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Name your favourite top 10 songs and artists
I Wanna Be Your Dog - Iggy and the Stooges[/b]
187 makes a valid point.
These bands... I love them all but I also think they're the ones with the most talent/ imagination/ chemistry. Not necessarily my favourite 10.
Radiohead - They've produced about 5 outstanding albums which sound different to each other. They haven't raped the same style; they've continued to innovate while at the same time making very listenable music.
The Beatles - 2 schools of thought: "the Beatles are leik the bestest ever, I love yellow submarine!"; "the Beatles are soooo overrated omg". Both wrong. The Beatles came up with a number of awesome albums, and like Radiohead, they fitted in different genres. Sgt Pepper, White Album etc. were hugely innovative and influential - fine they made loads of No. 1s but it was the albums where their real quality came out.
The Smiths - Morrissey has probably the best voice of any rock singer ever. Add to that his lyrical skill, and Johnny Marr's brilliant & unique guitar playing...
The Mars Volta - Omar Rodriguez Lopez is probably the best guitarist of his generation. And most of his guitar work is aimed at making it sound as little like the guitar as possible. Extraordinary talent... and the singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala is awesome too - he has the ability to make his voice 'ride' on the lead guiitar line, which says something for his chemistry with Lopez. Plus, he manages to come up with some of the strangest abstract lyrics and makes them sound like they make sense; he can put emotion into a load of ********.
Led Zeppelin - a sort of cliche, even those who know nothing about LZ will say they're a great band just because of their reputation. But the way I see it, they had 3 incredible musicians in their band (Page, Plant and Bonham)... it was almost a supergroup before starting out. They had a variety of influences; pioneered rock music and took from blues.. and defined 'rock' music.
The Beach Boys - When everyone in America was either listening to hippy stuff or British music, the Beach Boys pioneered surf rock and made it good; and made California known for something else other than San Francisco.
The Kinks - Ray Davies is one of the greatest songwriters ever. There's nothing too complicated about most of their songs; just really tight, with the music almost being a backing to the stories that Davies was telling in the same way you'd use a beat for hiphop.
Oasis - The Gallagher brothers are formidable when creating music together; they've made several incredible albums, characterised by swagger and their instantly recognisable sound.
The Velvet Underground - Hugley influential, Lou Reed was an inspiring frontman and they were among the first to make rock music 'gritty'.
David Bowie - we know he wasn't a solo artist and that Iggy Pop did a hell of a lot of guitarwork for him... and Bowie has managed to create some awesome songs, fusing a little with funk/ disco music and a glamourous style that made him unique.
they're the best..[/b]
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gingergenius @ Dec 29 2008, 06:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
187 makes a valid point.
These bands... I love them all but I also think they're the ones with the most talent/ imagination/ chemistry. Not necessarily my favourite 10.
Radiohead - They've produced about 5 outstanding albums which sound different to each other. They haven't raped the same style; they've continued to innovate while at the same time making very listenable music.
The Beatles - 2 schools of thought: "the Beatles are leik the bestest ever, I love yellow submarine!"; "the Beatles are soooo overrated omg". Both wrong. The Beatles came up with a number of awesome albums, and like Radiohead, they fitted in different genres. Sgt Pepper, White Album etc. were hugely innovative and influential - fine they made loads of No. 1s but it was the albums where their real quality came out.
The Smiths - Morrissey has probably the best voice of any rock singer ever. Add to that his lyrical skill, and Johnny Marr's brilliant & unique guitar playing...
The Mars Volta - Omar Rodriguez Lopez is probably the best guitarist of his generation. And most of his guitar work is aimed at making it sound as little like the guitar as possible. Extraordinary talent... and the singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala is awesome too - he has the ability to make his voice 'ride' on the lead guiitar line, which says something for his chemistry with Lopez. Plus, he manages to come up with some of the strangest abstract lyrics and makes them sound like they make sense; he can put emotion into a load of ********.
Led Zeppelin - a sort of cliche, even those who know nothing about LZ will say they're a great band just because of their reputation. But the way I see it, they had 3 incredible musicians in their band (Page, Plant and Bonham)... it was almost a supergroup before starting out. They had a variety of influences; pioneered rock music and took from blues.. and defined 'rock' music.
The Beach Boys - When everyone in America was either listening to hippy stuff or British music, the Beach Boys pioneered surf rock and made it good; and made California known for something else other than San Francisco.
The Kinks - Ray Davies is one of the greatest songwriters ever. There's nothing too complicated about most of their songs; just really tight, with the music almost being a backing to the stories that Davies was telling in the same way you'd use a beat for hiphop.
Oasis - The Gallagher brothers are formidable when creating music together; they've made several incredible albums, characterised by swagger and their instantly recognisable sound.
The Velvet Underground - Hugley influential, Lou Reed was an inspiring frontman and they were among the first to make rock music 'gritty'.
David Bowie - we know he wasn't a solo artist and that Iggy Pop did a hell of a lot of guitarwork for him... and Bowie has managed to create some awesome songs, fusing a little with funk/ disco music and a glamourous style that made him unique.
they're the best..[/b]
You seem to be forgetting "The Fresh Prince" the worlds no1 rap artist. Here I go,here I go,here I,here I go,YO!My best hippety hoppers too:
1. 2Pac - Far from the greatest lyricist, nor did he have the best flow. Why No. 1? Because his presence on the microphone was absolutely immense. He was a good lyricist, had good flow, but it was his subject matter and delivery that put him above the rest. "My hard stare seems to scare..." sums him up; there's an intensity and coldness about him that no one else has. That and his afrocentricity are his defining characteristics. He was also a fantastic poet.
2. Big L - Like 2Pac, Big L was shot long before his time. Unlike 2Pac he didn't have a lifetime's worth of unreleased tracks so we only have a few albums to judge him on... but you'll find few rappers with better multies: When I move through the ghetto I drive slow/ I'm quick to buck a duck and I don't give a f*** about five-o/ A hardcore life I chose to explore/ therefore I live raw and went to war wit the law. That's his trademark - spitting lines fast with multi-layered rhyme schemes.
3. Notorious B.I.G. - Rounding off a top 3 who were all shot dead. Biggie is another who's flow was absolutely incredible and adjusted to a huge variety of bpm. Content wise he wasn't afraid to disgust: "Hail Mary? f*** her, I never knew her/ I'd probably screw her/ and dump her body in the sewer", and as you can see his multies are good too.
4. NaS - No question, the greatest rapper alive, no matter what Jay-Z says. Incidentally they had a beef that NaS won hands down. His debut, Illmatic, is probably the greates hiphop album ever. And unlike so many he's kept going with great lyrics and honest content, very descriptive; Jay-Z began with an incredible debut and went on to arrogance... NaS is still NaS. What's more his metaphors are sick. Listen out for his rhyming and wordplay
5. Big Pun - another dead man, but this one because he got too fat. But he put Latino hiphop on the map. His rhymes were so complex they are probably the hardest to sing along to, they're like toungetwisters. he deliverered them perfectly: "Dead in the middle of Little Italy little did we know that we riddled some middleman who didn't do diddily".
6. Slick Rick - Born in London, raised in New York. Hit in the late 80's and basically invented story rap; looking back it may be hard to listen to hiphop's great innovators like Slick Rick and Rakim and see why they're so revered - it's because they did what no one else had before them. Flow was beautifully laid back; half his songs were about sex and he didn't hesitate to go into detail. And he had to wear an eyepatch. Legend. Children's Story
7. Eminem - No... uh oh... yeah Eminem is this good. Ignore most of what he did after 8 Mile; but based on his work before (3 albums and a bootleg) plus the 8 mile sountrack, and this guy is mustard. He wasn't the first white rapper and not even the earliest that I would consider for my top 10 (RA the Rugged Man) but he was incredible in his own right. His lyrical skill is awesome; his mind is sick and hence he creates some lasting images: "I walked into a gunfight with a knife to kill you/ and cut you so fast that when your blood spilt it was still blue". Eminem's forte is his metaphors and worldplay, and he is arguably the best in this area. "You're a clown you don't come out with a thang/ you could date a stick of dynamite and wouldn't go out with a bang."
8. Jay-Z - Best flow out of anyone in hiphop. Doesn't have the humourous putdowns like the others in this list but listen to how well his vocals fit with any of his songs and you'll see what I mean about flow.
9. Jehst - IMO the best British rapper. Unlike many Americans will say, British rap does not suck. Unlike many Brits say, it does not kick US hiphop's ass either. Jehst is, however, awesome and fully deserves to be on the list; he's able to construct verses with the same rhyming complexity expected of Big L; add some fantastic metaphors and you have a brilliant rapper. It's almost like he's reciting prose rather than lines. "You can see it, how I tripped and fell down, and picked myself up, turned myself round from the cliff's edge and staggered home like a misled pisshead, and put up a fight till my fists bled."
10. Immortal Technique - The most political rapper I can think of. Whether you agree with them or not, you have to admire how he 1) backs them up and 2) manages to turn them into good pieces of lyricism. There's a lot more to it than the usual "George Bush sucks" - Technique will tell you exactly why he sucks, and how he will personally lead a revolution till Bush is spattered all over the Oval Office. But perhaps his best song is probably the most grim in hiphop history... a story (post Slick Rick of course) about a boy who wants to get involved with the raw guys in his projects.. ending in tragedy in the same way as Children's Story. Dance With The Devil[/b]