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Biggest Acts that Cast the Smallest Shadows

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    #51
    Which point?

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      #52
      Originally posted by Bruno
      Ah right, I've heard that. But it still depends on how much notice those 10000 people got. If they got noticed, it makes my point.
      Bruno, I don't think it was the "general listening public" (your words) who bought the album; it was people already into the arts who were predisposed to form bands. Some of the latter then eventually reached the general public, most obviously Bowie, but it took 6-7 years for that to happen and it definitely did not happen during the initial period the band was productive (c.1967).

      Similarly Nick Drake sold less than 5000 albums before his death and was not given much public or critical attention until the 1990s.
      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 10-08-2018, 08:09.

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        #53
        Well I think there are two parallel processes: "obscure people influencing other obscure people" is happening all the time and some of these obscure people become famous for a while, which then influences others who would not have been plugged into the "obscure people" loop. But there is always more evolution going on beneath the surface than above it and I don't think the public ultimately decides the fate of that musical evolution. For example, jazz and blues would have evolved even if Louis Armstrong had never gotten famous outside New Orleans and/or Chicago. Blues evolved in obscurity for decades before white people picked up on it, and it would have continued evolving if whites had ignored it. Same with hip hop and rap.

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          #54
          Cliff Gallup? Paul Burlison?

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            #55
            Oasis. Literally had a song called "Cast No Shadow".

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              #56
              That was about Dickie Ashcroft of The Verve, though. So maybe them?

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                #57
                Originally posted by Bruno
                I don't disagree with any of that. My point was that the verb influence happens constantly, while the noun influential is generally applied to high-profile cases. In popular media those cases have never not been decided (ultimately) by the number of people voting with their wallets.
                I understand your point, but I can't agree with it. What you're saying might well apply in other areas of the media, I don't know, but music is far too broad a church for this to be the case across the board. I mean, we all discuss a myriad of artists here that - while we mightn't consider them even remotely obscure - will likely always remain largely unknown to the greater public.

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                  #58
                  Almost everybody on this board, for good or ill, at last knows of The Fall. Most of the rest of the world remains ignorant.

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                    #59
                    Discussions like this tend to treat each generation as being in the same boat. But I don't think that is right. The experience for a teenager these days is entirely dissimilar to one from the 1980s, in a very specific way - pop music only really started being created 25 years before that. There was music beforehand for sure, but really not in the same way of being something particularly made for and aimed at young people.

                    One dynamic that won't change is rejecting the music of the preceding generation from your own. That is important as it is marking out your own space. It is vital to be able to tell your Mum and Dad that 'you don't get it!' and know that this is really true. But consider how that differs from someone born in 1970 to someone born in 2000 - for those with the older birth date, all previous pop music belonged to their parents generation. So it was all in the 'already taken' basket. It was only new stuff that was untainted by association for them to explore and claim. But for a millennial, there are bands and musicians that their parents reject or have never even heard of because they were before their time, but who have interesting cannons. So kids now can grow their musical taste in two directions - forwards and backwards, and still feel like it's theirs. The accessibility of music of all ages on new technology also helps considerably with this.

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                      #60
                      Totally agree and would add that most of the indie music around today is borrowing from the past so a 17 year old may be absorbing The Beatles without realizing it.

                      It also corresponds with the fact that Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber are far more musically conservative than The Human League or Adam Ant were in 1981, so kids rejecting their parents' music are not necessarily realizing that they are buying something far more MOR than their parents did.

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                        #61
                        Originally posted by George View Post
                        The Police - They were a band with a pretty distinctive sound yet how many acts have tried to replicate it since? And they were pretty much the biggest band in the world when they called it a day after Synchronicity
                        Bruno Marrs surely?

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                          #62
                          A contender for best example here must be Gary Glitter.

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                            #63
                            I don't know, the shadow he cast was pretty sizeable. (In a couple of senses, if not artistically.)

                            You're right in this sense though. Looking back - while attempting to disassociate from his later infamy - it's hard to determine what Glitter's talent 'was', to be honest. His act borrowed to some extent from early sixties Larry Parnes-type pop stars, adding football-chant lyrics and thudding beat, with its protagonist then fashioned as some kind of torch-bearer for the 'hod-carriers in Boots #7'-chic that followed.

                            But glamorous he was not: placed next to Bowie or Bolan, Glitter and his gang more closely resembled those Saturday-afternoon wrestlers, tbh. Should've been Kent Walton introducing him on TOTP rather than Tony Blackburn.

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                              #64
                              Originally posted by Janik View Post
                              Discussions like this tend to treat each generation as being in the same boat. But I don't think that is right. The experience for a teenager these days is entirely dissimilar to one from the 1980s, in a very specific way - pop music only really started being created 25 years before that. There was music beforehand for sure, but really not in the same way of being something particularly made for and aimed at young people.

                              One dynamic that won't change is rejecting the music of the preceding generation from your own. That is important as it is marking out your own space. It is vital to be able to tell your Mum and Dad that 'you don't get it!' and know that this is really true. But consider how that differs from someone born in 1970 to someone born in 2000 - for those with the older birth date, all previous pop music belonged to their parents generation. So it was all in the 'already taken' basket. It was only new stuff that was untainted by association for them to explore and claim. But for a millennial, there are bands and musicians that their parents reject or have never even heard of because they were before their time, but who have interesting cannons. So kids now can grow their musical taste in two directions - forwards and backwards, and still feel like it's theirs. The accessibility of music of all ages on new technology also helps considerably with this.
                              Get that younger generations have a much broader range to listen to & technology makes it easier to assimilate. What has been overlooked is that our generation no longer have the same disconnect we had with our parents. Through having children born late 80s/early 90s I have grown up with their tastes & am comfortable with it. Likewise both my kids are as happy to listen to 70s & 80s music as I still am. That 'you dont get it' dynamic is getting ever narrower & less frequent.

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                                #65
                                Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                                I don't know, the shadow he cast was pretty sizeable. (In a couple of senses, if not artistically.)

                                You're right in this sense though. Looking back - while attempting to disassociate from his later infamy - it's hard to determine what Glitter's talent 'was', to be honest. His act borrowed to some extent from early sixties Larry Parnes-type pop stars, adding football-chant lyrics and thudding beat, with its protagonist then fashioned as some kind of torch-bearer for the 'hod-carriers in Boots #7'-chic that followed.

                                But glamorous he was not: placed next to Bowie or Bolan, Glitter and his gang more closely resembled those Saturday-afternoon wrestlers, tbh. Should've been Kent Walton introducing him on TOTP rather than Tony Blackburn.
                                With the exception of Bowie Bolan Mott or Roxy dont think glam has ever been taken seriously. The brickies in mascara & 50's chancers who saw a window of opportunity are more typical of the canon. My understanding of this thread was that bands have an influence out of all proportion to their commercial success while others have commercial success out of all proportion to their influence.

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