The cream of a very bountiful crop! (Top 10 Artists)

Member Name: GentleGenius

Product:	Top 10 Artists
Date:	02/04/09 (303 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: The hate list

When I first saw this topic lurking in Speakers' Corner, I was initially under the impression that it was intended for artists as in people who paint. I then read through the first few reviews, and saw that people were listing and describing their favourite musical artists - so, how on earth (being a total music freak) could I resist doing the same?

As I've probably said too many times before, music is the most important thing in my life......even a little above sunshine, chocolate, the internet, sleep and cats. I consider myself very fortunate to have been born the same year as rock and roll was officially born, and the range of age within my immediate family was assorted enough to give me a very good appreciation of not just what was around at the time, but music of the past, which was excellent training in appreciation of a lot of what was to follow. I then had my formative years and reached teens during the 1960s, and I was still a spring chicken through the 1970s. By the time punk, new wave and all that wonderful stuff from the early 1980s was upon us, I was still young enough to appreciate it. Therefore, as far as music is concerned, I personally feel that I couldn't have been born at a better time.

My musical tastes run the gamut. It's a lot easier to say what I don't like than what I do like - for instance, I can't bear rap/hip-hop, and I loathe C&W (for the most part). I far prefer to think about what I love musically rather than what I hate, and I have here compiled a list of ten artists/bands who have through my life, inspired me and provided me with more deep enjoyment than words can properly express.

My compilation, as follows, apart from Van Morrison definitely occupying first place, is in no particular order of preference. At the bottom of each of my loves, I shall (just for the sake of balance and comparison) type merely the name of someone who I either hate, or who just does nothing for me at all, so in a way it's a double top ten in that it's my top ten favourite artists, combined with my top ten most loathed artists.

1. VAN MORRISON

I have loved Van ever since the days of his band Them back in the mid-1960s. The first song I was aware of by him (with Them) was "Gloria" which I liked, but then he blew my mind with "Here Comes The Night". As young as I was at the time (coming up for 11), I caught Van's unique spirit straight away, and never looked back. For me, Van is the power and the glory....he says exactly what I want to hear - not just with his words, but with the delicate, often subtle, yet very definite feeling he puts into his singing voice. It's as if I just feel as though I know what he's on about....where he's coming from, but not always (the same as with myself) where he's going to. Van was also responsible for introducing me to Celtic music, which I have over the decades become an avid fan of. Influenced by a combination of the old blues singers, traditional soul and his Irish roots, Van has been one of the most prolific and long-lasting singer/songwriters in the whole of the rock and pop music business. I appreciate that he is one of these people you love or hate though. Most of his fans are dedicated die-hards, and for us the man can do no wrong.
HATE = KYLIE MINOGUE

2. THE BEATLES

I appreciate The Beatles as a band, more than I do them as individual, solo performers after their breakup up in 1969. Having grown up with and spent my formative years whilst The Beatles were at their apex, I feel as though they were probably the most important part of my development during the 1960s. One of my earliest memories of The Beatles is a little group of 8-year-olds in my primary school playground (me included) standing playing air guitars, shaking our heads from side to side in true Beatle style, belting out our rendition of "Love Me Do". I doubt if any of us, had we the capacity for such foresight at the tender age of 8, could possibly have predicted the path The Beatles' career would take during the 1960s - in fact, did anyone see what was coming, including their manager Brian Epstein and their producer George Martin? I think not. The Beatles began as an ordinary pop group, no different to any other from the north of England at that time; but, they seemed to have a certain something that other bands, even if those other bands were very good, lacked. To progress from "Love Me Do" right up to the Sgt Pepper album in just under 5 years, I feel is a monumental achievment. At first, The Beatles presented as lovable mop-tops who the mums and dads quite liked (despite saying they should get a haircut), then they quickly evolved into singers/songwriters/musicians of some of the most classic popular songs ever written, then through their hippie-ish phase where they grew their hair, played sitars and sang songs which the media interpreted as drug-influenced, on to their rather bitter split when the arguing over finances was too much to bear and showed itself in a couple of the tracks on their final official album, Abbey Road. Each Beatle had a very well-defined persona - John was the hard man who went political, tempering it with love & peace, Paul was the cutesy pinup who wrote wonderful love songs, George was the deep and quiet one who turned mystical, and Ringo was always the lovable boy next door type. What stood out for me, and I'm sure for a lot of other people too, was how simply likeable The Beatles were as people. With a sharp wit, and ever ready with an amusing remark or retort which was (particularly via John) often injected into their music, they remain for me the axis around which all other music from the 1960s spun. Whoever else was churning out, then and since, material as diverse, in such a very short timespan, as Please Please Me, Revolution, Let It Be, Help, Paperback Writer, Hey Jude, Revolution No.9, She's Leaving Home, Norwegian Wood, I Am The Walrus, Here There & Everywhere???
HATE = AMY WINEHOUSE

3. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

I loved him the minute I first heard him, when his Live At Asbury Park album was released in approximately 1975. Aside from finding him an extremely attractive man to look at, who I truly believe I should have married, I feel that Bruce is one of the greatest songwriters ever to have lived. There is so much more to Bruce than a muscly, headbanded exhibitionist who dragged Courtney Cox onto the stage with him whilst performing Dancing In The Dark - whether that was pre-arranged or not, I have no idea, and it isn't important to me anyway. Bruce does actually need a bit of concentrating on and listening to. Underneath his mostly uptempo, very positive and cheerful sounding tunes, lies a songwriter - a true poet - who has an exquisite way of using words, especially regarding the human condition and its vulnerabilities. The passion this man injects into his words, his singing and his performances, holds no bounds - he just gives so very much of himself. Of course, he can't leap around like he used to as he's not getting any younger, but I feel the spirit of the introspective rocker still effervesces inside of him.
HATE = QUEEN

4. U2
When U2 first hit the scene, I didn't actually like them too much. I was in the middle of a kind of a breakdown, and their very intense sound just served to dig a dagger into my state of mind and make me feel even more uncomfortable about the world both inside and outside of my head. Later when I recovered, and began to come alive again, I started to listen to U2 with new ears....this time around, strong enough to absorb and positively utilise the power of their music. I appreciate that Bono is a complete show-off and rather obsessed with himself, but for me that doesn't distract from the deep and powerful music U2 have graced us with over the last almost 30 years. My favourite performance of theirs was at Live Aid in 1985.....all very OTT, but oh my god such power from a group of then very young guys who had the world at their feet. U2 for me exude and communicate a passion and a heartfelt intensity that is extremely rare, and cuts to the very core of the depths of the human spirit.
HATE = THE SPICE GIRLS

5. BUDDY HOLLY
Buddy Holly is somebody who was a very prominent feature in my early childhood. Most people class him as rock & roll, but if you listen closely and you have a feel for different genres of music whether you like them or not, you will hear that he's actually pure rockabilly with a bit of rock & roll-tinged pop thrown in for good measure. Bespectacled Buddy wrote and performed a tremendous amount of first class material in his young and very short life, dying in a plane crash at the tender age of just 22. Buddy had a very definite sound....that softly rolling guitar and drumming gently backing up his rather uncultured voice - OK he was no singer, but wow, what a songwriter. The Beatles took a lot of their influences from their hero Buddy Holly, as did a few other successful pop groups from the 1960s, the most notable of which was The Hollies, named after the man himself. How could such a young man have written such a wealth of not deep, but very ear-catching, classic songs, with such charm and precision, and in such a short space of time? I suppose he just had a unique gift. I have often wondered where Buddy Holly would have gone musically had he not died. Would he have just gone country, like his band The Crickets did? Would he have had his moment of fame then just faded into oblivion? Or, would he have been a major singing/songwriting force from the USA that could have changed the whole course of pop music in a completely different way to the path it did travel, largely via The Beatles? We can't speculate, as he simply didn't live long enough to show any signs of mutating into something different - but, maybe it's the romantic in me, when I like to think that he'd have gone down the last of the routes that I just mentioned. The thing which makes me say that, is just before his death, he had moved away from Texas and was living in Greenwich Village where the first stirrings of the 1960s revolution were being created. I'd love to think he'd have been influenced by the whole Greenwich Village thing, yet can't guess where it would have taken his art. For me, Buddy's very best recordings are the rare ones, that aren't quite so well known as things like "That'll Be The Day" and "It Doesn't Matter Any More".
HATE = EMINEM

6. LOU REED
There is something about Lou which just does it for me. I'm not going to say too much about him, as I'm not sure what it is about him that appeals to me so much - but, if I listen to his music, it alters my mind in an inexplicable way. I love Lou's gritty and honest approach - a grit which is tinged with a kind of anarchical vulnerability that has a jagged and crashing depth. He ROCKS, too!!!
HATE = GARY GLITTER

7. JIMI HENDRIX
I remember liking Jimi Hendrix before a lot of other people did, and when it became public at my secondary school that I loved this gentle-natured, wild-haired individual who played mind-blowing guitar with his left hand, and sometimes his teeth. Master of utilising feedback and the only one who at the time dared go where no other guitarist couldn't even imagine treading, this man's fame has sadly been mostly posthumous. For me, Jimi is by far the greatest and most unusually imaginative rock guitarist ever to have lived; nobody for me comes close, not even other masters of the fret board such as Paul Kossoff, Mark Knopfler, David Lindley, Ry Cooder and Eric Clapton. Jimi knew his guitar inside out, and it's as if it was actually a part of him, the man, rather than something he merely expressed himself through. For me, Jimi's crowning glory was his performance of "Star Spangled Banner" at Woodstock in 1969 - to reach and silence an audience touching on a million people in the way that he did, makes this man who was so tiny in stature, rise head and shoulders above the giants.
HATE = STING

8. PINK FLOYD
Though I am a lover of all Pink Floyd's music through the decades, my heart truly lies with the early stuff when the bizarrely wonderful Syd was still front man. Though a lot of people would disagree with me, I personally feel that Pink Floyd climbed up on Syd's back, and that all their material since his departure from the band in 1968, has been a mutation and dubbing down of his original sound. Syd was one of the first of the British psychedelics....well, he was THE first British psychedelic, and I think it's inaccurate to say he was ahead of his time.....as he was possibly even from another place, if you know what I mean - rather than another time. Uniqueness personified! How on earth do I find the right words to describe the power of something like "Interstellar Overdrive", the surreal and childlike innocence of "Bike" and the chilling "Careful With That Axe Eugene"? In another of my reviews under "my experience of substance abuse" category, I took a rather daring (for me!) plunge into describing my first LSD trip....the first of many, during my late teens and early 20s. I can honestly say that to listen to Pink Floyd's early, heavier material - listened to turned up loud and on headphones in a darkened room with closed eyes - is the closest thing to having an acid trip, without actually having to take the stuff.
HATE = GUNS & ROSES

9. THE KINKS
For me, Ray Davies is one of the greatest songwriters ever to have lived. I even had a bit of a crush on him when I was in my early teens. With tracks like "You Really Got Me" (from 1964), the Kinks began with simple, yet instantly appealing material that delivered a message which was very much of the mood of the time - yet, the sound perhaps more than the message, has also stood the test of time. Later Ray penned mainly observances on day to day, ordinary working-class life (such as "Dead End Street" and "Waterloo Sunset"), peppered with a few rather moving love songs, such as "I Go To Sleep" and "Days". One of Ray's greatest tracks is "Lola" - banned by the BBC at the time, but not for its rather suggestive lyrics - banned because the original version contained the words "coca cola", and Ray had to change them to "cherry cola" so as not to contravene the BBC's policy of non-advertising. Oh, the innocence of 1970......the days when the meaning of a song would be overlooked due to simply not understanding its connotations, yet a ban would be slammed onto it not because of the obvious near the mark content, but because it mentioned an already well-known and elsewhere well-advertised product. Ray could also amuse us, as he did with his offering of "Ape Man" in early 1971 - then he was fallow for a few years, returning with the rather weak "I Wish I Could Fly Like Superman" in 1979; but, slammed back into the charts in.....I think it was 1984-ish.....with the nostalgia-steeped "Come Dancing". I just love Ray's way with words, his simplicity, and his ability to hit an idea or an image right on the knuckle, weaved into some very good tunes.
HATE = MICHAEL BOLTON

10. THE ROLLING STONES
During the 1960s, The Rolling Stones were pretty much neck and neck with The Beatles. The bad boys of pop, they were (by those days' standards) rough, ready and raw. Influenced mostly by R&B and 1950s rock & roll, Mick Jagger disgusted parents and enchanted teenagers with his undulations. To the older generation, The Stones were just an unholy racket. Though through my teens I always loved The Stones from the point of view of them just being a damned good rock/pop band, it wasn't until I was some way through my 20s that I began to realise how bloody good they really are. The songwriting skills of Jagger/Richard are akin to the Lennon/McCartney partnership - not necessarily surpassing it or even lying side by side, as the two groups were largely coming from different places to one another, but equal in skill and originality. The Beatles were the innovators and experimentors, and The Stones were the good-time guys who belted out the raw stuff. It wasn't until I listened to The Stones' album material that I appreciated the sensitivity and skill of Jagger/Richard as a masterful songwriting duo. Jagger/Richard, though their music is completely different, can hit the nail on the head of various aspects of the human condition in a similar way to how Bruce Springsteen does - and what our parents' generation just passed off as "thicko yobs", actually with their music, prove themselves to be deep, sensitive and far-seeing individuals. They really rock, too!
HATE = TOM JONES

As an afterthought, these people are "almost-rans":- James Taylor, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Anthony & The Johnsons, Cat Stevens, Joe Jackson, The Pogues, Johnny Cash, Hothouse Flowers, The Jam, Joan Armatrading, The Ruts, Simple Minds, Tom Waits, Supertramp, Neil Diamond, ELO, Fats Domino, Gerry Rafferty, Small Faces, Ricky Nelson, Charlie Gracie.....and no doubt quite a few more who won't spring to mind just at the moment.

Well I hope the above hasn't been too boring. I honestly could have gone on for a lot longer, and included a lot more bands/individuals, as my love of music encompasses so very much more than just the periphery, or what everyone else likes because it happens to be in fashion. Despite how it may seem, I'm not a musical snob - I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit that The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" is one of my favourite tracks of all time - to me music is a thing that if it hits your spot, then it's good for you.

Thanks for reading!

Summary: Music was my first love, and it shall be my last.....