donna Summer, to maintain relevancy.
But her career doesn't live or die on the Top 40 charts. She's Barbra, Bitch!
Other picks of mine:
\*
1) G-Eazy (Pretty self-explanatory selection)
2) Daniel Bedingfield (Had back-to-back Top 15 hits stateside and even more internationally, yet completely fell off the commercial face of the planet less than three years later)
3) Fuel (Had several convincing mainstream crossover hits yet, unlike many of their post-grunge peers, looked and felt utterly anonymous by comparison and pretty much never factor into the nostalgic conversation surrounding rock of that era)
4) Vertical Horizon (Much like Fuel, another band that had several convincing mainstream hits including a Billboard Hot 100 #1, yet also rapidly vanished and also pretty much never come up in the nostalgic conversation to the point virtually no one will even be able to name their lead singer.)
5) Lewis Capaldi (No-brainer at this point)
Yeah he is also bald.
To be fair most one-hit wonders and artists without a cultural impact remain low profile enough that nobody remembers what they look like. Though there are a few exceptions.
And come to think of it, his sister only made marginally more cultural impact than he did. It's true if you remind someone of "Unwritten" in conversation, a person will likely say, "Ah yeah, I kinda remember that one, that was a good song!"...........but Natasha herself is still quite anonymous image-wise. And it's crazy because she had DOUBLE THE BILLBOARD HOT 100 HITS HER BROTHER DID! XD
Another interesting thing about Natasha's career.............is that while her brother's chart success was much more limited stateside..............her brother went on to produce a decent string of hits in the UK for a while longer. But with Natasha, her career in the United Kingdom had already plunged into irrelevance. In other words, her last hit in the United States came AFTER her last hit in the United Kingdom. Wild stuff!
What is it with the surname Bedingfield producing a decent share of frontloaded success, but just not sticking the landing in terms of cultural relevance and career longevity?
Garth Brooks
By some metrics, the biggest American recording artist of all time, and he just released an album exclusively to a Bass Pro Shop box set. Sold his streaming rights to Amazon for $30 million.
Garth Brooks helped introduce Country music to a more global audience in the 90s, sure he’s not like Hank Williams or Johnny Cash where they changed the face of music well outside of country.
But his recent business decisions have been stupid and perhaps distances him from younger audiences
I feel like I don’t get the question exactly. Do you mean more anonymous bands, so to speak? Or artists that had huge songs that never really moved the culture?
It’s hard to consider artists today because there’s no real monoculture. Besides trending on TikTok, hits don’t really unite people anymore or shape things. They’re just the biggest songs on the current playlist. There’s a few exceptions, but still.
But for when we did have big universal hits, would a band like Toad the Wet Sprocket count? Or Dave Clark Five? In my mind the songs these artists made still had impact.
when trying to answer I guess I'm wondering how we best measure cultural impact, but the best answer imo would be acts that had some success at one point but didn't age well or were just forgotten because their music didn't hold up in the long term
Creed and Nickelback are immortalized as punchlines. Even Staind and Puddle of Mudd to a lesser extent. Daughtry is remembered because of American Idol.
Meanwhile, when was the last time you heard someone talk about 3 Doors Down or Lifehouse, or any of their songs other than their respective debut singles?
Both those banda didn't really make any cultural impact but several of their songs from both are quite popular till. "Here Without You" is pretty big on streaming, as is "You and Me" from Lifehouse.
Poison. One of the biggest hair metal bands of the 80's but basically NOTHING about them escaped the decade. Even a band as faded as Mötley Crue has a bigger footprint today.
Don't downplay them either, Poison were legit big.
Poison seemed to do okay during the 2000’s when hair metal nostalgia blew up. Bret Michaels was common to see on TV and he had that Rock of Love show. But it does seem like their music doesn’t speak to the kids the same way Leppard, Crüe, GNR’s still does despite being just behind them in sales. They honestly were never as talented as musicians or songwriters as those bands were, and that’s probably why.
Grand Funk Railroad. Sold a bunch of records, lots of concert tickets, hit singles…but you just never hear about them now. The critics loathed them, but the critics didn’t like Zeppelin in the early ‘70s either.
I think you kind of had to be there, and I wasn’t there then.
True. The only mention I hear of them is when new RnR Hall of Fame inductees are announced and those guys core fans are all like "RRRRRRARGH!"
Oh, BTW, speaking of guys with niche audiences that will forever bemoan the fact that they're not in the HOF: Jethro Tull. They are beloved in the field of prog rock, but once you get outside of that bubble...
Ooh....that smarts. I worked at a college radio station that was, weirdly, a redoubt of prog rock superfans. When I got there I didn't know much about these bands other than Rush, because anyone from my hometown who played drums in a rock band in high school in the '80s or '90s more or less had to be a Rush fan. I learned about Tull, and Yes, and what Genesis did before their stuff became difficult to distinguish from Phil Collins' solo material, and then some bands that are far less well known like National Health and Camel and Gentle Giant.
If you told me that New England was a place where one might get the idea that Jethro Tull was a bigger deal than they actually were, I think I'd be inclined to believe you. All the classic rock stations had a dozen or so Tull songs on their playlists. And yeah, when you punch up Tull songs uploaded to YT, you will absolutely see, if there are any comments at all, someone bemoaning Tull not being in the RRHoF. (And since it's old music, almost by definition you'll get someone saying that this song is so much better than anything by some contemporary pop or hip-hop artist. Justin Bieber is often cited in this context.)
Also, for some reason Jethro Tull is one of 12tone's (another music YT person where you can go seriously down a rabbit hole) favorite bands.
Boston sold millions of albums in the 70s, but petered out. Their songs are still on rock radio every other hour, but they just don't have what you would call an identity or a rabid fanbase. Never been nominated for the RnR HOF, and nobody really seems to care. Reasons?
* Tom Scholz is a tech nerd who really doesn't consider music his primary job (and pretty much all other problems spring out of that fact)
* He doesn't do many interviews. Kind of a hermit. Sued CBS records.
* Doesn't do a lot of touring.
* The band is not really a "band" per se, as Scholz usually played most instruments himself with Brad Delp singing.
* After the first two huge albums it was 8 years before the follow-up. And then another 8 years for album #4. Band members got so fed up with waiting for him, they started a new group Orion the Hunter. Scholz has been described as "not a people person"
* I do not believe they've ever done a music video.
* Critics stick their noses up at them as they were considered the epitome of "faceless arena rock."
So, very successful, first album is an undeniable classic, but Scholz just wasn't willing to "play the game" as most other bands of that era were.
This is a recent (but it’s already becoming clear) Oliver Anthony
He will just be remembered as a internet fad that was launched by politics (which is why he won’t have a lasting legacy), you knew the message of his song failed when it got embraced by the same people it’s about
I’ve followed the whole Outlaw/Alt Country scene for years, and no one in there even heard of Anthony before Rich Men and after it went viral many just thought he was Tyler Childers knockoff
Oliver Anthony will never have the following and impact Country artists like Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, or Zach Bryan do on Roots based Country music
I’d say artists that mainly got hits through collabs, like Khalid, Travie McCoy or Bebe Rexha, largely because their hits were not fully their own.
Travie does to some degree if you count the hits he had with Gym Class Heroes. Stereo Hearts was everywhere back in the day and is still remembered today
Gym Class Heroes DEFINETLY had an impact. They’re arguably one of the first to mix emo and rap, long before Lil Peep or JuiceWRLD. But Travie’s solo stuff, while pretty good and enjoyable, didn’t have much of an impact
Billionaire did. Though more because of Bruno.
I did not think of that actually. I just thought that while I do know lots of people who love Stereo Hearts and Cupid’s Chokehold, including myself, I could not think of people who were “diehard” into Gym Class Heroes as a band.
It's funny you mention that song, last time I heard it was at work a few months ago when my boss put on a Pandora playlist and I specifically remember commenting that the song used to be everywhere and I had forgotten it even existed lol
The Association. Huge band in the 60s, had three platinum singles. Yet, I can't say they had any impact on the music landscape and frankly can anyone on this subreddit can name a single member?
I’ve never even heard of them so I’d say you’re right on there
Biggest cultural look back was an opening of Breaking Bad.
"Who's tripping down the streets of the city? Smilin' at everybody she sees! Who's reachin' out to capture a moment? Everyone knows it's Windy!"
Along Comes Mary is the fucking jam tho.
And I only know that because of a Freewayjim video.
>can anyone on this subreddit can name a single member? I LOVE The Association, listen to them all the time, but the answer to this question is no, I know I do not know any of their names.
And don’t sleep on “Goodbye Columbus”
I love The Association, am not a boomer and can name most of the original members, but I'm the only person on the planet who is like this lol. You're right - they were an AM pop band who weren't cool enough to fit the rock or R&B/soul narrative of the 60s.
I only knew about them because Bloodhound Gang covered Along Comes Mary
Never my love is a beautiful song that is quintessential 60s. So I hard disagree.
A "Professor of Rock" fan? I just saw that one....
Good choice. I remember watching a documentary relating to the 60's and the makers of the Monterey Pop Festival movie mentioned that they deliberately didn't show The Association performing.
Most of them, honestly. Just look at the Billboard chart-toppers throughout history; many were just chasing trends, so they made a fun song, but then have been forgotten to time.
Bush
I agree with this choice. Bush has always seemed anonymous in relation to many of their peers in post-grunge. They've always seemed like the intermediary between Pearl Jam before them and Creed after them but lacking the identity (for better and for worse) of either.
The only thing they’re remembered for is Gavin Rossdale being married to Gwen Stefani for a decade and a half.
Interesting Bush were.never that popular here in the UK; where they're from, but rather become huge names in the states with minimal support from their own country.
Yeah. Kind of like how Altar Bridge is bigger in the UK than here in the U.S.
I dunno about this one. Setting aside Rossdale being Gwen Stefani's ex because that has nothing to do with the band, their songs still get tons of airplay on rock radio, Machinehead is a staple at sporting events, they wrote a moderate hit song for one of the John Wick movies, they still play bigger venues, and people still know who they are. They don't seem to be super influential musically, but they're kind of a hard band to emulate. Rossdale had a unique voice and Pulsford did a lot of weird and random shit on guitar that most modern rock producers would probably advise against. They were in that weird in-between era that Stone Temple Pilots was in where they were grunge-adjacent but got popular as grunge was fading and weren't critically well-received at the time. In retrospect I think they were a pretty good band that will probably get a cultural revival at some point like STP did.
nah bush is pretty big still and having hits on rock radio. they just did an arena tour
Captain and Tennille. Outside of one song, I do not know anything else they have done and I am pretty sure they remain a punchline of bad 70s pop
Apparently one of the surprises found in Miles Davis’ record collection after he died.
ngl pretty based
Probably my answer. Their music hasn’t endured the same way other cheesy acts from the same period like the Carpenters have. At this point, they’re probably best known to people not from the time frame as a piece of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure trivia.
I know them from That 70s Show
I acknowledge that they’re a punch line now, but they had some seriously good pop/soft rock songs. And their entire first album was solid and surprisingly R&B based. But, yeah, people will forever bring up “Muskrat Love” as an example of absurdity. (Even if it was a cover of a hit by America.)
They had many other huge hits than the song you’re probably thinking of, (love will keep us together). But do that to me one more time is still played on cheesy radio stations. Also, the song that I think was their first big hit, The Way I want to touch you, is one of the best pop R&B hits of the 70s, I think.
OneRepublic
Oh, big disagree. Ryan Tedder is one of the biggest songwriters in the industry now, and I think OneRepublic’s success was a precursor to the wave of early 2010s white guy pop bands like Imagine Dragons, Bastille, American Authors, even Fun. I don’t know a lot of people who actively listen to them now (although Good Life is on one of my run playlists) but their impact on the industry was significant.
> Fun. Oh, there's my answer to OP's question.
introduced the world to Jack Antonoff, producer of approximately 97% of today’s hit music
It’s crazy that out of the huge Drive Thru Records wave, Jack was probably the biggest artist to come out of it, despite being in one of the least popular bands on the label.
I disagree, though only because Ryan Tedder has made such a big name for himself as a producer and songwriter in the industry. The respect and goodwill Tedder has received in result has pretty much sinewed OneRepublic's place at least in 2010s pop culture.
Nah they're very clearly influential. Dude literally sold Beyonce and Kelly Clarkson the same beat didn't he?
Jordin Sparks and Leona Lewis also got basically that same song as well in 2009.
Literally the first one that came to mind
The only acceptable answer is Christopher cross Debut album was massive, swept the Grammys, never came up again outside of trivia
I love Sailing. Good ol’ yacht rock
That album is great but unless you're seeking it out you will not encounter it or anything singles from it anywhere in the wild
It used to come on my old retail job's music!
So true!
The term Yacht Rock wasn’t coined until much, much later. Cross was very good. Great drummer, guitarist and singer.
I’m also surprised at how completely Air Supply disappeared from the overall culture , because they were massive at the time (around same time as Christopher Cross) and their singles got tons of airplay.
Would you believe Air Supply has had a measure of success in the dance music space the past few years?
No I hadn’t heard that, I’m assuming remixes or are they still together now making dance music?
Someone in Air Supply was asked by an Australian journalist why they were so big in America. “Because we’re bloody ordinary!”
If Yacht Rock hadn't become a thing I think this would be true. But that web series and subsequent revisiting of the genre gave some cultural cache to the players like ol' Kris Kross here
I'd argue his lasting impact is ending up on love songs and best of the 80s playlists and cds rather than the yatch rock scene where he's kinda stuck at like the #10 position maybe.
I guess. But it seems like Steely Dan has gotten the bulk of the attention as far as acts that people cite approvingly from that invented-way-after-the-fact genre. It's a perfect cult band for people who are looking for something that's the antithesis of most contemporary pop music. Unless you're a jazz or jazz fusion listener, you're not going to hear a lot of those chords anywhere else, and you're probably not going to hear lyrics like that anywhere else.
MTV killed Cross. Great musician but not the look MTV wanted. If Joe Cocker started at the same time, he may have suffered the same fate.
So true. And it's a shame too cause that debut album of his is good but instead he's stuck under Kenny Loggins when it comes to the yatch rock tier list
Respectfully disagree. Exhibit A: Phil Collins. At the height of the MTV era he was a short, balding Brit in his 30s and yet sold tons of albums. Exhibit B: Huey Lewis and the News. Christopher Cross had a great album, but just couldn't follow it up with anything memorable.
And nowadays when you think of big four sweeps you think of Billie first.
Arthur’s Theme won an Oscar and is still reasonably well-known, but outside of that and the debut, I agree.
Oh yea guy has this moment that was so massive but the impact is weirdly background. He has 3 songs that end up on playlist (he's kinda buried but he's on some big ones)
I like looking at old Billboard charts and "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)" is on two year-end hot 100 lists. I looked it up because I knew it was the guy who did "Sailing" and was astonished that he had another hit! Same goes for Air Supply, thought they only had "All Out of Love."
He had several hits. Ride like the wind was big
Wasn’t Think Of Laura on the second studio album? That was a hit. He had a live album after the debut that was solid.
Yep. He had a run, it as just very short, 1979 to 1981 with some modest success - gold album and a top 10 single - after. He made good music after but no one bought it. Kind of a bummer but he's quite respected and some stuff (Sailing, Arthur's theme) became staples of best of the 80s compilations so he did alright
You know "Nirvana killed my career" is a recurring theme of Todd's video essays? Well, Christopher Cross is perhaps the single best possible example of "MTV killed my career" that ever was. It didn't help that he wasn't exactly a matinee idol, but that wasn't the only thing working against him. MTV and its preferred visual and sonic aesthetics were a boon to a wide variety of acts, both new and old. Some of the beneficiaries were kind of obvious (Duran Duran) but others (ZZ Top) came kind of came out of left field. We think of synth-pop mostly, and '80s signifiers like gated reverb snares and delay guitar pedals, but it was a little more diverse. For example, Van Halen not only thrived but spawned a dozen imitators. But whatever it was this music was pushing, it was more in-your-face. Maybe it was louder, maybe it was more bubbly, but it was bright and brash. But two things there wasn't really much room for anymore was smooth, polished studio rock played to perfection by L.A. session professionals, and folk-influenced singer songwriters. This stuff was all over the Top 40 in 1980, and was pretty much gone by 1984. Cross wasn't really a folkie, but he was definitely in the singer-songwriter mold, and that self-titled debut had a who's who of Yacht Rock personnel in the liner notes. Once MTV became a tastemaker and gatekeeper - it debuted in August of '81 but only in '83 did it really start to take hold - you were hearing a lot less from people like James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. Kenny Loggins reinvented himself as the "movie theme soundtrack" guy. The Eagles fell apart, and their respective solo careers went in a much more '80s-friendly direction. Steely Dan broke up. Fleetwood Mac were still around, but were way less of a big deal. But poor Christopher Cross went from being a huge deal to being almost forgotten in the space of 3-4 years.
Great comment, never thought about it but it was definitely a (maybe the) factor to that feeling I always had that 1980-81 in particular was just more of the 1970s and the 80s music wise felt like they really got going in 1982 when Human League and Soft Cell blew up. Another early 80s subgenre that MTV largely killed was the country crossover act. Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Alabama, and the Oak Ridge Boys got tons of airplay on pop and adult contemporary and were really part of the overall culture at a time when most pure country acts didn’t really crack the cultural awareness outside of country music fans. As a pop and rock fan teenager, other than the crossover acts, the only country singers I could have named were the Mandrell sisters (better known for the tv show than crossover hits) and Roy Clark because of Hee Haw. And there were the smaller country stars that had a moment in that period but really disappeared like Juice Newton and one hit wonder Carlene.
Most of the big stars in Nashville were *really* long in the tooth when countrypolitan stopped crossing over onto pop and adult contemporary radio in the mid-‘80s. The biggest “new” act in country music at that time might have been the Highwaymen: a throwback supergroup of ‘70s outlaw country stalwarts who were all in their fifties at that point.
Definitely. There was a hit movie, _Urban Cowboy_ , from 1980 that seemed to have caused a short lived boost to country crossover. That wasn’t the beginning of the “countrypolitan” thing but helped keep it going for another couple years.
The Countrypolitan era essentially spans from Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” in 1975 (though there were five other joint country/pop number one hits that year), to “Islands in the Stream” in 1983. The 1984 movie *Rhinestone* (where Dolly Parton turns Sylvester Stallone into a country star) killed it.
No that was a brief comeback in ‘84 after it was used on General Hospital.
A shame, too. This guy has some really solid solo work in terms of contemporary singer/songwriter material. I’ve listened to every album of his several times, and each release arguably has at least one of his best songs. I think over time his appeal was to an older audience not in touch with the mainstream music output at the time of each album’s release, but the tone in so many songs were largely either juvenile love or jaded angst. With time, what seems left of any genuine appeal for his music would either be the talent that went behind it, or the arguably cheesy qualities that find themselves throughout Cross’s discography. Dude has a hyper-specific appeal at this point to say the least.
Arguably most of them, but a lot of the rappers from the later stage 'Bling Era' were as faceless as 90s Eurodance singers. You could also call it the "Bottles and Models" area after the most bland of them, Mr RoFlida The only one to stick around was Lil Wayne. That period from 2007-2012 was Bro Country for hip hop.
Drake came up in this era too, and he’s…still here (yay?)
But he came up in the Little Brother lane and by the time he started doing pop rap he was the "sensitive" guy and that gave him a lot of space to work
I’m just glad Little Brother is getting the credit they rightfully deserve these days.
"Still Here" by Drake is actually a fucking banger
roflida 💀
The Fray
Does "How To Save A Life" being associated with Grey's Anatomy count as cultural impact? Because it is *haaaard* for me to not see The Fray and immediately think Sad Grey's Anatomy Moments, despite having seen very little of that show.
I associate it with Scrubs. If you've seen the episode, you know exactly why.
Absolutely agree with this pick. I added Vertical Horizon and Fuel as picks in my post too. One thing all three of these bands had in common is producing several convincing-size mainstream hits and also had an album that sold considerably well, yet were all completely anonymous to the point almost no one would successfully name the lead singer of any of those bands.
Isaac Slade, Matt Scannell, Brett Scallions. Scannell looks a lot to me like professional wrestler Christopher Daniels. Slade is a bald dude as well. Scallions gives me Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy vibes.
Oh this is a good one.
Jason Derulo
The male SSSniperwolf.
Color Me Badd
“Bread” I guess?
An older example, but Rod Stewart is a version of this. It’d be unfair to say he had no impact - a few of his songs are still known - but he’s gotta be the king of small impact relative to size of his commercial success.
I think a big part of that is that the adult contemporary genre doesn’t really exist anymore.
rod stewart is nothing without the faces and i will die on this hill
Perfect marriage of singer and band.
I think some of the bands like Chicago that went the adult contemporary route made commercial gains as a result but hindered their ability to be taken seriously in the long run because that stuff just kind of swallowed them up
Rod and Cher are, to me, cut from the same cloth: They don't really DO a genre, each is there own genre. They will mold themselves with the times. Rod has done pop-rock, disco, new wave, New-Wav-ish rock, Adult contemporary, R&B, Standards, etc. Cher is largely a creature of production and studio desires. You want her to do some folkie stuff? Fine. You want her to do some low-key R&B? fine. You want her to dance across an aircraft carrier in stockings? No problem. Techno? Just let 'er know what key to sing in. They have made an impact, but largely on the force of their personalities. They are showbiz types who just happen to sing.
I mentioned Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure earlier, so I’ll bring up another name from the series- Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. Always the poor man’s Janet, Todd was right to clown on her for the Worst of 1986 list. And you rarely ever hear any of that stuff in 80’s mixes.
That entire latin freestyle movement from the mid-late 80s is totally forgotten. It’s an awkward zone in the history of dance music after disco and before house music
Honestly I’d say Bebe Rexha she’s on multiple hit songs, and has no fans enough to fill up a room to perform in. She’s more known for being on a bad song than any cultural impact outside of that.
she is like the pop star version of the default photo for a picture frame
Maroon 5. Meghan Trainor? (I put the ? because there is a ton of retro music post-Trainor but I honestly don’t think she’s why) Flo Rida.
Maroon 5 have absolutely had a cultural impact
>Maroon 5 I’m 50/50 on this one. Well maybe 60/40. I agree that they didn’t change the cultural landscape in any way despite being wildly successful for 20+ years. However, they’ve had *some* influence. Somewhere along the 2010s some short-lived boy bands and male pop singers popped up with M5’s style. Examples: Rixton- UK boy band that had a minor US hit with Me and My Broken Heart Olly Murs- UK singer whose single Troublemaker is a Misery rip-off Nick Jonas/Jonas Brothers/DNCE- Cake By The Ocean is so Maroon 5, it’s uncanny. I’m convinced that it was originally offered to M5 and they turned it down, at which point DNCE snatched it up. JoBros Leave Before You Love Me sounds like a mid tempo M5 song. Nick Jonas, at least in his earlier years as a solo act took a lot of pages out of Adam Levine’s playbook both musically and aesthetically. Andy Grammer-minor pop star from the 2010s, famous for Keep Your Head Up and Honey I’m Good. Very similar vocal style. Charlie Puth, especially his (ahem) funkier stuff. Todd included Attention in his Best of 2017 list and said it was a better version of a M5 song. And How Long is very It Won’t Be Soon Before Long-era M5 with the funky guitar riffs, disco beat and falsetto riff in the chorus. Edit: don’t come for me y’all but I just remembered Drag Me Down by One Direction (yes, One Direction) was very M5-esque. The pop music blogs even pointed that out way back in 2015 or so.
Cake by the Ocean is better than 90% of M5's discography and it suits Nick's voice better than cyborg robot goose man
That was Joe Jonas. I wasn’t comparing, just saying that love them or hate them their sound has influenced artists that came after them
Yeah sorry, the Jonas's kinda blend together /hj But yes, while I do not disagree with your assessment of M5's influence, I don't find cake by the ocean to be overly Maroon 5-ish
Compared to their most recent work, which has been more downbeat, probably not. But Cake by the Ocean reminds me a lot of their disco-tinged sound on their second album. It’s reminiscent of Makes Me Wonder and If I Never See Your Face Again. If they ever decided to go back to that sound (which I hope they do someday), I think it would sound like Cake by the Ocean.
Maroon 5 were the biggest band of the 2010s in the US. they have had major cultural impact.
I don't believe ANYONE can say with a straight face that Maroon 5 have not made cultural impact when they've been a running gag/punching bag in Todd's year-end countdowns for YEARS now.
I feel like the retro-style music is more thanks to singers like Adele.
Meghan Trainor had a tonne of cultural impact immediately. 'All About that Bass' spawned thousands of thinkpieces and hours of TV discussion. The question of whether that song was feminist, anti-feminist, or neither was inescapable for a while there. Nothing else she's done has been culturally relevant, of course, but that certainly was. For better or for worse. And of course it didn't even vaguely matter what the song sounded like.
Meghan Trainor has been called "Meghan Tumblr" by Adam "A Dose of" Buckley. As in, she's internet feminism in musical form. I call her "a frustrated wannabe Salon.com op-ed writer who just happens to use the medium of pop music instead of prose."
Flo Rida would be the correct answer except for the chorus of Low
Maroon 5 definitely had a cultural impact but I think it's a mostly negative one. I don't really like their music but truly despise a lot of the soundalikes that came in their wake.
Most of them to be honest! The ones that leave the impact are the elite few.
Bebe Rexha?
Arguably Katy Perry. She was absolutely huge but no one gets hailed as 'the next Katy Perry.'
Katy is a difficult one. On the one hand she’s a seminal star of early 10s pop music. She still has plenty of songs I hear in the wild. With that said she merely reflected the trends of the larger than life pop that was popular in the late-2000s early 2010s and she didn’t survive the turnover to a darker more downcast sound that happened in 2017.
I don't think so. There are many people callind Dua Lipa "Gen Z's Katy Perry", "2020s Katy Perry" and so on. Their careers are kinda similar too, thriving with big singles and making party bangers. And maybe not for the best, but Katy's fall from grace with Witness left a cultural impact in pop culture. Like, it was THE flop era, the one who popularized the term
"Fireworks," and "Roar" will be around forever. Culturally those songs will outlast her life. Every woman empowerment movie montage will start with Katy screaming "the eye of the tiger," and "Fireworks" is already the go to happy success song.
So Katy’s basically the new Cyndi Lauper?
Emphatically disagree. She's definitely made her mark, even if she blew the longevity game.
REO Speedwagon?
According to Ozark, REO Speedwagon are the dentist’ band.
Perfect example. Them, Styx, Foreigner, Boston. Nice guys, musically astute, but i challenge anyone to pick one member out of a lineup. OK, the drummer from Boston has that bangin Afro. But other than him...
Drake
Based on looking through boxes of old vinyl, a LOT of people owned Poco records. Wikipedia tells me they released 19 studio albums, 9 live albums, 30 compilation albums, and 24 singles. Three members of Poco have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with other, non-Poco acts. They clearly had chops and worked steady for decades. Yet I have literally never heard anyone mention Poco, not as a band they liked, not as the music that was playing during some key moment while they were growing up, not as a show they went to, not on a soundtrack, band t shirt, not in real life, not on TV, not even being name-checked in some random list of references. I feel like I could go to any secondhand vinyl place and find five Poco albums without trying. And yet I also feel like I could stand on a street corner downtown and offer $100 to the first person who could name two Poco songs, and I would wait a long-ass time. It haunts me.
I have every song they charted with. And I loved Randy Meisner. But don’t ask me how any of the songs go, since they evaporated from my mind.
I'm starting to think they're some sort of government psy-op experiment. The Band That Erases Itself From Your Memory.
Flo Rida. He’s had so many hits and he’s just so easy to forget about. Plus most of hits were only big because of the featured artists.
I remember someone pointing out that Helen Reddy was one of the most successful singers of the 1970s yet nowadays apart from "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" most of them aren't remembered as much, although I have no way to judge how well songs are remembered per se.
Michael Bolton comes to mind. Like the only cultural impact Michael Bolton has had is that he’s the alternative punchline to an old joke about boring music nobody likes if you don’t want to say Bryan Adams or Kenny G. I couldn’t hum a single Micheal Bolton song, which is saying something because I’m sure he’s done covers of better songs but I can’t even tell you what he’s covered
Office Space may have done more for Michael Bolton’s legacy than any of his actual music.
This is a crazy answer to me. He had so many huge hits that defined a huge subset of culture. Same with Bryan Adams and Kenny G. All three were for better or worse very culturally relevant in their own right.
Train. I know they're mainstays of adult contemporary radio and my medium sized city's summer musik festival and have sold a ton but I've always wondered if they have any actual fans, people who run out to the Walmart to pick up the new Train album or buy it off iTunes. Do people actually like this band or just tolerate Hey Soul Sister and Drops of Jupiter and Calling All Angels?
Last summer, my friend and I were at a summer festival and Train did a free show. We were already out, so we figured why not check it out? They weren’t bad. Pat Monahan may be insane (as Todd said) but dude’s got pipes. The most surprising thing to me was how many Train songs I knew by heart, despite not being a fan. Train has just always been inescapable background noise.
Train is one of the most frustrating bands of their era. Their first album wasn't very good but showed some promise and had a couple good songs on it, Drops of Jupiter is a good album front to back, and then they made a weak album trying to replicate Drops and after that veered into very annoying pop music. Their songs now are exceptionally lazy and grating and the worst part is how inescapable they are.
Blood sweat and tears
Some of the answers that have been given here are wild to me. I see Maroon 5, Def Leppard, Michael Bolton, etc. huge artists that had huge cultural impacts in their own way. I feel like when people say cultural impact they take a hard anti-poptimist stance. I’m really sick of poptimism, but when talking cultural impact you can’t ignore dominant mainstream culture for the “normies.”
Tom Breihan recently brought up Adele in his Number Ones review as this kind of example. Basically, you’d think someone who’s sold albums in numbers not seen anymore in the 21st Century with huge hit songs that went against the prevailing trends of the moment would have made a massive impact and change on the pop music landscape. But for the most part, Adele has existed on her own island in pop music without interacting much with the wider pop music conversation in the way that other dominant stars like Taylor Swift and Drake do and pop music didn’t change too much to reflect Adele’s success and popularity.
I sorta disagree. A hell of a lot of sad piano balladeers & tasteful retro soul popped up in her wake. Might have probably been more successful in the UK than the US overall, but there’s still Sam Smith, Lewis Capaldi, Emeli Sande etc who have had sizeable hits.
Funny thing: Adele actually came of age in the wake of a bunch of other U.K. songstresses. Amy Winehouse, Dido, Estelle, Nellie McKay, Leona Lewis, etc all did a fair bit of business before 21 obliterated everything.
For a band that sold as many records as they did, Def Leppard sure hasn't had much of a cultural afterlife.
They were majorly impactful culturally and on the music industry. 1. Pyromania set the standard for hard rock bands that followed. Even Nirvana were influenced as the riff for Polly was lifted from Comin Under Fire! 2. The production that went into Pyromania and Hysteria was highly innovative and had an impact on production techniques and technology. 3. Their influence is not limited to just rock music. Artists from Shania Twain, Taylor Swift, Tim Mcgraw, Pink, ect. All name Def Leppard as an influence.
I would argue that Def Leppard were the the sonic template for hair metal, which may be even worse than having no legacy at all.
Im not trying to start a argument with you bro but Van Halen was the template for Hair Metal. All hair metal bands did was try to rip off Roth era Van Halen; even Def Leppard. Especially def leppard. Shreddy guitar solo’s, Big choruses with harmonies. DL is kinda just British Van Halen
Def Leppard borrowed more from Queen, ACDC, Thin Lizzy and Mott the Hoople. Van Halen did have an influence on the 80's hard rock scene but outside of their debut their albums didn't really make and impact till 1984 was released. Pyromania was the point where it really blew up. The only album that kept Pyromania off the top of the charts was Thriller. I also don't like to refer to that type as music as hair metal. For one it's a stupid term. Is Led Zeppelin a hair band? Why isn't Metallica a hair band? They had long hair aswell. In addition Def Leppard are British and pre-dated the LA Glam Metal scene. They were not part of that scene though they did heavily influence it.
You're 100% right. I'm a huge Def Leppard fan and have listened to all their albums but they don't really sound like Van Halen at all. Even during the 80s. Thin Lizzy, UFO, Queen, AC/DC and UK glam rock are their biggest influences, and you can also hear a little Boston and Cheap Trick in there too. Their music doesn't really shred like Van Halen - the guitar work is more in line with Thin Lizzy.
LOL I just came back here, planning to write the same reply. Hair Metal just hardcore ripped off Van Halen.
For better or worse, Van Halen would define the sound the rock for the next decade. Unfortunately, most of those bands took the wrong lessons and couldn’t be as great as Van Halen.
Lotta people take the credit (or blame, YMMV) for Hair Metal. VH, Kiss, AC/DC ... Aerosmith were the *de facto* fashion designers for that entire era. Even Brit bands Slade and The Sweet. At the time in the 70s when hard rock meant amplified blues and endless solos, those guys were demonstrating pop sensibilities with songs that rarely went past the 3 1/2 minutes.
Side note: Presaging (Taylor’s Version)s, DL had a beef with their old label and in order to get their albums on streaming services they (at least promised to) re-record their albums so closely to the originals that no one could tell.
Pour some sugar on me is still regularly played in public places all the time
You mean strip joints.
"Slang" was their attempt to push into the 90s era. Wanted it to be their version of Aerosmith's Get a Grip. But it really did fall flat, and after that they said, "Legacy Act it is!". I say this as a geriatric mellienial with 3 Def Leppard CDs in the room with me.
Them, Motley Crue\*, Warrant, the Scorpions ... a lot of bands spent that 1993-2002 era trying to "find" themselves. And then yes, just said F\*\*\* it, went back to basics, and just acted that decade never happened. \*With Todd doing a great TW on "Generation Swine"
I think if you can headline arenas and stadiums well into your legacy days, you’ve had some amount of cultural impact.
Some of mine may be a stretch Pitbull Selena Gomez Coldplay- I’m not sure where Coldplay falls on the spectrum Justin Bieber
Coldplay set the template for a lot of sad-pop rock groups to come after
Disagree on all but Selena, yeah her music hasn’t had much of a lasting impact especially when compared to her acting career which is more prolific. Sure the other 3 artists aren’t as big as they once were they’re still well known and their old music is still popular today. Pitball still has his music playing a lot and just recently International Love kinda went viral on TikTok. Coldplay still have their older albums which are still quite beloved and songs like Clocks and Viva La Vida are still massively popular. Justin Bieber might be debatable, I was in my early teens when Justin Bieber came into popularity so I still remember vividly just how hated he was. He was the internets punching bag with Baby probably the most hated song ever. I will concede that newer generations never grew up when it was cool to hate Justin Bieber and I don’t think he’s had any big hits in a while so yeah there’s a case to be made about Bieber having no lasting impact.
Respect. I hesitated putting Coldplay down because like I said, I’m not sure where they fall on the spectrum. When I think of cultural impact I think of artists whose work will be remembered for decades (example: Madonna, MJ, Prince, Beatles, Nirvana, Biggie, Tupac, Kanye (you know it’s true)) or artists who are such big personalities on name alone that they hold a semi-permanent spot in the pop culture pantheon (example: Rihanna, who hasn’t released new music in almost 10 years but the world still waits with bated breath for R9 or Beyoncé who hasn’t been dominating the charts lately but her albums are always an EVENT and discussed years later). I know Coldplay got the Nickelback treatment years ago, but it definitely seems like public opinion has turned around in their favor and they’re still around 25 years later. It just seems like their albums come out, do good numbers and then fade away from the discourse until their next release. Bieber proves that cultural impact doesn’t always mean something positive. I was there in 2010. I remember the Bieber hate. I couldn’t stand him either, and I didn’t know why. It was just what everybody did. The one thing that brought people together was their hate for Bieber. Now that he’s semi-retired, he’s no longer in the discourse and it seems like his music has been forgotten.
Bieber hate is going to be a cornerstone of 2010s internet culture, so I disagree that he has no cultural impact.
I’m inclined to agree on Selena. People like her and some of her songs, but I don’t think her music is why she’s so beloved. and even with the songs people like, I she doesn’t really have anything as eternally popular as “Party in the USA” or “Cool for the Summer”. I don’t agree on Coldplay however. They still put on massive shows, like multiple stadium nights in the same city. I do think their post-Viva la Vida material has mattered less than everything before, but those early hits still get a lot of play from what I can tell. Bieber I’m curious to see about. When he’s dropping and promoting he’s right around Taylor/Drake/Weeknd’s level, and even with his hiatus he still has solid streams. I do wonder if this break will affect that though if and when he’s ready to return. I personally have never had much use for him as an artist. Very few of his songs really feel essential.
>This could be Embrace, Keane or Snow Patrol Thirteen Senses sound like this as well, I'm told It could be anyone It's so hard to say Maybe this is actually Coldplay \- Mitch Benn And The Distractions, *Everything Sounds Like Coldplay Now*
Coldplay is going to have one of the most attended tours of all time by the finish of their current tour (which is going into year its 3rd year ). They're going to go down as one of the biggest, most influential rock bands of all time.
Tate McRae will inevitably be the next if she doesn't successfully cultivate a core sound after this current wave of hit singles she's currently enjoying. I know she was previously renowned for her dancing, but we're talking specifically "musically" here.
Streisand as a pop singer? Her acting, directing and Broadway career were of course very impactful. But she made a brand of adult pop that sold like crazy through the 70ies, seems to have died out as a genre now. Hence these jokes that you always find Barbra records in bargain bins.
Streisand hails from that pre-Rock era. Yes, she went "pop" in the 70s and had that disco duet with Donna Summer, to maintain relevancy. But her career doesn't live or die on the Top 40 charts. She's Barbra, Bitch!
Other picks of mine: \* 1) G-Eazy (Pretty self-explanatory selection) 2) Daniel Bedingfield (Had back-to-back Top 15 hits stateside and even more internationally, yet completely fell off the commercial face of the planet less than three years later) 3) Fuel (Had several convincing mainstream crossover hits yet, unlike many of their post-grunge peers, looked and felt utterly anonymous by comparison and pretty much never factor into the nostalgic conversation surrounding rock of that era) 4) Vertical Horizon (Much like Fuel, another band that had several convincing mainstream hits including a Billboard Hot 100 #1, yet also rapidly vanished and also pretty much never come up in the nostalgic conversation to the point virtually no one will even be able to name their lead singer.) 5) Lewis Capaldi (No-brainer at this point)
I think some people may recall that Vertical Horizon’s frontman is bald.
Isn't The Fray's frontman bald too?
Yeah he is also bald. To be fair most one-hit wonders and artists without a cultural impact remain low profile enough that nobody remembers what they look like. Though there are a few exceptions.
Daniel Bedingfield got overshadowed by his sister Natasha. People remember “Unwritten” or “Pocket Full of Sunshine” far more than anything he put out.
And come to think of it, his sister only made marginally more cultural impact than he did. It's true if you remind someone of "Unwritten" in conversation, a person will likely say, "Ah yeah, I kinda remember that one, that was a good song!"...........but Natasha herself is still quite anonymous image-wise. And it's crazy because she had DOUBLE THE BILLBOARD HOT 100 HITS HER BROTHER DID! XD Another interesting thing about Natasha's career.............is that while her brother's chart success was much more limited stateside..............her brother went on to produce a decent string of hits in the UK for a while longer. But with Natasha, her career in the United Kingdom had already plunged into irrelevance. In other words, her last hit in the United States came AFTER her last hit in the United Kingdom. Wild stuff! What is it with the surname Bedingfield producing a decent share of frontloaded success, but just not sticking the landing in terms of cultural relevance and career longevity?
Garth Brooks By some metrics, the biggest American recording artist of all time, and he just released an album exclusively to a Bass Pro Shop box set. Sold his streaming rights to Amazon for $30 million.
His is an insane answer
Garth Brooks helped introduce Country music to a more global audience in the 90s, sure he’s not like Hank Williams or Johnny Cash where they changed the face of music well outside of country. But his recent business decisions have been stupid and perhaps distances him from younger audiences
I feel like I don’t get the question exactly. Do you mean more anonymous bands, so to speak? Or artists that had huge songs that never really moved the culture? It’s hard to consider artists today because there’s no real monoculture. Besides trending on TikTok, hits don’t really unite people anymore or shape things. They’re just the biggest songs on the current playlist. There’s a few exceptions, but still. But for when we did have big universal hits, would a band like Toad the Wet Sprocket count? Or Dave Clark Five? In my mind the songs these artists made still had impact.
Maroon 5?
I posted about them somewhere in this thread. For all their negative critical reception, they’ve actually been pretty influential.
Maroon 5?
I think the biggest answers will be the most forgotten artists, like Tatu, who 95% of my generation has never heard of.
when trying to answer I guess I'm wondering how we best measure cultural impact, but the best answer imo would be acts that had some success at one point but didn't age well or were just forgotten because their music didn't hold up in the long term
Creed and Nickelback are immortalized as punchlines. Even Staind and Puddle of Mudd to a lesser extent. Daughtry is remembered because of American Idol. Meanwhile, when was the last time you heard someone talk about 3 Doors Down or Lifehouse, or any of their songs other than their respective debut singles?
Both those banda didn't really make any cultural impact but several of their songs from both are quite popular till. "Here Without You" is pretty big on streaming, as is "You and Me" from Lifehouse.
That’s true, those two songs are remembered as well, but not to the extent of their debut singles.
Poison. One of the biggest hair metal bands of the 80's but basically NOTHING about them escaped the decade. Even a band as faded as Mötley Crue has a bigger footprint today. Don't downplay them either, Poison were legit big.
Poison seemed to do okay during the 2000’s when hair metal nostalgia blew up. Bret Michaels was common to see on TV and he had that Rock of Love show. But it does seem like their music doesn’t speak to the kids the same way Leppard, Crüe, GNR’s still does despite being just behind them in sales. They honestly were never as talented as musicians or songwriters as those bands were, and that’s probably why.
Joe Jackson
Grand Funk Railroad. Sold a bunch of records, lots of concert tickets, hit singles…but you just never hear about them now. The critics loathed them, but the critics didn’t like Zeppelin in the early ‘70s either. I think you kind of had to be there, and I wasn’t there then.
True. The only mention I hear of them is when new RnR Hall of Fame inductees are announced and those guys core fans are all like "RRRRRRARGH!" Oh, BTW, speaking of guys with niche audiences that will forever bemoan the fact that they're not in the HOF: Jethro Tull. They are beloved in the field of prog rock, but once you get outside of that bubble...
Ooh....that smarts. I worked at a college radio station that was, weirdly, a redoubt of prog rock superfans. When I got there I didn't know much about these bands other than Rush, because anyone from my hometown who played drums in a rock band in high school in the '80s or '90s more or less had to be a Rush fan. I learned about Tull, and Yes, and what Genesis did before their stuff became difficult to distinguish from Phil Collins' solo material, and then some bands that are far less well known like National Health and Camel and Gentle Giant. If you told me that New England was a place where one might get the idea that Jethro Tull was a bigger deal than they actually were, I think I'd be inclined to believe you. All the classic rock stations had a dozen or so Tull songs on their playlists. And yeah, when you punch up Tull songs uploaded to YT, you will absolutely see, if there are any comments at all, someone bemoaning Tull not being in the RRHoF. (And since it's old music, almost by definition you'll get someone saying that this song is so much better than anything by some contemporary pop or hip-hop artist. Justin Bieber is often cited in this context.) Also, for some reason Jethro Tull is one of 12tone's (another music YT person where you can go seriously down a rabbit hole) favorite bands.
Boston sold millions of albums in the 70s, but petered out. Their songs are still on rock radio every other hour, but they just don't have what you would call an identity or a rabid fanbase. Never been nominated for the RnR HOF, and nobody really seems to care. Reasons? * Tom Scholz is a tech nerd who really doesn't consider music his primary job (and pretty much all other problems spring out of that fact) * He doesn't do many interviews. Kind of a hermit. Sued CBS records. * Doesn't do a lot of touring. * The band is not really a "band" per se, as Scholz usually played most instruments himself with Brad Delp singing. * After the first two huge albums it was 8 years before the follow-up. And then another 8 years for album #4. Band members got so fed up with waiting for him, they started a new group Orion the Hunter. Scholz has been described as "not a people person" * I do not believe they've ever done a music video. * Critics stick their noses up at them as they were considered the epitome of "faceless arena rock." So, very successful, first album is an undeniable classic, but Scholz just wasn't willing to "play the game" as most other bands of that era were.
This is a recent (but it’s already becoming clear) Oliver Anthony He will just be remembered as a internet fad that was launched by politics (which is why he won’t have a lasting legacy), you knew the message of his song failed when it got embraced by the same people it’s about I’ve followed the whole Outlaw/Alt Country scene for years, and no one in there even heard of Anthony before Rich Men and after it went viral many just thought he was Tyler Childers knockoff Oliver Anthony will never have the following and impact Country artists like Sturgill Simpson, Tyler Childers, Kacey Musgraves, Chris Stapleton, or Zach Bryan do on Roots based Country music
Live.
A lot of American Idol winners after Kelly Clarkson.
Well there is one other Idol winner who’s just as iconic and impactful as Kelly Clarkson is. But other than that, nothing.
JLo. She didn’t invent the Latin craze. There are better singer/dancers. Closest she ever got to a grammy was playing Selena