AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

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prosecutorgodot
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by prosecutorgodot »

I just relistened to Dummy, and that metal pipe clanging on "Sour Times" haunts me like a spectre.
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BleuPanda
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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60. Van Morrison
Points: 1367.16 (34 Votes)
2019 Rank: 90
Biggest Fan(s): Miguel (#2), acroamor (#11), andyd1010 (#26), nicolas (#26)
Forum Favorite Albums: Astral Weeks (#56), Moondance (#101)
Forum Favorite Songs: Brown Eyed Girl (#247), Into the Mystic (#387), Moondance (#555), Astral Weeks (#710), Sweet Thing (#837), Madame George (#890)

acroamor: I've never begrudged Van Morrison for his late-period COVID denialism, unlike the way I feel about Clapton. If Clapton had simply released several of the greatest records of all-time, I'd likely feel differently. But Morrison has proven himself, from Astral Weeks through his impeccable seventies run to later gems like Common One, to be one of our strongest and most mystical artists. There's no better piece of music writing, I think, than Lester Bangs on Astral Weeks, so I won't attempt to gild the lily and instead encourage you to seek it out yourself. But look at something like "Glad Tidings" or "Jackie Wilson Said" or "Wild Honey", none of which great-scale hits, but each of which intimately produced, masterfully sung, a burst of sui generis songcraft that merges folk, jazz, classical, what have you. I'd like, someday, to record an album of my own, and there's only one artist I have in mind as to who I'd want to sound like.

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59. Black Sabbath
Points: 1374.21 (31 Votes)
2019 Rank: 51
Biggest Fan(s): Jackson (#6), Dexter (#16), FrankLotion (#22), Live in Phoenix (#23), Gillingham (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Paranoid (#113), Black Sabbath (#407), Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (#475), Master of Reality (#528)
Forum Favorite Songs: Paranoid (#190), War Pigs (#371), Iron Man (#531)

Live in Phoenix: Heavy metal reached its epitome very early on with Black Sabbath’s second album, Paranoid -- the heavy, sludgy, tuned-down guitars; the general exclusion of romantic songs; the doomy outlook that can’t promise better days ahead. At most, metal has gotten faster, but otherwise it has not strayed significantly from this formula. Ozzy Osbourne unfortunately became one of rock's great punchlines -- I assume you've imitated his drug-addled mumbling at least once -- but Black Sabbath's legacy was built on not being any joke, not sliding into shtick, and by connecting with its audience. Since the band's messages stayed close to relatable, personal or worldly issues, you knew you could entrust your shitty mood with them. While Tony Iommi had killer riffs for days, the band was not going to forcibly dazzle their audience with inhuman displays of technique. Ozzy's plaintive wail sets him apart from aggro metal vocalists -- the atypical ballad "Changes" (only the plainest example) is well out of most of their range. Because of all this and their solid '70s catalogue, I consider Black Sabbath to be the ultimate metal band.

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58. Fleetwood Mac
Points: 1390.83 (34 Votes)
2019 Rank: 64
Biggest Fan(s): Safetycat (#9), Dexter (#22), VanillaFire1000 (#38)
Forum Favorite Albums: Rumours (#38), Fleetwood Mac (#403)
Forum Favorite Songs: Go Your Own Way (#133), Dreams (#174), The Chain (#235), Landslide (#536)

Live in Phoenix: By the mid-'70s, the first two eras of Fleetwood Mac were already responsible for an abundance of drama and turmoil, and if you started your time with the band with Rumours, you caught an act already trying to fall apart again. With three lethal pop-rock hitmen/women at work, the album became their second U.S. Number One in a row, thanks to classic hits like "Go Your Own Way," "Dreams," and "You Make Loving Fun"; it's 20-times platinum status in the U.S. ensured that this version of Fleetwood Mac would be stuck together for as long as they could professionally stomach it.

The Peter Green era has its fans (mostly I know it from an In Chicago double album), but I'm more comfortable talking about the band's most famous lineup. While some music from the '70s now seems like corny showbiz, the group therapy of Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks gave their music some emotional heft. Musically, the lineup had a kind of soft rock sound, but there was no mistaking them for, say, Bread or Air Supply. The outro of ""Go Your Own Way"" is a testament to the virtues of keeping the rhythm section from the earlier rocking days. Christine McVie, a holdover from the second era, could bring memorable hits just as well as the band's American duo. Lindsey Buckingham sounded like one of the Beach Boys; but while the Beach Boys and their disciples often sounded at best like young men on record, or at worst, like a man child, Buckingham sounded like a grown man going through some shit. Stevie Nicks gave the band their only Number One song, "Dreams," and even in soft settings she was resilient, tough. At the present moment, McVie is back in, Buckingham is back out, and Crowded House's Neil Finn is in (does he need trauma in his life?). This soap opera probably isn't done quite yet.

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57. The Police
Points: 1416.43 (31 Votes)
2019 Rank: 74
Biggest Fan(s): ProjectTermina (#3), Renan (#8), ordinaryperson (#12)
Forum Favorite Albums: Synchronicity (#352), Reggatta de Blanc (#613), Outlandos D'Amour (#777)
Forum Favorite Songs: Every Breath You Take (#84), Roxanne (#272), Message in a Bottle (#747)

bonnielaurel: The Police stood out between other rock bands of the late seventies with their subtle musical style and smart lyrics. Sting sang with his husky voice and played the bass guitar. Andy Summers was an accomplished guitarist who also played keyboards. Drummer Stewart Copeland had a jazzy style and often used the double backbeat of reggae or ska. In the eighties they evolved from a guitar dominated sound to a new wave sound with more synthesizers. Sting did most of the songwriting, but Summers and Copeland also did their part. Their lyrics were poetic, and sometimes touched controversial topics like prostitution, suicide and world politics. When Sting accidentally sat on the piano while recording Roxanne they decided to leave that tone cluster in. Every Breath You Take is often misinterpreted as a love song, but it's sung by a stalker. In the mid-eighties Sting would go solo, but they did a successful reunion Tour in 2008.

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56. Joy Division
Points: 1426.46 (32 Votes)
2019 Rank: 44
Biggest Fan(s): Michel (#2), CupOfDreams (#4), BleuPanda (#17), mileswide (#20)
Forum Favorite Albums: Closer (#81), Unknown Pleasures (#93)
Forum Favorite Songs: Love Will Tear Us Apart (#62), Atmosphere (#598), Disorder (#850), Transmission (#911), She's Lost Control (#933), Decades (#996)

BleuPanda: Two years, one month, and sixteen days. In that short period of time, Joy Division released enough material to solidify themselves among the most essential rock bands to ever exist, helping the British scene transition into the post-punk movement. Ian Curtis died twelve years before I was born, yet his ghost still haunts me – few artists have grafted their souls into their recordings as he managed. Yet as a band, Joy Division never let the despair consume their style. “Transmission” commands us to dance with Orwellian urgency. Wrongfully overshadowed, Stephen Morris’s mechanical drumming is the backbone of so many songs, adding a propulsive energy. Whether simulating a panic attack with forceful rhythms or slipping into a glacial pace to lend a magnificent scale to overwhelming emotions, every Joy Division songs drips with atmosphere. Their time together may have been cut short, but most bands would kill for such a dense discography.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

--AMF Top 100 Debut--
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55. Fiona Apple
Points: 1521 (33 Votes)
2019 Rank: 149
Biggest Fan(s): acroamor (#5), phil (#7), Chris K. (#12), Lagunin (#13), BleuPanda (#20), andyd1010 (#21), Rob (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Fetch the Bolt Cutters (#239 - #1 2020), The Idler Wheel… (#284), Tidal (#419), When the Pawn… (#447)
Forum Favorite Songs: Criminal (#723), Hot Knife (#1052), Every Single Night (#1133)

Rob: If I had to name one key song by Fiona Apple, it wouldn’t be one that ranks on Acclaimed Music. I would instead pick A Mistake from When the Pawn... To me it captures the essence of Fiona Apple. In it she sings about wanting to make a mistake, even admitting she knows there will be consequences to face. She sings in her typically, somewhat vaguely jazz-inspired voice over some odd drum rhythms. That’s Fiona Apple in song, a woman who is frequently a mess through her own doing, but doesn’t let this stop her marching to her own off-kilter tunes. Fetch the Bolt Cutters would show even more depth underneath, revealing through lyrics some serious trauma and deep pain, this time not so much self-inflicted. It changed little about her unique singing style and idiosyncratic approach of melody, though. Regardless what inflicts the complexities of her life, we get the sense that she is always in control of her own music. Her releases are sadly very infrequent, but they are always a survivor’s gift.

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54. The Doors
Points: 1549.73 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 41
Biggest Fan(s): aalamar (#5), Dexter (#6), Live in Phoenix (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Doors (#52), L.A. Woman (#351), Strange Days (#504)
Forum Favorite Songs: Light My Fire (#71), Riders on the Storm (#173), Break On Through (To the Other Side) (#567), The End (#595)

Live in Phoenix: There is a lot of what I might call Very Normal Guy Rock these days. Jim Morrison, on the other hand, was not such a very normal guy, more like the human id in leather pants. His screams and shouts put you at attention. The band’s music, meanwhile, could seem like the soundtrack to fulfilling a death wish. It was melodramatic music for a melodramatic time, when the squares ruled, when death was close by because of the draft, and when taking drugs seemed like an answer, before it became the great rock n’ roll cliché. But long past their initial run, the Doors' music continues to serve well during the crucible of one's teenage years and 20s. I think the band is ideally experienced through a best-of, with The Best of the Doors being one of the all-time great sets. Their music is still one of a kind, striking the listener at odd angles. The remaining Doors tried to forge on after Morrison, but his allure and intensity (“The Crystal Ship,” “Break On Through [To the Other Side]”) has proven a tough act for any rock singer to follow.

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53. OutKast
Points: 1587.95 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 76
Biggest Fan(s): FrankLotion (#3), StevieFan13 (#12), Dan (#17), acr0320 (#20)
Forum Favorite Albums: Stankonia (#144), Speakerboxxxx/The Love Below (#210), Aquemini (#299)
Forum Favorite Songs: Hey Ya! (#26), B.O.B. (#79), Ms. Jackson (#281)

FrankLotion: I’m going to try real hard to keep this short and not ramble, but each OutKast record could have an entire tome written about it and still not cover what makes this group so great. I don’t know if I can quite articulate it myself, but they really raised the bar for me in how interesting and fun music could and should be. While seemingly incompatible at a glance, Big Boi and Andre 3000 both shared a goofy sense of humor and valued the craft of intricate and thoughtful music that could get you to move to the dancefloor. Plus, they both clearly had a common goal for expanding the boundaries of hip hop and pop music, they decided to stop listening to hip hop entirely as they made Stankonia because they didn’t want to fall into the same tired habits that they were seeing in the industry and it shows in the final product. But this doesn’t need to be a history lesson on how OutKast made history, the point is that their blend of hip hop with P-Funk, pop, rock, jazz, and many other genres was a blast, and those influences were evident from the beginning of their career. It’s just as novel now as it was then. There’s an OutKast-sized hole in the music industry that still hasn’t been filled up since the group split, but luckily they left behind a perfect discography of five classic albums to discover and then replay endlessly.

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52. John Coltrane
Points: 1589.53 (31 Votes)
2019 Rank: 55
Biggest Fan(s): sonofsamiam (#1), Listyguy (#5), Schüttelbirne (#6), Michel (#15), Dan (#16), cetamol (#18), Jackson (#18), acr0320 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: A Love Supreme (#70), Giant Steps (#307), My Favorite Things (#474), Ascension (#791), Blue Train (#923)
Forum Favorite Songs: My Favorite Things (#343), A Love Supreme Part 1: Acknowledgement (#422), A Love Supreme Part 3: Pursuance/Part 4: Psalm (#1437)

Schüttelbirne: There are not many artists as prolific as John Coltrane was. His solo debut was released in 1957 – he died in 1967, just ten years later. But in these ten years he must have worked like a maniac, producing over fifty albums. I haven't listened to every single one of them (one day…), but all the ones I've heard are good and noteworthy. Of course there's differences in quality: Coltrane Plays the Blues and The John Coltrane Quartet Plays are not on the same level as A Love Supreme or Africa/Brass, but these perceived differences are mostly personal. There is no album that is notoriously proclaimed as 'the weak one'. Adding to that there's collaborations and jobs as a sideman, most notably in Miles Davis' First Great Quintet.
Coltrane's skills as a saxophonist are legendary, and not without reason. If a music critic decides to coin a phrase just based on your style of playing, you're definitely in the running for Master of that instrument. Ira Gitler invented the term "sheets of sound" to describe the improvisation employed by Coltrane which consisted in hundreds of notes running up and down the register in incredibly fast tempo. He could do all that while still sounding smooth and never losing a breath. He mostly played on a tenor saxophone, but he also played other woodwind instruments like soprano saxophone, the clarinet or the flute (however he did not play them all at once like Roland Kirk).
Similar to other jazz artists in the early 60s he started in Hard Bop, but moved on to more avant-garde styles in the middle of the decade. Ascension stands as one of the most important documents of Free Jazz in the 60s.
You can compare this way to Davis, who moved into Fusion territory (at least partly) in an effort to appeal to a larger audience that was beginning to prefer Rock music to Jazz. But Coltrane didn‘t seem interested in pleasing the public, rather being enveloped in trying to present his own beliefs to the audience. Spiritual Jazz is more than just a certain sub-genre of Jazz, it's the attempt to convey a larger musical philosophy to the audience. The sound of many of his later albums is both profound and intimate.
Some of his band members, including Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner were displeased by the directions he was taking, but they also expressed their admiration for what he was achieving. The musical legacy he left is unimpeachable and just glorious. His saxophone playing has this unique beautiful sound to it that always mesmerizes me. He definitely died too soon, but he left us with so much.

Listyguy: Before I really started to appreciate jazz, John Coltrane was still one of my favorite musicians. Even when the appeal of Kind of Blue was lost on me, the brilliance of A Love Supreme wasn't. My theory as to why has always been that John Coltrane's style of playing appeals to rock fans: the frantic, loud, and sometimes abrasive sound on the aforementioned A Love Supreme (and other albums of that era) could easily be used to describe many a great rock composition. I also think this is why John Coltrane influenced so many rock legends himself. And eventually, John Coltrane’s style of jazz would help me learn to appreciate less avant-garde jazz, including many of his earlier works like “Giant Steps” and “Africa.” What ties together the hard bop and spiritual/avant-garde Coltrane eras is of course the man himself, but more specifically his unparalleled saxophone playing abilities. Without any lyrics, he was able to evoke a level of spirituality that shouldn't be possible. Additionally, on live recordings his one saxophone was capable of sounding like many. To call him a virtuoso might not be thorough enough. The compositional genius he displayed on many of his tracks is another one of the main reasons his music is so great: hearing how everything works so perfectly on the likes of A Love Supreme or Ascension makes those works amazing.

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51. Oasis
Points: 1592.06 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 38
Biggest Fan(s): kaue (#5), Arsalan (#6), StevieFan13 (#14), aalamar (#17), Renan (#21), Nick (#23), Toni (#23), Akhenaten (#24), Chris K. (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (#51), Definitely Maybe (#134)
Forum Favorite Songs: Wonderwall (#119), Live Forever (#130), Don't Look Back in Anger (#172), Champagne Supernova (#470), Whatever (#999)

Rob: There is a phase in many a young lad’s life that he becomes a rebel without a cause. A time for youthful anger, for resentment and disenchantment. It is what the early nineties seemed to be all about, what with all the grunge bands and their sometimes vaguely defined discontent. At one time you have to admit to yourself, though, that being bleak all the time isn’t all there is. There was a short time in my life I listened to mostly music with dark lyrical themes. Nothing wrong with that; it helped me to feel less alone in my disillusionment at the time. But then I put on (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. The guitars brought me there and I remembered Wonderwall from my childhood. What kept me there was something else. Oasis are decidedly not a grunge band. They are not miserable. They aren’t even those angry young men that typify so much of British rock. They are full of life. They are optimistic. They are confident to the point of arrogance. And despite being led by two brothers who can’t stand each other, they mostly want to share all these good feelings, without every being sappy out it. For me they hit a specific right tone to get me out of a maybe too dark funk.; Oasis aren’t a deep or varied band, but their particular brand of optimism is surprisingly rare and welcome in rock, especially with a sound as grounded as theirs.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Live in Phoenix »

By the way, the Beach Boys also made my list, and not far behind Fleetwood Mac. (In my memory, I thought they actually finished ahead.) They started quite young, and I generally think of their '60s music as teenager music; or as made by young men in the second half of the decade. I know they can't manage Van Dyke Parks stuff on their own, but at some point, they had issues with progressing lyrically or thematically. When they turned the clock back to become an oldies act, they started to seem like the band that never grew up, while their new material could be accused of either forced, or hopeless, naivete. Regardless, their '60s material easily got them a spot on my list.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Rob »

How do the song highlights work, BleuPanda? Some songs that ranked on our final poll are not present and I can't quite see the consistency in what you leave out.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

Rob wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 5:09 pm How do the song highlights work, BleuPanda? Some songs that ranked on our final poll are not present and I can't quite see the consistency in what you leave out.
What am I missing? I think I said in the second post that I'm listing all the songs that made the top 1000 or their top three if they don't have three in the top 1000.

I could have listed every song in the full top 2000 but... that's a lot of data for some of these higher acts.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Rob »

BleuPanda wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 6:03 pm
Rob wrote: Sat Sep 10, 2022 5:09 pm How do the song highlights work, BleuPanda? Some songs that ranked on our final poll are not present and I can't quite see the consistency in what you leave out.
What am I missing? I think I said in the second post that I'm listing all the songs that made the top 1000 or their top three if they don't have three in the top 1000.
Ah, I´d swear there were acts with more than 3 songs in the top 1000 and still entries you showed, but that seems to be a mistake on my part. Thanks for the explanation.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Fred »

About our most criminally underrated artist Frank Zappa (at no. 204), the dude (his wife Gail) released Strictly Commercial in the 90s.

Indeed a wonderfully sequenced compilation album, especially the first half, it would benefit from the exclusion of some silliness and the addition of some ace songs:

Additions bolded:

1. Peaches en Regalia 3:37
2. Don't Eat the Yellow Snow 3:34
3. Dancin' Fool 3:43
4. San Ber'dino 5:57
5. Sofa No. 2 2:43
6. My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama 3:31
7. Cosmik Debris 4:14
8. Trouble Every Day 5:49
9. Uncle Remus 2:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHIhsq9qHPk [the sleeper in the song treasure]
10. Blessed Relief 7:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Qk8VxUwuM [the only song I heard Frank "promote"]
11. Yo’ Mama 12:41 [the culmination of the search for a perfect guitar solo song] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotZxyuZ3v0
12. Let's Make the Water Turn Black 2:01
13. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing 3:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJXaFuDcOx0 [or "Echidnas Arf (of you)]
14. Joe's Garage 4:08
15. Bobby Brown 2:49 [still good!]
16. Montana 4:47
17. Muffin Man 5:32

Removed songs:

9. "Disco Boy" – 5:08
10. "Fine Girl" – 3:29
11. "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace" – 3:42
13. "I'm the Slime" 3:34
17. "Valley Girl" – 4:50
18. "Be in My Video" – 3:39

Of course this compilation calls for the immediate addition of "Hot Rats", "One Size Fits All" and "Roxy & Elsewhere".


OR, burn (or whatever young people do nowadays) this (you can name it "Strictly The Best Of" if you want) and put it ABOVE the "Strictly Commercial" disc in the "Strictly Commercial" envelope (this usually works):

1. Hungry Freaks, Daddy (Freak Out, 1966)
2. Can't Afford No Shoes (One Size Fits All, 1975) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDGKKNM7a7s
3. Echidna's Arf (Of You) (Roxy & Elsewhere, 1974) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeCGm8VipUU
4. Don’t You Ever Wash That Thing (Roxy & Elsewhere, 1974) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd_gU03mcZ4 [difficult shit, but Ruth excels]
5. Uncle Remus (Apostrophe ('), 1974)
6. Blessed Relief (The Grand Wazoo, 1972)
7. Inca Roads (One Size Fits All, 1975) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8HMCfXmVc0
8. Sofa No. 2 (One Size Fits All, 1975)
9. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing (You Are What You Is, 1981)
10. We Are Not Alone (The Man From Utopia, 1983)
11. Watermelon In East Hay (Joe’s Garage, 1979) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3cu8sDa90Y
12. Cruising for Burgers (Zappa In New York, 1978)
13. Yo' Mama (Sheik Yerbouti, 1979)

Purists, pundits and prudents would object to this but at least you can count on the "melody" factor here. One user famously referred to the compiler above as "song junkie". "City Of Tiny Lites" would appear (as objection) as something you try to bank on at the amusement park. Prince tried to do music at the end that possibly was influenced of the music above.
Last edited by Fred on Tue Sep 13, 2022 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

Sorry, today was a lot, I'll try to get back to this tomorrow evening.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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50. blur
Points: 1601.94 (34 Votes)
2019 Rank: 45
Biggest Fan(s): Toni (#1), Akhenaten (#5), Nick (#6), Chris K. (#8), Arsalan (#11), StevieFan13 (#13), BleuPanda (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Parklife (#132), 13 (#425), blur (#470), Modern Life is Rubbish (#723), The Great Escape (#988)
Forum Favorite Songs: Song 2 (#134), Girls & Boys (#306), Parklife (#769), Out of Time (#855), Tender (#948), The Universal (#998)

BleuPanda: Though not quite as in your face with it as Gorillaz, blur never settled for a single sound. After failing to make it big with more typical (and underappreciated) alternative rock, blur became the true emblems of the Britpop scene with the release of Parklife. While Oasis had the guitars and Pulp had the wit, it was blur who truly excelled at the pop part of the equation. Their music was snarky, bratty, and undeniably catchy. From there, their greatest works became increasingly elaborate, though not without welcome dips into their earlier playfulness. Whatever the chosen style, blur always smashed it out of the park, spawning dozens of hits that rarely retread the same path.

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49. Creedence Clearwater Revival
Points: 1630.89 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 68
Biggest Fan(s): Gillingham (#8), acroamor (#13), CupOfDreams (#17), nicolas (#17), Listyguy (#22), Krurze (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Cosmo's Factory (#82), Willy and the Poor Boys (#302), Green River (#357)
Forum Favorite Songs: Fortunate Son (#101), Proud Mary (#283), Have You Ever Seen the Rain (#477), Bad Moon Rising (#587), Who'll Stop the Rain (#649), Ramble Tamble (#959)

Gillingham: I was spoon-fed the music of CCR from an early age on – mostly during long holiday drives to the south of France - so their placement at the top of my list is highly personal. Songs like Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Long as I Can See the Light and the cover I Put a Spell on You are more or less part of the very fabric of my body. I was used to hearing all kinds of best-of and greatest hits selections before I dug deeper into their back catalogue. And although I was already familiar with their very best songs, there was still a lot to discover on their seven albums (although their last effort, Mardi Grass, really doesn’t have a lot to offer beside singles like Someday Never Comes and Sweet Hitch-Hiker). Probably the most impressive thing about CCR is that they put out all their major work in less than two and a half years. Baffling.

Favorite album: Cosmo’s Factory
Favorite song: Have You Ever Seen the Rain
Personal gem: Ramble Tamble

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48. Johnny Cash
Points: 1646.27 (39 Votes)
2019 Rank: 52
Biggest Fan(s): mileswide (#11), Safetycat (#18), acroamor (#19), nicolas (#21), Rob (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: At Folsom Prison (#268), American Recordings (#573), American IV: The Man Comes Around (#772), American III: Solitary Man (#826)
Forum Favorite Songs: Hurt (#63), Folsom Prison Blues (#141), I Walk the Line (#241), Ring of Fire (#389)

Rob: It may be unfashionable to call somebody the embodiment of the American Myth, but if there is one person who could carry such a big title it certainly is Johnny Cash. He carried many contradictions in him. He was clearly a conservative, but also socially engaged. He was a devout Christian, but ready to give in to and admit his vices. He was a patriot, but hardly believes he lives in a country that deserves it. He was a romantic who knew his heart would always be broken. In his long career he kept a clear eye on new talent, as seen in his late covers of acts like Nine Inch Nails and Nick Cave. Despite this his own style changed little. Nobody expected or wanted him to change, because his voice was dark yet earnest and with relatively simple guitar lines he painted perhaps the only picture of America that people of every persuasion could recognize. An untouchable icon.

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47. Joni Mitchell
Points: 1662.48 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 63
Biggest Fan(s): acroamor (#1), Listyguy (#7), Miguel (#7), stone37 (#16), acr0320 (#17), Rob (#21), VanillaFire1000 (#21)
Forum Favorite Albums: Blue (#74), Court and Spark (#346), Hejira (#568), The Hissing of Summer Lawns (#638), Ladies of the Canyon (#979)
Forum Favorite Songs: A Case of You (#258), River (#499), Both Sides Now (#628), Big Yellow Taxi (#886)

Listyguy: Joni Mitchell sits at or near the very top of the pantheon of the best lyricists, and her name is often breathed alongside the likes of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan for a reason. It was apparent from her earliest releases that her songwriting was unparalleled: “Big Yellow Taxi” and especially “Both Sides Now” are as poetic as they are melodic (and those songs are plenty melodic). If she had stayed in that style for her entire career, she would still be considered one of the greats. But, of course, Joni’s sound evolved over time and she put out some excellent jazz pop and jazz rock albums like Court and Spark and Hejira. This leap not only adds some great diversity to her catalog, but it also shows how versatile Joni was as a singer and musician. Finally, no conversation about Joni Mitchell could be complete without discussing Blue, her crowning achievement. The pain and heartbreak on songs like “The Last Time I Saw Richard” and “A Case of You” is palpable. An album this honest and bare shouldn’t be so good, and yet it is. It may be the best singer/songwriter album ever. Once again, Joni’s lyrics take center stage: the line “I am a lonely painter/I live in a box of paint” (from “A Case of You”) is maybe the most affecting lyric I’ve ever heard.

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46. LCD Soundsystem
Points: 1696.3 (33 Votes)
2019 Rank: 42
Biggest Fan(s): BleuPanda (#1), Nassim (#3), Holden (#4), Toni (#5), VanillaFire1000 (#14), Moonbeam (#14), Nick (#15), Listyguy (#19)
Forum Favorite Albums: Sound of Silver (#47), This Is Happening (#159), LCD Soundsystem (#408), American Dream (#487)
Forum Favorite Songs: All My Friends (#39), Someone Great (#234), Losing My Edge (#284), Dance Yrself Clean (#515), I Can Change (#946)

BleuPanda: James Murphy kicked off his career as LCD Soundsystem with “Losing My Edge,” an abrasive single that more importantly serves as a manifesto that guided his evolution as an artist. In this single, he cheekily posits that even the greatest record collectors of the past were going to be replaced by kids who simply needed an internet connection – a burgeoning idea in the days of Napster legitimized by the advent of Spotify. In this world, any similarity would be called out immediately, so you might as well play along. In “Losing My Edge,” he literally ends by listing off his personal favs – his following work might not be as on the nose, but he wants you to know exactly who inspired him. If “Losing My Edge” is the question, what follows are several answers. Perhaps you should revive an underappreciated genre few have ever heard. Maybe imitate The Beatles and David Bowie so explicitly that the very act reads as provocation. Create music with such a fine-tuned awareness of the past that people both recognize where you started but are also shocked by what you do differently. The simple fact is, even if you can trace the roots, songs like “All My Friends” and “Dance Yrself Clean” and “How Do You Sleep” sit on pedestals all their own. Two distinct elements make this work. First, no matter the influence, LCD Soundsystem will imbue any style with surprisingly danceable rhythms. Second, James Murphy is a top-tier lyricist, bringing unexpected depth to genres where words are largely an afterthought. LCD Soundsystem is simply a band trying to do a little bit of everything all at once, with all the raw emotions and musicianship to back it up.

Nassim: I love the music from the 2000s and 2010s a lot, but if you ask me who my favorite band of the past 20 years is, there isn't even a debate (sorry Run the Jewels and Car Seat Headrest, but no one can touch James Murphy and co).
My favorite songs are often the ones building layers over layers of instruments, crescendoing in epic proportions until full ecstasis (see Us v Them for instance) but that would still be selling them short, they can also play it simple (Great Release is the best Eno inspired track of the 2000s), go full rock (the hiddgen gem Big Ideas), pen witty lyrics (Dance Yrself Clean, though even with terrible lyrics that would still be a grade-A banger) or do all of that and so much more in the same song.
No other band has an higher batting average imo, over 4 albums they released at the very least 15 home runs and at most 2 strikes out, and at least one, with All My Friends they shot that damn baseball so far that it is currently trailing Voyager.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Nick »

Oasis and Blur right next to each other is too perfect.
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BleuPanda
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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45. PJ Harvey
Points: 1707.3 (35 Votes)
2019 Rank: 40
Biggest Fan(s): CupOfDreams (#6), Gillingham (#6), Rob (#12), acr0320 (#13), Jackson (#17), Lagunin (#17), Michel (#17), luvulongTIM (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: To Bring You My Love (#140), Let England Shake (#153), Stories from the City Stories from the Sea (#206), Dry (#376), Rid of Me (#629), Is This Desire? (#745)
Forum Favorite Songs: Down By the Water (#473), The Words That Maketh Murder (#708), Rid of Me (#1262)

Gillingham: Polly Jean was able to enter the world of popular music with a bang with ‘Dry’. Quite a shock for some to see a woman make music like this so confidently. She never looked back, although one might say her output got a bit milder through the years. Quality-wise it only got better, culminating in To Bring You My Love, her first masterpiece and a threatening mix of rock, blues and a singer/songwriter aesthetic. She kept on putting out great music regularly up until Let England Shake. After that she focused more on other stuff and unfortunately her original output since has been sporadic and not quite as good as most of her back catalogue. But still, there’s isn’t an outright bad album in her discography. To the contrary, most of it is really good. There’s always an PJ Harvey album or song I’d like to listen to at any given moment.

Favorite album: Let England Shake
Favorite song: To Bring You My Love
Personal gem: Angelene

Rob: Some artists just hit you. They come in with something unexpected and teach you that you know nothing. When I first heard PJ Harvey’s song Sheela-Na-Gig I had never heard a woman sing about sexual experiences like this. Of being treated like an object. Of being filthy after sex. And even expecting more of this. Some people where impressed by the frankness of WAP by Cardi B and Meghan Thee Stallion a few years ago. That song is just cute in comparison to the dirty confessionals of early Harvey. It was chilling for someone as innocent as I perhaps was at the time, but I kept returning. It also made me appreciate the extremely rough recording quality of the song, something I never considered much of an option. The first three albums really opened a new world of experience for me, one I as a man never could have nor particularly wanted to have. So why did I return to Dry, Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love over and over again? Because they were so clearly not me, yet so very real. I know not everyone is looking for art out of their experience, let alone out of their comfort zone, but PJ Harvey learned me that for me it is necessary to do so. Of course I could always lean on her appealingly tough guitar music. She tried many different styles later, mostly with success, but if I’m honest PJ Harvey ranks among my top favorites specifically because of the first three records.

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44. Leonard Cohen
Points: 1736.94 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 49
Biggest Fan(s): Miguel (#4), Rob (#7), acroamor (#14), Gillingham (#15), M24 (#20), cetamol (#22)
Forum Favorite Albums: Songs of Leonard Cohen (#66), Songs of Love and Hate (#231), I'm Your Man (#689), You Want It Darker (#967)
Forum Favorite Songs: Suzanne (#158), Famous Blue Raincoat (#625), So Long Marianne (#866)

acroamor: I think of Leonard often, of his wisdom, his voice, his constant battle between and merging of the sacred and the profane. I'm not a religious person, but I think of Leonard as one of the few people in history to truly have understood what many call God. How else could he have known so clearly in advance that he was to die? Blackstar, naturally, got the most attention in its year as a farewell record from a genius on the brink, but for my money, it's You Want It Darker that draws me back in, time and time again. Leonard, the man who started in his thirties and could spend five years writing a single song, saw that long darkness come for him and prepared his final words in just enough time. He did a single interview, and was gone a week later. He's the best poet we've ever had in our little musical world, and so it seems best to end with a note from the man himself:
"Behold the gates of mercy
In arbitrary space
And none of us deserving
Of cruelty or the grace
O, solitude of longing
Where love has been confined
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind"

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43. Kendrick Lamar
Points: 1738.93 (31 Votes)
2019 Rank: 67
Biggest Fan(s): prosecutorgodot (#5), FrankLotion (#10), BleuPanda (#11), acr0320 (#15), M24 (#16), ProjectTermina (#16), sonofsamiam (#18), Edre Peraza (#23), Schüttelbirne (#24), Listyguy (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: To Pimp a Butterfly (#44), good kid m.A.A.d. city (#78), DAMN. (#429), [Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers - #1 on 2022 MCCh]
Forum Favorite Songs: The Blacker the Berry (#446), King Kunta (#588), Alright (#844)

BleuPanda: Kendrick Lamar is one of the few artists to truly rival Bob Dylan when it comes to musical storytelling. Good kid, m.A.A.d. city is a rare album to convey a full narrative with clarity and emotional gravity. It might have gone down as the greatest hip hop album ever recorded if not followed by the even grander To Pimp a Butterfly. If the latter lacks the overarching narrative, it makes up for it with immediately resonant anthems. On both albums, Kendrick poignantly conveys the societal trauma of his community while showing the strength to overcome. If art can be a portal to another point of view, few works are as eye-opening to the continuing struggles of being black in America today. After those two masterpieces, DAMN. feels like a much-deserved victory lap – if not as emotionally powerful, he runs circles around his contemporaries while playing at their game.

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42. Elton John
Points: 1745.92 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 27
Biggest Fan(s): Neil (#6), profeta (#7), Renan (#10), bonnielaurel (#11), Safetycat (#13), stone37 (#13), Rob (#15), kaue (#18), Bruno (#19), Henry (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (#128)
Forum Favorite Songs: Your Song (#132), Rocket Man (#165), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (#205), Tiny Dancer (#243), Candle in the Wind (#858)

Rob: It might be a bit hard to remember all too clearly, but I think Elton John was the first music artist I knew by name. This was all thanks to being overly fond of The Lion King as a kid. The songs had Dutch versions, which I knew by heart, but I also tried to sings along to the English versions phonetically. Later, when studying for high school exams I discovered an Elton compilation in my mother’s collection title Love Songs. Surely not the coolest thing you could listen to as a teenager in the early to mid 2000’s, but they calmed me and made me rediscover Sir Elton John. Again later, during college, I discovered his seventies rock pieces and the ballads with more unusual topics, like Rocket Man, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Bitch Is Back, Levon, Tiny Dancer, Crocodile Rock and so on. He has become something of an emblem of what I look for in music: sensitive, energetic, weird, willing to try new things, a unique singer and a skillful musician. He seems to be a little back in vogue since the Rocket Man film. That’s nice, but for me he was never gone. He’s been with me the longest and like a truly good friend his music will always be my companion.

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41. Aretha Franklin
Points: 1759.53 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 34
Biggest Fan(s): bonnielaurel (#9), Bruno (#9), Elder (#11), Safetycat (#15), Dan (#21), stone37 (#24), StevieFan13 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (#118), Lady Soul (#143)
Forum Favorite Songs: Respect (#27), I Say a Little Prayer (#178), (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (#401), Chain of Fools (#412), Think (#552)

bonnielaurel: Aretha Franklin started her career as a teenager singing gospel music in churches. Her vocal talent was obvious from the beginning. Her voice was powerful and edgy. She could improvise around a given melody and make it her own. Her first albums, with recordings of standards, weren't very successful yet. Only when she moved to Atlantic Records with Jerry Wexler as a producer she became the Queen of Soul. She took her technical skills and expression from gospel music and transposed it to wordly hit songs. Her cover of Otis Redding's Respect changed the point of view from male to female. She worked with songwriters like Carole King and Gerry Goffin, but also put her own stamp on how her records were going to sound. She could sing emotional ballads or steaming up-tempo songs with an irresistible drive. As an active member of the Civil Rights movement she knew Martin Luther King from a young age, and sang at his funeral. In the 1980s she made a comeback, and worked with pop artists of the new generation. She kept performing until the end, sometimes playing the piano herself. Her influence on female soul artists of the next generations is immense. In 2021 Jennifer Hudson played her in the biopic Respect.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by FrankLotion »

Nick wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:01 am Oasis and Blur right next to each other is too perfect.
Plus Oasis was higher than Blur in the last poll so they switched! The eternal battle rages on.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Arsalan »

Nick wrote: Tue Sep 13, 2022 1:01 am Oasis and Blur right next to each other is too perfect.
The forum has peaked. It's all downhill from here
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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40. Marvin Gaye
Points: 1768.42 (38 Votes)
2019 Rank: 47
Biggest Fan(s): cetamol (#9), nicolas (#14), Bruno (#16), Dexter (#17), FrankLotion (#17), stone37 (#17), Henry (#25), sonofsamiam (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: What's Going On (#31), Let's Get It On (#382)
Forum Favorite Songs: What's Going On (#30), I Heard It Through the Grapevine (#38), Let's Get It On (#255), Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) (#400), Ain't No Mountain High Enough (#572), Sexual Healing (#577)

FrankLotion: Marvin Gaye seems to always have either my #1 or #2 song of all time whenever I make those types of lists, and it’s usually not the same song that’s moving around since he has such a strong and wide-ranging bench of timeless tunes. Even his early music that is simple on its face is so rich with the most finely tuned melodies and vocal tones that turned the songs into instant classics. Also let’s get this out of the way: Yes, Marvin Gaye can be corny, but that doesn’t mean his music is any less likely to have complex emotions and ideas. In fact, that corniness is undoubtedly a strength. So much of Gaye’s work is elevated by his earnestness and conviction, how can you not get swept up with someone who can convey that so effectively? His passion is infectious and extends to everything from the dramatic pleading of What’s Going On, to the bitterness of Here, My Dear, to the hilariously heartfelt horniness of Let’s Get it On (the passion is especially present in the horny music, he’s basically synonymous with that now for better or worse). Still, within those broad feelings is a subtle sophistication that comes with the deft songwriting and virtuosic vocal performance that does wonders in fleshing out Gaye’s particular perspective. Either way, things are pretty bleak these days, so to me this kind of honest and direct communication of hope, love, and pain feels especially welcome and serves as a necessary counterpoint to seemingly more prickly or abstract songwriting.

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39. Nick Cave (and the Bad Seeds)
Points: 1781.23 (33 Votes)
2019 Rank: 36
Biggest Fan(s): BleuPanda (#2), DaveC (#2), mileswide (#10), Holden (#11), phil (#12), Fred (#15), Michel (#18), M24 (#23), Brad (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus (#362), Skeleton Tree (#373), The Boatman's Call (#517), No More Shall We Part (#518), Ghosteen (#659), Let Love In (#696), Tender Prey (#705), The Good Son (#805), Push the Sky Away (#827), Murder Ballads (#892)
Forum Favorite Songs: The Mercy Seat (#215), Into My Arms (#333), Where the Wild Roses Grow (#683), There She Goes My Beautiful World (#875), Red Right Hand (#891)

BleuPanda: Nick Cave had already proven himself a true musical genius by the time I really dove into music in the late 2000s – who could have predicted the best was yet to come? Like many of my favorites, Nick Cave is a true explorer - first making a name in gothic rock, then turning to the singer/songwriter sphere before ascending into art rock extravagance, only to wind down to somber ambience. Every new era has been unpredictable, but over a career that has spanned nearly 40 years with 17 albums with the Bad Seeds (and a handful of other projects), he has rarely if ever made a misstep. Whatever the style, Nick Cave brings excellent lyricism and haunting instrumentation. With his ambient releases in the late-2010s, largely mourning the sudden death of his teenage son, Cave rose to a whole new level by recalibrating his dark skills to tackle grief through numbing atmosphere.

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38. Madonna
Points: 1796.81 (33 Votes)
2019 Rank: 35
Biggest Fan(s): Elder (#1), Neil (#1), Moonbeam (#5), Bruno (#10), acr0320 (#16), Dan (#18), Maschine_Man (#19), Lagunin (#21), stone37 (#21), Karla (#22), profeta (#22)
Forum Favorite Albums: Like a Prayer (#256), Madonna (#563), Ray of Light (#607)
Forum Favorite Songs: Like a Prayer (#82), Into the Groove (#418), Ray of Light (#497), Vogue (#607), Like a Virgin (#680), Live to Tell (#972)

prosecutorgodot: Listening to Madonna is one of my earliest experiences with popular music. I am particular to the early Madonna, those songs are like a more accessible version of New Order’s “Blue Monday.” They are just catchy, freeing and really good fun. My dad was a big fan of her from his clubbing days. I asked my dad to provide his thoughts, and he says, “Her music is great and has withstood the test of time. Her single “Papa Don’t Preach” was revolutionary for its time. Even the Pope asked people to boycott her concerts. Her concerts were entertaining. People threw underwear onto the stage. I waited hours in line for tickets but shows were sold out before I could get any.”

The story goes that Madonna sneaked out to a David Bowie concert when she was 15, and the concert experience convinced her to become a star. With $35 and some dance training, the Italian girl from Michigan moved to NYC on her own. She recorded some demos and hounded nightclub DJs to play them. Her go-getter attitude eventually landed her a deal with Warner Bros Records, and the rest is history.

“Her survival instinct is… outrageous” – Björk

In a lot of ways, Madonna the businesswoman is more interesting than her music. Madonna not only was massively popular, but she managed to hold onto that popularity for over two decades, from her self-titled debut in 1983 to “Hung Up” in 2005. Since then her popularity has waned, but that longevity was nearly unheard of for a female musician; even today, artists of any stripe come and go in a flash, but people still know Madonna. Madonna pulled off her magic trick by constantly reinventing herself, from club girl, to world pop star, to laid-back downtempo electronic pop, and back to the dancefloor.

Madonna’s marketing and image were everything, often lighting up the media with her controversial songs and visuals. “Papa Don’t Preach,” “Like a Virgin,” “Into the Groove,” and “Like a Prayer” lit the fires of the Reagan-era masses, and provoked the reactions of religious groups. Her stage shows proved that women could rock a stadium like any man could. Her costumes were pretty revolutionary for women’s styles and pushed boundaries of sexuality. Going back to old marketing photos of Madonna 30-40 years ago, maybe it’s just that style or standards of attractiveness have changed over the years, but it seems like Madonna’s style was all her own. And she changed it up every other year.

This is not to say Madonna is slacking as a musician. She writes her own songs. Her beats get everyone on the dancefloor. Her voice is not good in the traditional sense, but having heard a lot worse vocals being applauded in music circles, she is par for the course, and her voice tends to work effectively for the music she makes. I think her music is ultimately about freeing yourself, and being yourself. She slid that important message into a sauce that anyone can enjoy.
Madonna might have put herself first, but she did care about her fellow humans. She featured subcultures and marginalized groups in her work, which helped break down social barriers at the time. She also helps her fellow women. She paid homage to Kylie Minogue in 2000, and did a song with M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj in 2012.

Madonna is the origin point of the modern female pop star, in terms of image and music. Uncountable artists have imitated her danceable music, often tinged with electronics and synths. Her influence looms large – it would be impossible to name all of her offspring - Carly Rae Jepsen, Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga are some of them. FKA twigs sounds like she took general aesthetic inspiration from Ray of Light-era Madonna. She also inspired Liam Gallagher of Oasis and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park.

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37. The Kinks
Points: 1814.51 (41 Votes)
2019 Rank: 46
Biggest Fan(s): Jackson (#1), Miguel (#9), Cadavaca (#18), andyd1010 (#22), VanillaFire1000 (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society (#102), Something Else by The Kinks (#227), Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire (#372), Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneyground (Part One) (#907)
Forum Favorite Songs: Waterloo Sunset (#51), You Really Got Me (#138), Lola (#366)

Live in Phoenix: The Kinks first hit big as unlikely hard rock heroes, with "You Really Got Me." This was a fun period well represented on a 1966 "Greatest Hits!" LP that I swiped from my grandparents' house in the mid-'90s. There was also well-crafted pop and satire, though I would get tired of Ray Davies' satirical songs fairly quickly. When I was in college in the late '90s (when the Kinks had only just broke up), a local music critic wrote that Face to Face through Arthur were the four greatest rock albums in history but didn't initially get over well because they weren't with the times. Of course, by 1998, no one was doing "Listen to the Flower People" stuff anymore, and Davies' records of introspection, nostalgia, and regret had aged better than many other things from that time period, as I'd discover while listening to them for the next several years. (Here we are 20 years past when I listened to the Kinks the most...so in some cases I have bittersweet nostalgia of Ray Davies' bittersweet nostalgia. If you haven't heard these albums yet, you can get in on this too!) None of these albums or their bonus tracks are "difficult" to listen to today (including the old LP, The Great Lost Kinks Album). This was a band that still retained the ability to rock. Today these releases stand out for Davies' brilliance as a songwriter, not to mention his unique way of singing like a character, stuck in his song without resolution, turning to a sunny afternoon that can't be held onto; cherishing the beauty of a sunset, of an old British way of life, about to vanish in the haze.

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36. Bob Marley (& the Wailers)
Points: 1823.48 (38 Votes)
2019 Rank: 23
Biggest Fan(s): mileswide (#6), acr0320 (#14), Dan (#14), CupOfDreams (#19), nicolas (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Exodus (#116), Natty Dread (#322), Catch a Fire (#328), Live! (#526), Uprising (#931)
Forum Favorite Songs: No Woman No Cry (#166), Redemption Song (#240), Get Up Stand Up (#717), Is This Love (#816)

bonnielaurel: Bob Marley's name is synonymous for reggae. The most famous singer from Jamaica was recognizable by his dreadlocks and use of the African colors: green, yellow and red. The rastafari religion focused on the African origin of all Afro-Americans, comparing the history of slave trade to the Biblical Exodus. Smoking marihuana was part of their culture. With The Wailers he developed reggae music in the seventies, with the typical stressed backbeats, the Jamaican accents and sometimes political content, in line with the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-war movement. "Jah" was their word for God or Yahweh; "ganja" and "kaya" were slang for marihuana. "No Woman, No Cry", a song with a strong social message, became more famous in the live version recorded in London. Thanks to him reggae got worldwide recognition and influenced European rock bands. He died from cancer at the age of thirty-six, but his following remained strong, and his sons Ziggy and Damian followed in his footsteps.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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35. Pixies
Points: 1839.06 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 37
Biggest Fan(s): CupOfDreams (#3), Fred (#8), Arsalan (#9), DaveC (#12), Holden (#14), Michel (#14), Toni (#16), Nick (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Doolittle (#15), Surfer Rosa (#97), Bossanova (#443), Trompe le Monde (#635), Come On Pilgrim EP (#874)
Forum Favorite Songs: Debaser (#76), Monkey Gone to Heaven (#206), Where Is My Mind? (#212), Here Comes Your Man (#396), Gigantic (#516), Hey (#808)

CupOfDreams: The Pixies should have been as big as Nirvana. Correction, they should have been bigger. They certainly made a huge impact on one Kurt Cobain. And Radiohead. And Modest Mouse. And virtually every indie/alternative rock band that followed. Also they made a huge impact on me. Maybe it was loud/quiet dynamic present in so many of the songs. The unabashed embrace of noise blended with uncanny pop sensibilities. A singer whose screams and shouts sounded like a man possessed. Lyrically the Pixies were strange, bordering on the absurd. Whether they were singing about aliens, crustaceans, throwing out odd biblical references, the whores like a choir, or slicing up eyeballs; you can't help but to sing along. Sure they were an influential, genre defining band, but most importantly they were fun. And sometimes that's the most you can ask for in rock music. In the late eighties it was just what I needed. And 30+ years later it's still what I need.

The Pixies formed in Boston in 1986. The band consisted of Black Francis (vocals, rhythm guitar), Kim Deal (bass, vocals), Joey Santiago (lead guitar) and David Lovering (drums). The band's debut EP "Come On Pilgrim" was released on London label 4AD in 1987 and sounded nothing like anything previously released on the label. The seminal "Surfer Rosa" and "Doolittle" soon followed. Works that would become two of my most played and favorite albums of all-time. The interplay between Black Francis and Kim Deal was at it's absolute peak. The lyrics were weird and the music raw, irresistible and catchy. My soundtrack to the late eighties and pretty much every road trip I've taken since.

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34. Tom Waits
Points: 1841.81 (38 Votes)
2019 Rank: 48
Biggest Fan(s): Safetycat (#1), nicolas (#7), Honorio (#8), Fred (#11), Dan (#12), mileswide (#12), Cadavaca (#13), Gillingham (#13), Holden (#19), BleuPanda (#22), Listyguy (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Rain Dogs (#71), Swordfishtrombones (#138), Bad As Me (#540), Bone Machine (#543), Closing Time (#737), Small Change (#958), Mule Variations (#983)
Forum Favorite Songs: Downtown Train (#498), Tom Traubert's Blues (#722), Time (#823)

Gillingham: The cookie monster, according to some. One of the best and original artists in modern pop music for others. He started out great in the 70s with some very worthwhile music, but he really came to his own in the 80s on Island Records. He had his best run on that label from Swordfishtrombones onward, but when he switched again when making Mule Variations, to ANTI, his music didn’t suffer. Albums like Mule Variations an Alice are up there with his best work if you ask me. And the 3 disc compilation with mostly unreleased music Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards is simply fantastic. A great overview of the different styles he excels in. It’s a real pity though he hasn’t put any new music out since 2011’s Bad as Me. Let’s keep on hoping.

Favorite album: Swordfishtrombones
Favorite song: Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)
Personal gem: What's He Building?"

Safetycat: He is the king of the back alley, the Fagin to his orphanage of brawling, bawling, bastard songs. Often covered, but never beaten. Tom Waits is one of the most consistent acts in music, and that can be taken more than one way. His albums are prolific and varied, charting an incredible artistic journey from country ballads to marimbas and megaphones. But the act of being Tom Waits is equally impressive – every interview and spoken-word piece is a delight that expounds on the character he has been playing his whole life. I wouldn’t like to live in Wait’s world, I am glad I have been able to visit it.
While the man is an acquired taste – my uncle, in his university days, used to put on Tom Waits when it was time for everyone to go home – the depths of his discography provide a smorgasbord of flavours to try before you find one you like.
And all of that is to say: Where’s the next album, Tom?

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33. Kate Bush
Points: 1842.59 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 43
Biggest Fan(s): Lagunin (#2), luvulongTIM (#4), prosecutorgodot (#10), Maschine_Man (#18), Live in Phoenix (#20), StevieFan13 (#20), cetamol (#21), Jackson (#22), sonofsamiam (#22)
Forum Favorite Albums: Hounds of Love (#53), The Dreaming (#366), The Kick Inside (#414), The Sensual World (#924)
Forum Favorite Songs: Wuthering Heights (#22), Running Up That Hill (#67), Hounds of Love (#433), Cloudbusting (#574)

bonnielaurel: Kate Bush immediately stood out with her high, piercing voice and her gracious way of moving. She appealed to different kinds of audiences by combining pop music and art. She found inspiration in philosophy and literature. Wuthering Heights gave the point of view of Cathy in Emily Brontë's novel of the same title. Other lyrics were about daring topics like menstruation or suicide. In the eighties she used elements from pop, rock, folk and classical music. In Babooshka her older brother Paddy plays the balalaika and imitates a Cossack bass to evoke a Russian mood. On her next albums she kept floating between musical experiments and more accessible tunes. Synthesizer, didgeridoo and violins didn't turn out to be mutually exclusive. In the mid-nineties she took a break from music. After more than a decade her comeback album proved that she still had it. She has earned her place in music history as one of the most remarkable strange phenomena.

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32. Queen
Points: 1856.29 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 21
Biggest Fan(s): profeta (#2), Renan (#2), Karla (#4), bonnielaurel (#7), Lagunin (#8), kaue (#10), Listyguy (#10), whuntva (#11), Bruno (#15), StevieFan13 (#18), Dexter (#19), Akhenaten (#21)
Forum Favorite Albums: A Night at the Opera (#178)
Forum Favorite Songs: Bohemian Rhapsody (#16), Under Pressure (#154), Don't Stop Me Now (#232), Somebody to Love (#524), We Are the Champions (#569), We Will Rock You (#622), Another One Bites the Dust (#799)

Live in Phoenix: I watched four hours of Live Aid on DVD just to build up to Queen’s performance. You had all these big names who looked like they were standing in line at the grocery store, and then Freddie Mercury saunters in and shows you who the rock star is. Everyone prior had fair warning -- this was the guy who sounded compelling singing goddamn nonsense next to David Bowie on “Under Pressure.”

I didn’t really latch on to Queen’s albums, but most of their albums came with a hot single, and they released plenty of albums, so it worked out well. They might seem like one of the least subtle acts that’s ever existed, but the band was quietly effective, too. When “Bohemian Rhapsody” ends not with operatics, but with “any way the wind blows...” you could say it sends shivers down my spine. “Don’t Stop Me Now” ends on a wistful moment, as if acknowledging the good times have to end sometime. They ended in 1991, when Mercury became a casualty of AIDS. (He lived in the closet, in crueler times, but he [and Elton John] likely changed hearts about the LGBT community as much as any individual.) The very last thing Mercury did for Queen was the “These Are the Days of Our Lives” music video. Here again, we had a devastating quiet moment when Mercury, in terrible shape, his days as a performer over, confidently looks at the camera and whispers to his audience, “I still love you.” This was no easy act to follow. In Kurt Cobain’s suicide note, besides the infamous Neil Young line, there was a section where he admitted to envying Mercury, like he just didn't measure up. In a calmer situation, if I could have made a remark to Cobain about that, I would have told him that it was a common predicament for a musician: There was only one Freddie Mercury.

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31. Sufjan Stevens
Points: 1857.52 (36 Votes)
2019 Rank: 31
Biggest Fan(s): BleuPanda (#3), phil (#4), Nassim (#7), VanillaFire1000 (#9), Michel (#12), andyd1010 (#15), Holden (#17), Neil (#20), Dan (#22), Honorio (#22), Moonbeam (#25), Toni (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Illinois (#27), Carrie & Lowell (#121), The Age of Adz (#494), Michigan (#831)
Forum Favorite Songs: Chicago (#129), John Wayne Gacy Jr (#481), Casimir Pulaski Day (#593), Should Have Known Better (#756), The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades (#964)

BleuPanda: I rarely engaged with albums as a whole until my late teens when I discovered Acclaimed Music and, having explored the top 1000 or so songs, decided to check out longer works. Not knowing much of anything about the format, having grown up in a household of country and Christian radio, AM was my essential guide. I skipped around the top albums, focusing more on contemporary acts, and noticed an album by the name of Illinois. The next time I swung by the library (Youtube was not yet loaded with full albums and Spotify was unknown), I had to check it out – the packaging was fun, the song titles were whimsical, and how could I pass up an album not only about my state but with a track about my stupid hometown?
My first listen to Illinois is among the few moments in my life I can point toward as truly transformative. Following my troubled childhood, I had built up so many defenses, ashamed of any state that showed my vulnerability. Sufjan Stevens’ emotional honesty broke through all my shields and helped me realize it was okay to share myself. For me, having been overexposed to religion as a queer youth and always finding insincerity at church, Illinois is what a true Christian album should sound like, unafraid to tackle doubt and fear.
Though his major releases have grown infrequent, his music always finds me when I need it. The Age of Adz captures an overwhelming sense of anxiety, a state I knew all too well during my college years. Carrie & Lowell arrived right as my now ex-spouse was coping with their father’s impending death. And though that relationship ended, I fondly remember seeing Sufjan in concert together, as if he was a connective tissue between us – Sufjan’s emotional vulnerability has made him an unlikely queer icon. The Ascension, likewise, matches my growing unease with the outside world. Even if Sufjan has always written from the heart, he finds universal terms. Whether maximal or minimal, folk or electronic, his music expresses the most complex emotions.

Nassim: Sufjan Stevens has 3 modes :
- The full on orchestral epics with layers and layers of instruments
- The bleep bloop electronic experimentations
- The pared down sad folk
Still, he has released at least one masterpiece in each mode and you would never confuse his music for anyone else's : from his heavenly voice (probably in my top 3 ever) to his uncanny sense of melodies and harmonies and his observations on death, faith and family. At any scale, from a lo-fi song with just his guitar and his voice to an epic 25 minutes song with full blown orchestration, his music always sounds personal, both to him and whoever is currently listening. I don't think he wears a disguise during concerts, I think he is legit an angel.
Last edited by BleuPanda on Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by prosecutorgodot »

Going well, BP! But I think I had Kate Bush at #10...?
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

prosecutorgodot wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 6:05 am Going well, BP! But I think I had Kate Bush at #10...?
Sorry, this has been added.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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30. Elvis Presley
Points: 1922.24 (35 Votes)
2019 Rank: 17
Biggest Fan(s): Bruno (#4), Akhenaten (#6), profeta (#8), M24 (#11), stone37 (#12), whuntva (#12), aalamar (#14), Live in Phoenix (#16), Honorio (#19), Neil (#19), Dan (#20), Dexter (#20), bonnielaurel (#21), Edre Peraza (#22), andyd1010 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Elvis Presley (#451), From Elvis in Memphis (#458)
Forum Favorite Songs: Suspicious Minds (#77), Heartbreak Hotel (#216), Jailhouse Rock (#251), Hound Dog (#397), Can't Help Falling In Love (#662), That's All Right (#712)

bonnielaurel: Elvis Presley was the first megastar of rock 'n' roll. When he swang his hips teenagers screamed or fainted. The brillantine in his hair and the glittering suits would turn him into the most imitated celebrity. He started with covers of rhythm 'n' blues artists. Producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records gave these a clean, modern sound, suited for a worldwide audience that was hungry for entertainment. His original rock 'n' roll songs drove the young generation to the dancefloor. His deep, warm voice was also suitable for romantic ballads, gospel and country. His films were mostly vehicles to promote new songs. Towards the late sixties his unhealthy lifestyle made him look fatter and sound heavier. He was one of the first pop stars to discover the other side of fame. According to several conspiracy theories the King is still alive!

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29. Elvis Costello
Points: 1931.31 (40 Votes)
2019 Rank: 39
Biggest Fan(s): mileswide (#4), stone37 (#4), Brad (#6), DaveC (#7), Akhenaten (#8), Toni (#12), Honorio (#16), bonnielaurel (#17), andyd1010 (#18)
Forum Favorite Albums: This Year's Model (#88), My Aim is True (#204), Armed Forces (#405), Imperial Bedroom (#496), Get Happy!! (#516)
Forum Favorite Songs: Alison (#518), Oliver's Army (#539), (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding (#551), Beyond Belief (#763), Watching the Detectives (#768), Pump It Up (#882)

bonnielaurel: The second coming of Elvis turned out to be a versatile singer-songwriter with a lasting career. The early Costello cultivated a rebellious image, e.g. by playing a different song than announced on American live television. He could perform both angry and sensitive songs. There’s a soft vibration in his voice. His lyrics contain puns and ambiguities. My Aim Is True can be a romantic declaration, but also the words of a stalker with a gun. The album sleeve of This Year's Model was intentionally misprinted, with the first letter of the singer and the title missing. In (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea he plays a frustrated fashion photographer who's afraid of being committed to a mental institution. He also addressed social and political issues, such as unwanted pregnancy, neofascism and Margaret Thatcher. The happy tune Veronica is ironically about an old woman with Alzheimer’s disease. After 1990 he continued to deliver album after album. He opted for surprising collaborations with the Brodsky Quartet and Burt Bacharach. His original backing band The Attractions has been replaced by The Imposters, but he remains inspired and active in his sixties.

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28. Miles Davis
Points: 1985.84 (38 Votes)
2019 Rank: 30
Biggest Fan(s): Schüttelbirne (#2), sonofsamiam (#4), Gillingham (#9), acroamor (#12), cetamol (#13), panam (#15), Michel (#16), aalamar (#18), Elder (#18), Cadavaca (#19), Honorio (#21), FrankLotion (#23), BleuPanda (#24), Jackson (#24), Edre Peraza (#25), VanillaFire1000 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Kind of Blue (#41), Bitches Brew (#224), In a Silent Way (#260), Sketches of Spain (#522)
Forum Favorite Songs: So What (#164), Blue in Green (#847), Pharoah's Dance (#1611)

Schüttelbirne: Miles Davis himself once said the history of jazz could be summarized in four words, referring to the names of Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. Judging from today‘s perspective, one would be hard-pressed not to include Davis himself in this line-up (though we can be glad he didn‘t include himself in his own quote – certain rappers would certainly have done that).
Davis did change what Jazz meant multiple times; of course he wasn‘t the only person involved in these changes and he certainly didn‘t exist in a vacuum – but being one of the most well-known jazz musicians in the world certainly helps when trying out new concepts and influencing others.
At the start of his career he played Bebop in Charlie Parker‘s band, but he soon moved on to lead his own groups. In 1949 he recorded material that would later be released on the album Birth of the Cool which is very important for the development of the Cool Jazz genre. He was also on the forefront of Hard Bop, creating the First Great Quintet, a group that included world‘s best bassist Paul Chambers and John Coltrane. Influenced by George Russell‘s book Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization he was involved in creating Modal Jazz, while also taking some dives into Third Stream music. Never one to stay with the same style for a long time, Davis then formed the Second Great Quintet which moved into Post-Bop territory by defying the conventions of Hard Bop. Soon he would introduce electric instruments in his repertoire, creating the subgenres of Jazz Fusion and Jazz-Funk. After a break in the second half of the 1970s he came back in the 1980s continuing his efforts in trying to pair jazz with more modern influences, including the use of synthesizers and hip hop influences.
Being involved in developing one musical (sub-)genre is enough to build a career and legacy on (just look at Nirvana), but Davis did this multiple times. Always an innovator, never looking back, he continually defied conventions and tried to innovate jazz.
When I listened to all his studio albums in order for the AMF poll last year, I was struck by the sense of musical progress inherent on each album. Not every album is better than the one that came before, but the evolution of the sound can actually be heard. This process ends on the high point, after which he took an extended hiatus due to his addiction problems. But even before that happened, he had moved away from recording studio albums because people didn‘t appreciate On the Corner (oh, such fools!) and moved on to live recordings which rank among the best live albums ever recorded.
If I could travel back in time for a day to visit a concert or festival, I would probably choose February 1, 1975 in Osaka where Davis and his band gave two concerts which ended up on two albums. There are few albums (live or not) that can contend with the absolute flare of genius evident on 1975‘s Agharta, and the first half of 1976‘s Pangaea, titled "Zimbabwe" is among the best jazz improvisations to ever grace my ears.
I didn‘t even get to write about his skills as a trumpet player, but we can save that for another time. I can confidently say that there are few artists so quintessential to a certain musical style as Miles Davis is to jazz, and even fewer I‘ve spent so much time with.

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27. Michael Jackson
Points: 2043.4 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 12
Biggest Fan(s): bonnielaurel (#1), Bruno (#1), Renan (#1), kaue (#2), profeta (#4), Karla (#8), Neil (#12), Akhenaten (#16), acr0320 (#21), M24 (#22), prosecutorgodot (#22), stone37 (#23), Live in Phoenix (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Thriller (#37), Off the Wall (#160), Bad (#275), Dangerous (#502)
Forum Favorite Songs: Billie Jean (#10), Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (#147), Beat It (#150), Thriller (#256), Smooth Criminal (#354), Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' (#437), Man in the Mirror (#655), Rock With You (#749)

bonnielaurel: In his childhood Michael Jackson traveled from one talent show to the next with his older brothers. The Motown years taught him to perform and work in the music industry. He showed an extraordinary vocal talent and sense of rhythm, but he didn't have a normal youth. After his voice dropped and the band moved to Epic a second phase started. They were trendsetters in the soulful direction of disco. A crucial move was to invite Quincy Jones - jazz trumpeter, arranger and film composer - to produce his first solo album. Off the Wall had a layered sound with enticing rhythms and switches between chest and falsetto voice. He could sing a dancefloor filler as well as a sensitive ballad. It made him a major R&B star, but he wanted more. With Thriller he reached a worldwide audience by combining rock elements with the new electronic possibilities. In the era of the music video he became a megastar thanks to his dancing skills. He studied the moves of Fred Astaire, and developed a lean staccato style. After this he kept making hits for two more decades, adapting elements of new jack swing and addressing issues like poverty, racism and the environment. In spite of his fame he also had a need for isolation. Some of his later lyrics were a protest against the intrusion of gossip journalists into his life. He remains a legendary pop singer who left behind many fabulous recordings.

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26. Jimi Hendrix
Points: 2057.25 (43 Votes)
2019 Rank: 20
Biggest Fan(s): Listyguy (#1), cetamol (#10), Dexter (#11), FrankLotion (#11), Elder (#12), nicolas (#16), whuntva (#16), Nick (#21), acr0320 (#22), Bruno (#22), Safetycat (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Are You Experienced (#45), Electric Ladyland (#91), Axis: Bold as Love (#283)
Forum Favorite Songs: All Along the Watchtower (#15), Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) (#220), Purple Haze (#221), Hey Joe (#277), Little Wing (#592)

Listyguy: Examining Jimi Hendrix as a musical legend starts, of course, with his guitar abilities. Those abilities are so renowned that any time you see a “greatest guitar players” list from a major outlet, it’s an upset to see anyone besides Hendrix take the top position. In terms of pure technical ability, there have been plenty of guitarists to surpass Jimi Hendrix over the years though. But one of the main reasons he stood out in the 60s (and what still makes him stand out now) was the inventive ways he used the guitar. Hendrix was able to use feedback, whammy bars, distortion, and studio effects unlike anyone else of his time. This is what made his versions of “All Along the Watchtower” or “The Star-Spangled Banner” so compelling: the extra effects painted vivid pictures of the Vietnam War without ever so much as hinting at the war. Beyond this, the melodic brilliance that came with his virtuosic playing also separated Hendrix from other guitar greats. Take “Little Wing,” my favorite Hendrix song. The guitar playing is otherworldly, but what makes the song perfect is how beautiful it sounds. And that to me is the easiest summation of the greatness of Jimi Hendrix: incredible instrumental ability combined with innovative techniques and outstanding songwriting.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by andyd1010 »

Oasis and blur back to back and then Elvis and Elvis back to back!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Gillingham »

Quite surprised to see that Queen and Michael Jackson were so very high up our list last time.
Great to see Tom Waits make a big jump within the top 50, well deserved.

Also, I really like the Pixies picture. Nice choice BleuPanda.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Toni »

So, as expected, Fiona Apple is our highest new entry in the top 100.

I’m loving all the comments, great job from all who have sent their texts!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Gillingham »

Toni wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:27 pm So, as expected, Fiona Apple is our highest new entry in the top 100.
Also, interestingly, but not completely surprisingly, all three new entries are women! (Lana del Rey, Beyoncé and Apple).
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

Gillingham wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:48 pm
Toni wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:27 pm So, as expected, Fiona Apple is our highest new entry in the top 100.
Also, interestingly, but not completely surprisingly, all three new entries are women! (Lana del Rey, Beyoncé and Apple).

Hey, don't forget Janelle Monae and Arctic Monkeys!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Gillingham »

BleuPanda wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:51 pm
Gillingham wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:48 pm
Toni wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:27 pm So, as expected, Fiona Apple is our highest new entry in the top 100.
Also, interestingly, but not completely surprisingly, all three new entries are women! (Lana del Rey, Beyoncé and Apple).

Hey, don't forget Janelle Monae and Arctic Monkeys!
Ah, that was a bit careless of me... Sorry.

4 out of 5 new entries are women then, not bad anyway.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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25. Simon and Garfunkel
Points: 2125.57 (43 Votes)
2019 Rank: 26
Biggest Fan(s): Rob (#4), Miguel (#8), Henry (#9), VanillaFire1000 (#10), Listyguy (#12), Dan (#15), acroamor (#20), Fred (#21), Krurze (#23), andyd1010 (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Bridge Over Troubled Water (#46), Bookends (#219), Parsley Sage Rosemary & Thyme (#467), Sounds of Silence (#511)
Forum Favorite Songs: The Sound of Silence (#24), Bridge Over Troubled Water (#37), The Boxer (#75), America (#444), The Only Living Boy in New York (#604), Mrs. Robinson (#651)

Henry: Simon began writing “The Sound of Silence” in November 1963, the month when JFK was assassinated. While Simon gets most of the songwriting credit for S&G, “Darkness” as used in “The Sound of Silence” apparently is Art Garfunkel as he helps a friend (Sandy Greenburg), who suddenly became blind from glaucoma, become more comfortable in NYC. Sandy loaned Garfunkel $400 to fund recording and other expenses for S&G’s first album. Their first album was not initially successful, so Simon moved to London and finished his first solo album, The Paul Simon songbook.

S&G’s producer, Tom Wilson, transformed the original all-acoustic recording of “The Sound of Silence” from the Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. album into a number 1 single by introducing electric guitar and a rhythm section.

The Sounds of Silence album included the single version and songs which seem aligned with other recording start of the time, including: “Kathy’s Song” (heard as exemplifying the unabashed romanticism of John Sebastian), “Richard Cory” and “A Most Peculiar Man” (incisive character studies – aligned with The Kinks), and “I Am a Rock” (soaring vocal arrangement – aligned with David Crosby of The Byrds).

The next three albums by S&G (“Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,” “Bookends” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water”) were unique and dazzling.

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24. The Who
Points: 2145.64 (42 Votes)
2019 Rank: 25
Biggest Fan(s): aalamar (#1), whuntva (#2), stone37 (#11), Henry (#12), Bruno (#14), Dexter (#14), Edre Peraza (#16), nicolas (#19), Holden (#23), sonofsamiam (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Who's Next (#36), Tommy (#309), Quadrophenia (#349), The Who Sell Out (#601), My Generation (#616)
Forum Favorite Songs: Baba O'Riley (#49), Won't Get Fooled Again (#107), My Generation (#189), I Can See for Miles (#535), Behind Blue Eyes (#695)

BleuPanda: In the beginning, The Who might as well have been the prototypical punk band. They smashed their instruments and sang of rebellion against the previous generation. Over the following decade, they started to mellow out but never lost their musical edge. Though it may not be the first, Tommy is most certainly the album that brought the concept of a rock opera to the forefront. Their definitive album, Who’s Next, expanded their sound to a stadium size. They may never achieve the acclaim of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, but each of their many hits contribute to an unshakeable coolness, a band whose youthful passion feels timeless – “My Generation” may be approaching sixty years, but its energy and sentiment is evergreen.

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23. Kanye West
Points: 2229.24 (37 Votes)
2019 Rank: 33
Biggest Fan(s): ProjectTermina (#2), Edre Peraza (#4), prosecutorgodot (#4), acr0320 (#6), FrankLotion (#6), Nassim (#6), andyd1010 (#8), M24 (#8), Nick (#8), Listyguy (#15), VanillaFire1000 (#16), acroamor (#18), BleuPanda (#21), Elder (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (#33), The College Dropout (#125), Late Registration (#200), Yeezus (#422), 808s and Heartbreak (#574), Graduation (#797)
Forum Favorite Songs: Runaway (#176), Power (#373), Gold Digger (#573), Jesus Walks (#634), All of the Lights (#877), Monster (#905)

ProjectTermina: In 2013 I got bored of listening to radio pop and five indie rock albums that my dad liked on my shitty $30 MP3 player on my way to sophomore English class, and decided to pirate legally acquire some albums the critics were liking that year. I was surprised to see Kanye West's Yeezus regarded favorably, including a 9.5 rating from Pitchfork.

Why was I surprised? I dunno. Because isn't that the guy who wears shutter shades and did "Stronger"? I liked it as much as the next fourth grader I guess. Isn't that the guy who the President of the United States called a "jackass"?

If I had been paying attention three years earlier I would have known that Ye already had a masterpiece under his belt with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. These beats are detailed. Supposedly as many as 5000 man-hours were put into the beat for "Power." "All of the Lights" gathers fourteen disparate guest vocalists and delicately fits them together like a sonic Sagrada Familia. If that seems like an outrageously undeserved comparison to you, that's because it is. I think Kanye would like it.

If I had been paying attention at all, ever, I would have known that, although Kanye was never a world-class rapper, his knack for sampling exactly the right old-school deep cut at exactly the right time enjoyed critical respect since “Through the Wire.” I discovered some very cool European prog rock bands through his beats. This dork motherfucker has taste, and he knows it. He always knew it.

That ego grew and grew, and I think it’s choked out any hope Ye will create a coherent work of art ever again. No matter how much tedious and insufferable music has come of it, I won't make light of his mental health struggle. But for a few golden years, after his pop stardom tarnished but before every public appearance seemed to turn into a meltdown, he made music that connected with me like little else has. The tension in “Runaway” and in "I Am A God," between feeling like you’re the best and most important person in the world and simultaneously like the world would be better off without you, was once the central tension of my emotional and social life.

I've gotten better since then. But watching Kanye's life breaks my heart. It's rough to listen to conflicted Ye on "Bound 2", wistfully reflecting on his years of debauchery and anticipating his married future with apprehensive hope, knowing how his family would later disintegrate due to his own emotional ineptitude. It's rough to listen to 808s & Heartbreak, an album emotionally haunted by his mother's death, and think about his current efforts to glorify her name even as he spirals further into dysfunction. I hope Donda is proud of him, God rest her soul. And I hope Ye gets better, even if that means he never makes music again.

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22. Arcade Fire
Points: 2312.6 (46 Votes)
2019 Rank: 29
Biggest Fan(s): Lagunin (#1), Toni (#2), andyd1010 (#3), Maschine_Man (#6), Arsalan (#7), Nassim (#8), VanillaFire1000 (#8), phil (#9), Chris K. (#11), Holden (#16), Safetycat (#17), Nick (#18), Gillingham (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Funeral (#8), The Suburbs (#100), Neon Bible (#182), Reflektor (#463)
Forum Favorite Songs: Rebellion (Lies) (#74), Wake Up (#118), Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (#225), Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (#248), Reflektor (#504), Intervention (#659), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (#958), The Suburbs (#988)

andyd1010: More than any other artist, Arcade Fire excel at creating triumphant rock anthems from the most somber of material. One of the most fulfilling feelings in life is to overcome a seemingly impossible challenge, and at their best, Arcade Fire evoke that feeling in their music. Particularly on their debut masterpiece Funeral, the members of the band channeled the passionate emotions they were experiencing from tragic events in their lives into a cathartic tour de force, from the glistening piano intro of Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) to the iconic wordless chorus of Wake Up to the gorgeous violin motif and propulsive energy of Rebellion (Lies). Most music as epic as Funeral is more bombastic, but Arcade Fire at their peak were able to maintain a level of subtlety, beauty, and sincerity that set them apart. These qualities persisted (perhaps to a slightly lesser extent) in their next two projects, Neon Bible and The Suburbs. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), a highlight from The Suburbs, hinted at the band’s turn to a more electronic sound that they embraced most fully on Reflektor, which features a title track that conjures the same cathartic feeling from Funeral despite a completely different soundscape. LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy helped create the blueprint for Reflektor with Dance Yrself Clean, which builds from a light breeze to a hurricane. The Murphy-produced Reflektor begins at a modest pace until David Bowie’s guest vocal sets in motion an otherworldly cascade of spine-tingling moments. While Arcade Fire may not have quite reached those heights since, Everything Now and WE both show flashes of what made their prior work so brilliant, and their opening run of albums stacks up admirably to any act in history.

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21. Björk
Points: 2312.63 (40 Votes)
2019 Rank: 18
Biggest Fan(s): Maschine_Man (#1), bonnielaurel (#2), Elder (#3), Lagunin (#4), BleuPanda (#9), Dan (#9), Moonbeam (#9), panam (#9), DaveC (#11), ordinaryperson (#11), Honorio (#13), FrankLotion (#14), Gillingham (#16), prosecutorgodot (#18), Holden (#21), sonofsamiam (#21)
Forum Favorite Albums: Homogenic (#68), Post (#77), Debut (#142), Vespertine (#189)
Forum Favorite Songs: Bachelorette (#193), Hyperballad (#227), Joga (#426), Human Behaviour (#557), Venus as a Boy (#738), Pagan Poetry (#880), Isobel (#884), It's Oh So Quiet (#939)

bonnielaurel: Björk Guðmundsdóttir has always managed to conciliate pop music with artistic integrity. Half fairy, half brain, she has united influences from many different kinds of music to create her own style. As a child in Iceland she stood singing with her feet in the cold water. With her rock band The Sugarcubes she learned to scream her lungs out and developed a nonconformist attitude. Debut and Post were eclectic, jumping from a nineties dance beat to a jazz standard with harp or big band. There were also influences from world music, e.g. in the use of Indian tablas. Her vocal style was eccentric, with the inclusion of screaming, gibberish and switching from one register to another. Her lyrics went from excitement to suicidal thoughts. She created her alter ego Isobel, a creature hidden in the woods that's preparing to come out and set things on fire with a spark. On Homogenic she reached a more unified style with dreamy electronic sounds. She also attracted attention with her kooky outfits, with flashy colors or the shape of a swan. For Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, her only film appearance, they made her look like a poor Czech immigrant. In the soundtrack she used the industrial noises in a factory as the basis for a song. In her later music she took the experimenting even further by incorporating influences from modernism in classical music. She used irregular time signatures, and a women's choir that sang heavy dissonances. She even invented new musical instruments, like the MIDI-controlled gameleste. She's one of the most unwavering artists that music has seen.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Arsalan »

Gillingham wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 3:08 pm
BleuPanda wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:51 pm
Gillingham wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:48 pm
Also, interestingly, but not completely surprisingly, all three new entries are women! (Lana del Rey, Beyoncé and Apple).

Hey, don't forget Janelle Monae and Arctic Monkeys!
Ah, that was a bit careless of me... Sorry.

4 out of 5 new entries are women then, not bad anyway.
4 STARS OUT OF FIVE
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Nick »

That SUPER narrow gap between Arcade Fire and Bjork! Only 0.03 points!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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20. Talking Heads
Points: 2358.39 (44 Votes)
2019 Rank: 32
Biggest Fan(s): Safetycat (#3), DaveC (#6), Michel (#6), Miguel (#6), Toni (#6), aalamar (#10), Lagunin (#12), ordinaryperson (#14), BleuPanda (#15), Holden (#15), cetamol (#16), Nick (#16), Honorio (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Remain in Light (#24), Fear of Music (#186), Speaking in Tongues (#383), More Songs About Buildings and Food (#404), Talking Heads: 77 (#609)
Forum Favorite Songs: Once in a Lifetime (#19), Psycho Killer (#135), This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody) (#249), The Great Curve (#469), Burning Down the House (#746)

Safetycat: A man walks onstage with only a radio, and begins to sing about being a murderer. Slowly, over the course of several more songs about buildings and food, a band builds around him until a full complement of musicians breaks into the most energetic concert I have seen in my life. At one point there’s a really big suit, and it rules so much.
That’s a summary of Stop Making Sense from my memory, a film that cemented Talking Heads as one of my favourite bands. My love of them comes directly from my father, who got to see them very early on in their careers at a show in Dunedin, New Zealand of all places. Talking Heads were the access point for me to the music he likes, and thus are important to me for multiple reasons.
Some important parts of the band to me: Tina Weymouth’s bass playing, David Byrne’s ego, David Byrne’s stories and unique way of looking at the world, the music video for Once In a Lifetime, and every album in their own special way, even the album Naked.

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19. The Cure
Points: 2435.64 (49 Votes)
2019 Rank: 24
Biggest Fan(s): Moonbeam (#3), CupOfDreams (#8), Edre Peraza (#10), Lagunin (#11), phil (#15), ordinaryperson (#16), BleuPanda (#19), Honorio (#23), StevieFan13 (#23), DaveC (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Disintegration (#75), Seventeen Seconds (#296), Pornography (#323), The Head on the Door (#355), Faith (#929)
Forum Favorite Songs: Just Like Heaven (#80), A Forest (#142), Lovesong (#213), Pictures of You (#360), Boys Don't Cry (#424), Friday I'm in Love (#466), Lullaby (#563), Close to Me (#742), In Between Days (#923)

Live in Phoenix: The Cure's Robert Smith has the frightful look of a Tim Burton character (or maybe it's the other way around), but there's no denying his songwriting skills -- on Adele's zillion-selling 21 album, she included a version (incidentally, not a superior version) of "Lovesong." Smith's odd image, if anything, works in his favor, as he looks like the patron saint of mope; he generally isn't going to stare into the abyss like Joy Division, but if you've felt like an untranslatable weirdo -- or your defenses were faulty on a given day -- the Cure might be your soundtrack. The band's debut had a punkish velocity, but they ditched it soon, for a sort of goth trilogy. Some Cure fans have probably never gotten over Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography, though the only classic song I found was the winding track, "A Forest." Robert Smith's grooming skills were last seen in 1982, but the band's material would begin to take on a surprisingly tidy and crowd-pleasing quality, with highlights like "In Between Days" and "Just Like Heaven" (and outright goofiness like "Why Can't I Be You?"). To paraphrase perhaps their most catchy song, the Cure could manage a song for a Monday when you fall apart, and also for a Friday when you're in love. It's strictly up to the listener to decide how much, if any, of the pop side, or the gloom side, they want to deal with. Robert Smith himself doesn't give much indication -- on the Wish release, featuring "Friday I'm on Love," the album closes with a frightening track, "End," with lines like, "Please stop loving me / I am none of these things." My favorite Cure track is from 2 years later: "Burn," the brooding opener from the Crow soundtrack. Brandon Lee had been dead for a year before anything related to the Crow came out. "Burn" played on the alternative rock radio constantly, and like the movie, it seemed terrible, powerful, exciting, and a triumph all at once; the Cure hasn't released an album since 2008, but don't be surprised if they can pull off that same sort of magic on record again.

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18. The Clash
Points: 2452.06 (46 Votes)
2019 Rank: 28
Biggest Fan(s): mileswide (#2), aalamar (#6), Cadavaca (#6), Michel (#7), Jackson (#9), Nick (#9), StevieFan13 (#9), Honorio (#10), Brad (#13), Dexter (#15), Safetycat (#22), M24 (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: London Calling (#7), The Clash (#156), Sandinista! (#897)
Forum Favorite Songs: London Calling (#18), Train in Vain (#214), Rock the Casbah (#677), The Guns of Brixton (#729), Should I Stay or Should I Go (#872), Spanish Bombs (#936), (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais (#977)

Honorio: The only band that matters. This slogan (ironically created by someone off their record company, the multinational CBS) was essentially true during the short time the band was active (1977-1982, let's pretend 1985's "Cut the Crap" never happened). Two main aspects explained (in my opinion) why the band was the only one that mattered then. First the genuineness, the bluntness, the authenticity (something that may not be seen today as positive but it was crucial when The Clash broke). They fronted a selected group of bands in the UK at the end of the 1970s that challenged the status quo of the mainstream rock bands and changed rock music forever with a back-to-the-basics attitude and do-it-yourself (DIY) ethics, spitting combative lyrics (more leftist than nihilistic in their case) with noisy music backing. But secondly, and even more important to me, the versatility, the continuous innovation and the (mostly style-speaking) open-minded attitude. And they knew how to combine these genuineness and versatility like no other. Even if they were approaching classic styles like soul or blues (something many of their contemporaries rejected) or boarding new sounds (they were always aware at what was happening on the streets, they were one of the first rock bands daring to try hip hop and they incorporated reggae sounds from the very beginning of their career), they knew how to find the genuine feeling inside every style they've tried. And yes, I did it! I didn't use the word "punk" in my write-up! Oops, almost…

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17. Bruce Springsteen
Points: 2617.28 (42 Votes)
2019 Rank: 11
Biggest Fan(s): nicolas (#1), Wezzo (#1), Holden (#3), Dan (#4), Rob (#5), Live in Phoenix (#5), stone37 (#5), VanillaFire1000 (#5), andyd1010 (#6), BleuPanda (#6), M24 (#6), Listyguy (#8), acr0320 (#11), Honorio (#11), Nick (#13), Neil (#15), Safetycat (#19), Brad (#21), Bruno (#21), FrankLotion (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Born to Run (#13), Born in the U.S.A. (#69), Darkness on the Edge of Town (#85), Nebraska (#146), The River (#254), The Wild The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle (#453), Tunnel of Love (#824), Greetings from Asbury Park N.J. (#981)
Forum Favorite Songs: Born to Run (#8), Thunder Road (#43), Dancing in the Dark (#304), Atlantic City (#352), The River (#367), Born in the U.S.A. (#480), Streets of Philadelphia (#565), Jungleland (#718)

Live in Phoenix: No matter how many records he broke, the headlines were pretty much always about the music; between that, and sticking close to heartland rock, Bruce Springsteen is like the ultimate local boy made good. He started out drunk on Dylanesque wordplay (with one classic, The Wild, the Innocent album), but by Born to Run, the words became worthy of close study. Born in the U.S.A. was less conceptual than some albums, but despite its commercial sound, it never pandered, and was ridiculously solid -- my favorite album of the '80s. By Tunnel of Love, greatness started slipping away from him, but the album still left me some wistful memories of the late ‘80s. Springsteen crawled for years to the top, and perhaps in part because of that, a typical Springsteen concert (like his Tempe 1980 show, mostly available on The River box set) showcases him playing for his life, tireless. In his book, he describes watching Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show like it was a full conversion experience, and after Springsteen’s played on stage for hours and hours, he doesn’t relent so much as he calls it a night, sending everyone home full of that rock and roll religion.

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16. Led Zeppelin
Points: 2630.37 (45 Votes)
2019 Rank: 9
Biggest Fan(s): FrankLotion (#4), Dexter (#5), ordinaryperson (#5), Bruno (#6), Listyguy (#6), acroamor (#7), Nick (#7), whuntva (#8), andyd1010 (#10), Brad (#12), nicolas (#12), profeta (#12), Holden (#13), Live in Phoenix (#15), Safetycat (#16), Arsalan (#18), aalamar (#21), Henry (#23)
Forum Favorite Albums: IV (#12), II (#145), Physical Graffiti (#169), I (#207), Houses of the Holy (#262), III (#534)
Forum Favorite Songs: Stairway to Heaven (#5), Kashmir (#160), Whole Lotta Love (#253), When the Levee Breaks (#322), Immigrant Song (#590), Black Dog (#674), Rock and Roll (#692)

FrankLotion: I remember when I was growing up that, besides "Stairway," I couldn’t recall listening to any Led Zeppelin songs. Once I started really exploring music in general I knew that I would need to get to their discography soon but kept putting it off because that anticipation of knowing that there’s an incredible collection of music left for me to discover was a fun feeling on its own! I eventually decided it was time so I pulled out this box set of 4 meaty CD’s that my dad owned that went through their entire career and had this amazing album art with the shadow of a zeppelin hovering over a massive crop circle. Admittedly the music itself did not evoke this image at all but what it did conjure up was similarly awesome, from the pummeling rock of their early career to the spare but frequently beautiful and emotional songs that make up the end of their career. I was hooked, and it’s amazing how potent their music still feels to this day. Led Zeppelin gets rightly praised for the band’s songwriting that covers a lot of stylistic ground, but they bring so much power and emotion to every track (loud or quiet) that their songs really do feel like an irresistible elemental force of some kind. Also, in my mind this has to be the most concentrated group of talent in popular music, they may not be the all-time #1 when it comes to singing and playing respectively, but in my eyes each member is a close second within their craft. That’s pretty tough to beat.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Moonbeam »

Sorry I've missed most of the top 100. This is a fascinating list, and beautifully presented, BleuPanda! I haven't had time to complete some of the write-ups I had hoped, but I might add some thoughts about those artists anyway. Very happy to see The Cure in the top 20! And Janelle in the top 100 was such a thrill!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Edre Depeche Head »

Love how the Cure cracked the top 20!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by slick »

This is fantastic. Thanks again for putting this together and for the outstanding presentation.

I did finish my Top 200 Artist List finally; I know it's too late for this, but I was wondering if I should post it somewhere or just keep it to myself?
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Nick »

slick wrote: Fri Sep 16, 2022 10:08 pm This is fantastic. Thanks again for putting this together and for the outstanding presentation.

I did finish my Top 200 Artist List finally; I know it's too late for this, but I was wondering if I should post it somewhere or just keep it to myself?
You should totally post them! Just maybe in the predictions thread instead.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by slick »

I did post the list in the predictions thread.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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15. U2
Points: 2658.77 (47 Votes)
2019 Rank: 16
Biggest Fan(s): M24 (#4), Chris K. (#5), Akhenaten (#10), ordinaryperson (#10), andyd1010 (#11), Neil (#11), Live in Phoenix (#12), stone37 (#14), whuntva (#15), Karla (#16), Listyguy (#17), Bruno (#18), Dexter (#18), acr0320 (#19), FrankLotion (#20), Renan (#22), Dan (#24), Holden (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Joshua Tree (#43), Achtung Baby (#92), War (#233), The Unforgettable Fire (#748), All That You Can't Leave Behind (#799)
Forum Favorite Songs: With or Without You (#64), One (#69), Sunday Bloody Sunday (#121), I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (#207), Pride (In the Name of Love) (#340), New Year's Day (#427), Where the Streets Have No Name (#564)

Live in Phoenix: Refreshingly delusional, U2 has helped keep rock’s grander notions alive, such as the idea that a rock band can be one of the most important things in your life. The universal iPod release of Songs of Innocence sums them up – only U2, in 2014, would think that not enough people had listened to U2. The band began with an anthemic sound from the get-go, and proceeded to blatant universal messages by their 21st-century releases, their most recent peak being "Love Is Bigger Than Anything in Its Way." Their latter-day music is occasionally worthwhile, but it’s a couple of earlier classics that made them superstars for life – The Joshua Tree, melodic at practically a spiritual level; and Achtung Baby, their best attempt at postmodern irony, a kind of anti-Joshua Tree. (The chilling War album, from the early days, is on par with those efforts.) At a time when few are even applying for Biggest Rock Act in the World, U2 has maintained one of rock's oldest and best tricks -- risking that you look like fools on a grand stage, and reaching a transcendent success.

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14. Stevie Wonder
Points: 2678.39 (46 Votes)
2019 Rank: 6
Biggest Fan(s): Bruno (#2), StevieFan13 (#2), bonnielaurel (#3), Renan (#3), Henry (#4), profeta (#6), sonofsamiam (#6), stone37 (#8), Toni (#8), nicolas (#9), acr0320 (#10), Honorio (#12), prosecutorgodot (#14), cetamol (#20), Elder (#22), Moonbeam (#22)
Forum Favorite Albums: Innervisions (#22), Songs in the Key of Life (#28), Talking Book (#222)
Forum Favorite Songs: Superstition (#13), Living for the City (#87), Sir Duke (#237), Higher Ground (#339), As (#399), I Wish (#755)

prosecutorgodot: If ever there was an inspirational musician, it’s Stevie Wonder. I’ve had bad eyesight all my life, and I spent far too long wallowing, and then I learn that Stevie Wonder is blind, was a star since he was a kid, and learned to play every instrument under the sun. If that didn’t get me off my heiney, I don’t know what would.

This genius carried R&B past Motown. He made pop deeper, he made soul catchier, whatever you want to call it, he pushed pop music to its edge. His songwriting is and might always be the gold standard. Intricate layers of virtuous musicianship, masterfully engineered, all complimenting and coalescing perfectly. Moreover, his music is often danceable. Stevie's vocals shine through, and whether he’s singing about love, life or issues, I hear his passion, and I feel his pure joy in making and playing music. No big star musician has looked happier than Stevie Wonder when he’s doing his neck dance at the keyboard.

Stevie Wonder is an artist and musician that comes around once-in-a-lifetime. I haven’t dug into his discography much outside the critically acclaimed Seventies, but he’s had a varied career that will certainly delight and surprise me for decades to come."

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13. Nirvana
Points: 2681.27 (49 Votes)
2019 Rank: 15
Biggest Fan(s): Arsalan (#2), Live in Phoenix (#2), Holden (#5), Chris K. (#7), Dexter (#9), M24 (#13), Renan (#14), FrankLotion (#15), whuntva (#18), aalamar (#19), Listyguy (#20), kaue (#22), Nick (#22), stone37 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Nevermind (#9), In Utero (#87), MTV Unplugged in New York (#173), Bleach (#530)
Forum Favorite Songs: Smells Like Teen Spirit (#4), All Apologies (#122), Come As You Are (#148), Lithium (#211), Heart-Shaped Box (#270), About a Girl (#494), In Bloom (#606), The Man Who Sold the World (#786)

Live in Phoenix: I'd been immersed in music before -- R.E.M., U2, and Sting come to mind -- but Nirvana made me want to actually learn guitar, and play in a band. Besides inspiring a deeper dedication, I could argue then that Nevermind carried with it a different sense of community. When Nirvana shockingly took over the rock scene, the misfit toy musicians of the world and their audience suddenly acquired a new prestige that's never really gone away, all thanks to a confrontational, punkish album that your dad could beat you to the punch buying. For an act that was only together, in any form, for all of seven years, they left behind plenty to chew on, including an Unplugged set that was impressive and varied enough to practically function as a follow-up album, and suggested all-new possibilities. Unfortunately, Kurt Cobain was destined for an early grave like few other rock musicians. As with other musicians in the 27 Club, in a way I'm just lucky to have heard what Cobain had to offer in his brief time on Earth.

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12. Neil Young
Points: 2730.49 (46 Votes)
2019 Rank: 19
Biggest Fan(s): Fred (#4), Miguel (#5), Holden (#6), Live in Phoenix (#6), nicolas (#6), Honorio (#7), Krurze (#7), mileswide (#7), acroamor (#8), acr0320 (#9), DaveC (#9), Rob (#11), CupOfDreams (#12), ordinaryperson (#15), FrankLotion (#16), Listyguy (#23), cetamol (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: After the Gold Rush (#59), Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (#115), Harvest (#176), Rust Never Sleeps (#190), On the Beach (#266), Tonight's the Night (#354), Zuma (#873), Ragged Glory (#949)
Forum Favorite Songs: Heart of Gold (#153), Like a Hurricane (#439), Rockin' in the Free World (#478), After the Gold Rush (#579), Hey Hey My My (Into the Black) (#657), Cortez the Killer (#668), Southern Man (#700), Down by the River (#795), The Needle and the Damage Done (#987), Old Man (#990)

Live in Phoenix: Neil doesn’t really have a nickname, but you could call him The Loner (incidentally, the name of the first song he sings on his debut album). Young seemed like he was on an alternative rock wavelength well outside of his own time, with his aggressive guitar sound, and his albums dealing in private pain and personal thrills. He expected you to come to him instead of maintaining a communal spirit, and from the '60s through the '90s, he wielded enough talent to typically pull it all off. The highlights seem endless: He already seemed scarred up by his debut; I have a less personal response to Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, but song-for-song it’s unbeatable – romantic, wicked, weepy, reckless (plus a one-note solo); the 15 minutes of the calm before the storm of “Will to Love” heading into “Like a Hurricane” remains his best moment; the nighttime beauty of Harvest Moon, the elegiac Sleeps with Angels, the hard-charging “Rockin' in the Free World”… I haven’t even gotten into what are presumably the highlights for most people; or gotten into his amusing detours, sometimes right in the middle of his classic albums. Young has offered up enough highlights and personal statements that you can just hang out in your own corner of his catalogue, being as willful as the artist himself.

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11. The Beach Boys
Points: 2761.72 (46 Votes)
2019 Rank: 13
Biggest Fan(s): Jackson (#2), Miguel (#3), Honorio (#6), VanillaFire1000 (#6), stone37 (#7), cetamol (#8), sonofsamiam (#10), Toni (#10), Dexter (#12), Nick (#12), Wezzo (#12), Bruno (#13), whuntva (#13), Akhenaten (#19), andyd1010 (#19), Fred (#20), acroamor (#21), Henry (#21), Rob (#22), nicolas (#23)
Forum Favorite Albums: Pet Sounds (#5), Surf's Up (#364), The SMiLE Sessions (#433), Sunflower (#707), The Beach Boys Today! (#868)
Forum Favorite Songs: God Only Knows (#3), Good Vibrations (#7), Wouldn't It Be Nice (#106), Don't Worry Baby (#324), Surf's Up (#351), I Get Around (#421), Sloop John B (#544)

Rob: The songs by The Beach Boys have been such an important part of popular culture that it is easy to overlook what an unlikely mix of ingredients they contain. As much inspired by doo wop and The Everly Brothers harmonies as they are by the guitar riffs of Chuck Berry, they sound like the uncoolest rock band ever. They married these sounds to lyrics that may have their moments, but overall are silly and again uncool, something to which the band seems oblivious. To add to all this they made an image as surfers, despite the fact that most of them never surfed. And somehow they created some of the most magic music ever. The key to the success is Brian Wilson’s very expansive ear for sound. Much has been written about his genius in studio trickery. That may be true, but for me the most distinctive achievement is how Wilson noticed the power of the human voice. It’s not just that the harmonies of The Beach Boys are beautiful. It’s just as much about how they are arranged, how they overlap and build on each other. Among the many great things about The Beach Boys my favorite has to be the way the vocals in especially Sloop John B and Get Around are rebuild as a new, ecstatic symphony.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Moonbeam »

I'm loving these write-ups! Thanks for making them such a focus of this presentation, BleuPanda!

I like that my preferred Elvis won the battle of the Elvises this time, too. :)
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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10. The Smiths
Points: 2785.16 (50 Votes)
2019 Rank: 14
Biggest Fan(s): Michel (#3), StevieFan13 (#4), Elder (#5), Chris K. (#6), Honorio (#9), Lagunin (#10), Nick (#10), CupOfDreams (#14), Arsalan (#15), DaveC (#15), Dan (#19), mileswide (#19), Dexter (#21), BleuPanda (#23), Brad (#24), Fred (#24), Maschine_Man (#24), Holden (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Queen is Dead (#16), The Smiths (#183), Hatful of Hollow (#285), Strangeways, Here We Come (#329), Meat is Murder (#564)
Forum Favorite Songs: There is a Light That Never Goes Out (#14), How Soon is Now? (#41), This Charming Man (#109), Bigmouth Strikes Again (#488), I Know It's Over (#815), The Boy with the Thorn in His Side (#878), What Difference Does It Make (#915)

Honorio: Some bands are better than others. And The Smiths were the quintessential "cult band." The recent movie "Shoplifters of the World," while a failed attempt, exemplifies the personal impact a band can produce "when you're young, feeling disenfranchised, and music means everything to you" (Claudia Puig on a review about the movie). Morrissey lyrics had a peculiar appeal for this target audience. And Morrissey is (and always was) a controversial figure if there's one, you love him or you hate him, there's no middle ground. He can be seen as arrogant and self-centred but he showed careful attention with his fans (he wore a hearing-aid as a tribute to a fan) and with his product (he personally selected every cover art of The Smiths' releases). He may be seen now as racist or far-right but during The Smiths' lifespan he showed left-wing views and attacked virulently Thatcher's government, monarchy and the rigid British education system. He also may be seen as too erudite (certainly his language was rich and refined but also flamboyant and frank, even blunt if necessary), too sensitive (but never maudlin or mushy) and sexually ambiguous (he toyed with homosexuality in many of his lyrics, he declared his celibacy for years to finally describe himself as "humasexual"). But enough talking about Mozzer, let's point at Johnny Marr too, he was the responsible of these jangle-pop guitars, these amazing chords and these elegant arrangements. Some bands are better than others. And The Smiths were one of the best.

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9. Pink Floyd
Points: 2814.65 (47 Votes)
2019 Rank: 8
Biggest Fan(s): aalamar (#3), acroamor (#3), DaveC (#3), Dexter (#3), Arsalan (#8), Safetycat (#11), Edre Peraza (#12), Rob (#14), Elder (#15), andyd1010 (#16), Brad (#16), Nick (#17), ordinaryperson (#17), whuntva (#17), Bruno (#20), Honorio (#20), prosecutorgodot (#20), Henry (#22), nicolas (#22), Gillingham (#23)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Dark Side of the Moon (#14), Wish You Were Here (#55), The Wall (#202), The Piper At the Gates of Dawn (#326), Meddle (#341), Animals (#393)
Forum Favorite Songs: Wish You Were Here (#33), Time (#175), Comfortably Numb (#191), Shine On You Crazy Diamonds (#198), Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2) (#370), Money (#408), Echoes (#691), The Great Gig in the Sky (#767), Us and Them (#787), See Emily Play (#973)

acroamor: Pink Floyd were the first act I ever listened to a full album by, and yes, of course it was Dark Side of the Moon. I was probably quite young, maybe 11? My dad had passed them down, an atypically square fan of perhaps the strangest band to ever break Billboard records. He loved them and I in turn loved them, and they've never been far from me my whole life. I listened to Dark Side again on a fateful journey with a certain fungus. My final essay of college was on the case of Syd Barrett, for a history of mental illness class. And my dad has requested that, on the day it comes, I play and sing "Wish You Were Here" at his funeral, a request that even now fills me with deep and indescribable emotion. There's something magical in each record, from the childlike ebullience of the Barrett era, to their psychedelic heights in the early seventies, to even the increasingly dark self-flagellation of Waters' eventual takeover. I think I'll put some back on, now, for the thousandth time.

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8. The Velvet Underground
Points: 2830.94 (45 Votes)
2019 Rank: 22
Biggest Fan(s): cetamol (#1), acroamor (#2), acr0320 (#5), aalamar (#8), Brad (#8), Dexter (#8), Elder (#9), Chris K. (#10), Holden (#10), Michel (#11), BleuPanda (#12), Jackson (#12), Fred (#14), Schüttelbirne (#16), Honorio (#17), CupOfDreams (#18), Nick (#19), Lagunin (#22), Live in Phoenix (#22), ordinaryperson (#23), Safetycat (#23), whuntva (#23)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Velvet Underground and Nico (#2), The Velvet Underground (#65), White Light/White Heat (#214), Loaded (#232), VU (#921)
Forum Favorite Songs: Heroin (#98), Venus in Furs (#143), Sunday Morning (#162), I'm Waiting for the Man (#264), Pale Blue Eyes (#368), Sweet Jane (#385), All Tomorrow's Parties (#773), Rock and Roll (#812)

acroamor: It's passe now to re-quote Brian Eno on the VU's 1967 debut, "the first Velvet Underground album only sold 10000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band". I appreciate the sentiment, but I think it foregrounds their influence rather than the simple fact of just how good that record, and the three that followed, truly are. The Velvet Underground arrived as the musical centerpiece of a bygone New York avant-garde scene, the likes of which we'll never see again (with NYC rents as high as they are now). Each musician brought something unique: Tucker's primal drumming, Morrison's locked-down guitar, Cale's outre neo-classical affectations, and yes, even Yule's misbegotten but ultimately prescient vocal stylings. Of course, the centerpiece of this all was Lou, the dirtbag poet with popstar chops. Of course, nothing gold can stay, so they started hemorrhaging members almost immediately: one-time chanteuse Nico stayed on for just one record, Cale split contentiously from Reed after the second, Tucker took time away after the third, and Lou himself departed after Loaded, begetting the best-forgotten Squeeze. What never hemorrhaged however was the quality: if someone told me their four favorite records of all-time were the first four VU records, in whatever order, I wouldn't bat an eye.

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7. Prince
Points: 2915.25 (48 Votes)
2019 Rank: 10
Biggest Fan(s): acr0320 (#1), Moonbeam (#1), sonofsamiam (#2), stone37 (#2), Elder (#6), StevieFan13 (#6), Akhenaten (#7), Dan (#7), FrankLotion (#8), Live in Phoenix (#8), ordinaryperson (#8), Neil (#10), Honorio (#14), Nick (#14), M24 (#17), BleuPanda (#18), Fred (#18), nicolas (#18), prosecutorgodot (#19), Toni (#19), profeta (#20), Safetycat (#20), Cadavaca (#24), Bruno (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Purple Rain (#19), Sign O the Times (#67), 1999 (#165), Parade (#480), Dirty Mind (#512), Around the World in a Day (#935)
Forum Favorite Songs: When Doves Cry (#12), Purple Rain (#46), Kiss (#186), 1999 (#218), Sign o' the Times (#223), Little Red Corvette (#294), Let's Go Crazy (#393), Raspberry Beret (#440)

Live in Phoenix: While some ‘80s productions can sound horrible nowadays, Prince doesn’t date like that. The difference is in hearing a master at work, every aspect accounted for, which makes the Purple Rain album seem like a pop symphony. Even among geniuses, Prince stands out – even Bob Dylan needs a band. For Prince, if people couldn’t keep up, he could just as well handle the music all by himself. He could also turn in a set of lyrics on Joni Mitchell’s level. It could take years, generations, for archivists and fans to appraise his full body of work, but if you love a certain Prince era, you should enjoy the outtakes; I like his 1999/Purple Rain bonus material probably more than his official post-1992 work. (Regardless, Art Official Age, one of his last albums, is a solid unofficial swan song.) Finally -- is there even a “finally” with Prince? -- there was his stage presence. Usually, I think an act’s lead singer ideally shouldn’t play an instrument, to free up the singer’s performance. But Prince, like Bruce Springsteen in concert, was a live wire. That guitar didn’t weigh him down at all. His gifts were endless.

Moonbeam: Where can I even begin? It's hard for me to separate you from life itself sometimes. Some of my earliest memories are of my older cousins babysitting me and my brother when I was 4 and introducing us to the Purple Rain album. But it was with 1999 that I found the most enduring magic that I have ever had the good grace to encounter. The danceable funk rhythms, the wide array of synthesizers conveying every possible emotion, the intricate and innovative drum patterns from the Linn-1 you would make your own, and the uncompromising personality of all it that shouted from every rooftop that you could not be anything but the freak you were has had such a profound impact on my life. Dirty Mind. Controversy. 1999. Purple Rain. Around the World in a Day. Parade. Sign o' the Times. Lovesexy. Batman. Graffiti Bridge. O(+>. The Gold Experience. Crystal Ball. Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. 3121. Art Official Age. These aren't just albums, they are worlds. Bold and varied worlds that have given me a lifeline time and time again.

I never felt like I fit in. You didn't either, but you CREATED so many such worlds in which freaks like me and so many others could frolic and feel like ourselves, free of the judgment of the actual world we lived in that never was built for us. And your pied piper message crossed every demographic line. I don't think I've ever seen anything come close to the diversity of a Prince concert audience in terms of age, gender, sexuality, race, or religion. Your music was a saving grace in so many of our lives.

For me, it gave me the courage to not only be me, but a sense of duty that I couldn't be anything else. And that resolute knowledge has given me such a firm grounding to stand upon. Whatever life has thrown at me, I have that surety of self that has gotten me through some very hard times. But it was more than that. Your music was a MAP. It led me to the love of my life, and consequently to a country I feel very lucky to call home. It led me to have a son who was due on your birthday but like you, played by his own rules and came a couple days early, and a son with that same wild and limitless imagination who danced around to "Controversy" from age 3.

All of us here on this forum have artists that have had such shapelessly immense impact that we could never hope to re-pay. I have several, but yours is the Alpha and the Omega. Thank you for the life I have.

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6. R.E.M.
Points: 3014.73 (47 Votes)
2019 Rank: 7
Biggest Fan(s): mileswide (#1), VanillaFire1000 (#1), ordinaryperson (#2), Wezzo (#2), Brad (#3), Chris K. (#3), Safetycat (#4), Toni (#4), Michel (#8), Neil (#8), Listyguy (#9), Live in Phoenix (#9), stone37 (#9), StevieFan13 (#10), aalamar (#11), DaveC (#13), FrankLotion (#13), BleuPanda (#14), phil (#17), Holden (#18), Honorio (#18), Renan (#18), Miguel (#19), whuntva (#19), Nick (#20), CupOfDreams (#25), M24 (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Automatic for the People (#26), Murmur (#72), Out of Time (#192), Document (#237), Reckoning (#291), Lifes Rich Pageant (#294), Green (#441), Chronic Town EP (#481), New Adventures in Hi-Fi (#668), Fables of the Reconstruction (#783)
Forum Favorite Songs: Losing My Religion (#21), Radio Free Europe (#261), Nightswimming (#390), It's the End of The World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (#395), Everybody Hurts (#405), Drive (#618), Find the River (#648), The One I Love (#726), Fall on Me (#832)

Live in Phoenix: Accessible enough for Dick Clark's American Bandstand, yet offering few concessions, R.E.M. were the original alternative rock heroes (if you think that style started around the early '80s), and beat Nirvana to the Number One spot. They had a kind of D.I.Y., homegrown sound and attitude, and never seemed overly eager to please the masses. In the 1980s, even many '60s and '70s acts were plugging in synthesizers, but if you were using R.E.M. to track the decade, you'd think synth-pop never happened. (Certainly Michael Stipe was the polar opposite of the macho butt rock that was common then.) There was odd singing, lyrics, artwork. Murmur was the best example of their moody, dream-like jangle pop, and Out of Time and Automatic for the People were the most successful extensions -- mandolin, lyrics that sometimes made sense, orchestrations, a haunting quiet. For a long time, it didn't matter how they were or how they changed, because while even well-known indie acts had to eke out a career melodically, R.E.M.'s music was sublime.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

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5. The Rolling Stones
Points: 3361.26 (48 Votes)
2019 Rank: 5
Biggest Fan(s): Holden (#1), aalamar (#2), andyd1010 (#2), Dexter (#2), acr0320 (#3), Nick (#3), stone37 (#3), Brad (#4), Bruno (#5), FrankLotion (#5), Honorio (#5), M24 (#5), CupOfDreams (#7), Live in Phoenix (#7), Neil (#7), Dan (#10), Henry (#11), Maschine_Man (#11), bonnielaurel (#12), Listyguy (#13), Akhenaten (#14), Gillingham (#14), whuntva (#14), Krurze (#15), nicolas (#15), profeta (#15), Fred (#19), Rob (#19), Arsalan (#20), DaveC (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Sticky Fingers (#23), Let It Bleed (#29), Exile on Main Street (#49), Beggars Banquet (#57), Aftermath (#316), Some Girls (#625)
Forum Favorite Songs: Gimme Shelter (#11), Sympathy for the Devil (#35), Paint It, Black (#48), (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (#58), Jumpin' Jack Flash (#295), Brown Sugar (#328), You Can't Always Get What You Want (#341), Wild Horses (#511), Angie (#546), Honky Tonk Women (#549), Rocks Off (#589), Street Fighting Man (#715), Tumbling Dice (#735), Start Me Up (#814), Miss You (#857), She's a Rainbow (#926), Can't You Hear Me Knocking (#934), Moonlight Mile (#961)

Live in Phoenix: During a sunnier era in music, the Rolling Stones were cynical, mean, drugged-out, and horny, and if anything just got worse. When the idealism of the peace and love movement fell apart, though, the Stones didn't miss a beat, since they'd long-ago acknowledged the darker side of humanity. Yet from Mick Jagger's showman instincts, and even from something like Charlie Watts' smile on an album photo, you felt like this was still entertainment at the end of the day, in a tougher form. (At any rate, except for one entry in the 27 Club, and despite numerous drug issues, all the main band members made it to old age.) The band's billion-dollar sound -- a performance casual enough that it threatens sometimes to fall apart -- is captured well on pretty much any best-of. Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main St. is their best album run, with vengeful rockers and worn-out blues. Let It Bleed was their first classic I heard, and its apocalyptic air (with children's chorus counterpoint at the end) helps make it arguably their best outing.

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4. Bob Dylan
Points: 3661.86 (52 Votes)
2019 Rank: 4
Biggest Fan(s): Rob (#1), acr0320 (#2), Fred (#2), Gillingham (#2), Holden (#2), Listyguy (#2), M24 (#2), Dan (#3), Honorio (#3), Live in Phoenix (#3), DaveC (#4), Jackson (#4), Schüttelbirne (#4), Brad (#5), Nick (#5), sonofsamiam (#5), stone37 (#6), andyd1010 (#7), Edre Peraza (#7), BleuPanda (#8), bonnielaurel (#8), nicolas (#8), FrankLotion (#9), Dexter (#10), cetamol (#12), prosecutorgodot (#12), mileswide (#14), acroamor (#15), Neil (#16), whuntva (#22), Elder (#23), Bruno (#24)
Forum Favorite Albums: Highway 61 Revisited (#10), Blonde on Blonde (#18), Blood on the Tracks (#21), Bringing It All Back Home (#58), The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (#98), Desire (#348), The Times They Are A-Changin' (#390), Nashville Skyline (#550), John Wesley Harding (#551), Time Out of Mind (#594), The Basement Tapes (#627), Love and Theft (#683)
Forum Favorite Songs: Like a Rolling Stone (#1), Tangled Up in Blue (#65), Blowin' in the Wind (#292), Subterranean Homesick Blues (#311), Desolation Row (#331), Hurricane (#357), The Times They Are a-Changin' (#403), It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (#443), Don't Think Twice It's Alright (#459), Knockin' on Heaven's Door (#528), Ballad of a Thin Man (#581), Blind Willie McTell (#630), Mr. Tambourine Man (#639), A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall (#663), I Want You (#802), Shelter from the Storm (#986)

Live in Phoenix: An all-time great as both a lyricist *and* songwriter -- few of them have ever walked the Earth. And that's not even all of what Dylan accomplished. Few musicians have made other stars feel like they had to go back to the drawing board on some aspect. The Beatles, as one example, may not have ever pushed themselves lyrically beyond "Love Me Do," "I Want to Hold Your Hand" fare, otherwise. Dylan essentially helped make the Beatles, Bowie, the Rolling Stones, and Springsteen (not an exhaustive list) rank as high as they have. He's written great playful wordplay songs, political songs, love songs, and in his later years, what I might call prophet of doom songs. A common thread through many of his songs is a sense of mystery; you rarely feel like you're getting the full story. In its own way, this gets at the frustrating lack of completion in one's own life, as people and events just seem to blow through sometimes. Stuck with an odd voice, he might seem like an easy singer to cover and outperform, but often his personality has outmatched someone's nicer voice.

Gillingham: At this point it’s not so easy to write about Dylan candidly without being influenced by all the connotations his mere name brings up. I was into Dylan at an age when I hadn’t heard all that much of his music, didn’t know a lot about him and wasn’t all that interested in/capable of understanding his lyrics. That’s all different now about 25 years later. If you do buy in the Dylan-is-a-living-legend premise there’s an almost endless amount of great music and ditto lyrics waiting for you. Even as recently as this decade, at the honourable age of 79, he was still able to put out a more than decent record with Rough and Rowdy Ways. That makes for at least one interesting and worthwhile record in every decade since the 60s (an in that decade he had at least 7 of those).

For me it’s really the combination of his music and his lyrics that make everything so special. From Bringing it All Back Home to Oh Mercy and from Blood on the Tracks to Modern Times, it’s all there.

Favorite album: Highway 61 Revisited
Favorite song: Subterranean Homesick Blues
Personal gem: Nettie Moore

Rob: Yes, I know I didn’t announce that I was going to write about Bob Dylan, as many other people where already going to do that. Still, writing about all these other great artists I felt there would be something missing if I didn’t at least write about my all-time favorite. The influence of Bob Dylan on music has been documented thousands of time, so I won’t go into that here. I can however talk about the influence he had on me. I wasn’t all that much into music, outside of soundtracks, before hearing Bob Dylan in the late 2000’s. Initially it where the quite literary sounding lyrics that made me take note. As a fan of beautiful language I was immediately captivated by his clever wordplay and the deep shifting meaning in his songs that kept me returning. There was also the matter of his voice, which I thought ugly at first, until I got that this was exactly what helped sell the songs to me. His voice had an unfiltered nature that make him seem brutally honest to me, especially compared to the plastic pop vocals of the 2000’s I was hearing all around me. Bob Dylan didn’t sound like he wanted to be liked and that made it seem like I could trust him. Eventually I also learned to appreciate how tight both the words and singing were knit to the folk melodies. It is an unshowy way of doing music, but if you listen to a lot of folk, you come to notice how exceptional Dylan’s sense of melody and rhythm is. Equally important is that his back catalogue is long, rich and versatile. Even over ten years and endless listening later he can still surprise me. He is not just my favorite musician, but favorite artist in any art. Not because he is perfect and made no false steps in his career, but because when he is at his best he captures the mess of a human lives gloriously imperfectly.

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3. Radiohead
Points: 3914.01 (55 Votes)
2019 Rank: 3
Biggest Fan(s): Arsalan (#1), Chris K. (#1), DaveC (#1), Gillingham (#1), ordinaryperson (#1), Edre Palaza (#2), FrankLotion (#2), Nick (#2), panam (#3), andyd1010 (#4), Honorio (#4), Michel (#4), Dan (#5), whuntva (#5), phil (#6), BleuPanda (#7), Dexter (#7), M24 (#7), acr0320 (#8), prosecutorgodot (#8), Holden (#9), Maschine_Man (#9), Brad (#10), CupOfDreams (#11), Jackson (#11), Toni (#11), Nassim (#12), sonofsamiam (#13), Listyguy (#14), Neil (#14), Rob (#18), stone37 (#20), kaue (#24), Elder (#25), Renan (#25), Safetycat (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: OK Computer (#1), Kid A (#20), The Bends (#30), In Rainbows (#32), Amnesiac (#242), A Moon Shaped Pool (#297), Hail to the Thief (#327), The King of Limbs (#961)
Forum Favorite Songs: Paranoid Android (#20), Creep (#57), Karma Police (#78), Fake Plastic Trees (#124), No Surprises (#188), How to Disappear Completely (#293), Pyramid Song (#299), Street Spirit (Fade Out) (#318), Reckoner (#337), Everything In Its Right Place (#441), The National Anthem (#452), Let Down (#462), Exit Music (For a Film) (#468), There There (#542), Idioteque (#609), Just (#764)

Gillingham: This reliable fivesome is still really special to me, as they have been for over 20 years now. With two not very charismatic musical geniuses at the helm, they’ve put out not less than five fantastic albums and dozens of great songs. All while continuing to come around with that undefinable but always recognizable Radiohead-sound. With all the solo and side projects that have been released the last two decades there’s a lot of good additional stuff around, but none of it comes close to the best work of Radiohead themselves. Only recently one of their side projects got close to the level of their main project and it took the combo of both Yorke and Greenwood complemented by an excellent drummer and their go-to producer to get there. Please keep on churning out great music, even if it’s only sparingly. Because the quality is always there.

Favorite album: In Rainbows
Favorite song: Karma Police
Personal gem: All I Need

whuntva: What more can I say? It's Radiohead. For many, Kid A or OK Computer are a 'gateway drug' for experimental alt-rock. They were there for the transition from grunge to britpop. They were present for the digital revolution with In Rainbows. And it is remarkable how they can still make such great music this late into their careers. A Moon Shaped Pool still captured the imagination and enticed listeners in ways not thought of in decades. Surreal and always on the edge of trends, Radiohead has one of the longest primes of any band. I am honored to see them hailed as one of the greats.

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2. David Bowie
Points: 4262.9 (55 Votes)
2019 Rank: 2
Biggest Fan(s): Akhenaten (#1), CupOfDreams (#1), Honorio (#1), Elder (#2), Safetycat (#2), Jackson (#3), M24 (#3), aalamar (#4), BleuPanda (#4), Chris K. (#4), Dexter (#4), Listyguy (#4), Live in Phoenix (#4), Maschine_Man (#4), Nick (#4), ordinaryperson (#4), panam (#4), andyd1010 (#5), Krurze (#5), Neil (#5), cetamol (#6), Dan (#6), Fred (#6), acr0320 (#7), Brad (#7), Moonbeam (#7), sonofsamiam (#7), Edre Palaza (#8), Holden (#8), Lagunin (#9), DaveC (#10), nicolas (#10), Rob (#10), whuntva (#10), prosecutorgodot (#13), stone37 (#15), acroamor (#16), Arsalan (#19), ProjectTermina (#19), FrankLotion (#21), Bruno (#23), Michel (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (#3), Hunky Dory (#34), Low (#60), Blackstar (#79), Station to Station (#122), Aladdin Sane (#220), "Heroes" (#249), Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps (#377), The Man Who Sold the World (#644), Diamond Dogs (#663), Young Americans (#700), Let's Dance (#771), The Next Day (#785)
Forum Favorite Songs: Life on Mars? (#6), "Heroes" (#9), Space Oddity (#32), Starman (#86), Ashes to Ashes (#108), Under Pressure (#154), Changes (#184), Lazarus (#268), Blackstar (#309), Moonage Daydream (#398), Ziggy Stardust (#407), Sound and Vision (#558), Young Americans (#559), Rock 'n' Roll Suicide (#689), Suffragette City (#704), Rebel Rebel (#730), Warszawa (#813), Modern Love (#824), Five Years (#916), Station to Station (#981)

Live in Phoenix: Besides writing classics in countless different guises, Bowie pushed rock in directions that would seem unlikely or even unpalatable to the masses, yet he was suave and tasteful enough to never lose his audience, and could be considered the first hit alternative rocker. Any rock artist who stays around for decades ends up in the creative wilderness; but what makes Bowie extra special is that he released some of his more notable work on his way out. Some of my favorite Bowie albums are 40+ years apart from each other. Since he was all over the place as a recording artist, we probably don't have all the same favorites (except for Ziggy Stardust) and dislikes, to an amusing degree. One of my favorite musical memories is listening to a cassette of Tonight in the car as a teenager, in the winter of '96 -- a chill album, between the weather and the '80s production -- with great songs like "Blue Jean," featuring perhaps my favorite Bowie vocal. He left us a little on the early side -- if we could have gotten some more releases, whatever direction he would have went, it would have been an easy sell from rock's Prince Charming.

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1. The Beatles
Points: 4626.27 (54 Votes)
2019 Rank: 1
Biggest Fan(s): andyd1010 (#1), Dan (#1), Dexter (#1), FrankLotion (#1), Live in Phoenix (#1), M24 (#1), Miguel (#1), Nick (#1), stone37 (#1), whuntva (#1), Akhenaten (#2), Brad (#2), Honorio (#2), nicolas (#2), Bruno (#3), Henry (#3), Listyguy (#3), Maschine_Man (#3), Neil (#3), ordinaryperson (#3), StevieFan13 (#3), Toni (#3), acr0320 (#4), Arsalan (#4), VanillaFire1000 (#4), bonnielaurel (#5), DaveC (#5), Lagunin (#5), Michel (#5), Safetycat (#5), acroamor (#6), Elder (#7), Holden (#7), panam (#7), prosecutorgodot (#7), kaue (#12), sonofsamiam (#12), BleuPanda (#13), Jackson (#13), CupOfDreams (#15), Wezzo (#15), Fred (#16), Krurze (#16), profeta (#16), cetamol (#17), Chris K. (#17), Edre Palaza (#18), luvulongTIM (#19), Nassim (#21), aalamar (#25)
Forum Favorite Albums: Revolver (#4), Abbey Road (#6), The White Album (#11), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (#17), Rubber Soul (#25), Magical Mystery Tour (#89), Help! (#126), A Hard Day's Night (#141), Let It Be (#259), With the Beatles (#503), Please Please Me (#666), Beatles for Sale (#840)
Forum Favorite Songs: A Day in the Life (#2), Strawberry Fields Forever (#23), Hey Jude (#36), Yesterday (#44), Eleanor Rigby (#50), Let It Be (#73), In My Life (#105), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (#137), Tomorrow Never Knows (#145), Here Comes the Sun (#149), Help! (#152), Come Together (#159), Penny Lane (#171), I Want to Hold Your Hand (#197), Something (#242), I Am the Walrus (#276), She Loves You (#305), Norwegian Wood (#335), Ticket to Ride (#372), A Hard Day's Night (#379), Revolution (#442), Happiness Is a Warm Gun (#601), Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End (#613), Across the Universe (#650), Dear Prudence (#711), You Never Give Me Your Money (#778), Can't Buy Me Love (#807), Nowhere Man (#835), Blackbird (#903), Helter Skelter (#949)

Live in Phoenix: To come after the Beatles for the #1 spot, you're competing with an act with arguably the best songbook in pop/rock history; that released fourteen albums' worth of material (including the singles) in 7 years, and only seemed rushed one time, on an early album; and was basically always a step ahead of everyone else. On their debut album, their exuberance was the hook as much as the music; they always seemed to have everything in hand. Before you knew it, they had songs falling out of their pockets, while going at a pace that would have destroyed almost any other act. (If you saw the Get Back film, you saw a band with more songs than they even knew what to do with. They could have made a classic album just from what was left on the cutting room floor.) Highlights of highlights: A Hard Day's Night, the triumph of the early years, Beatlemania leveling everyone in its path; Rubber Soul, when everything became more sophisticated on all fronts, and you were invited to take in the album in one sitting; and Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's, where no musical style seemed beyond their mastery.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Nick »

Amazing job! Thanks for hosting this, BleuPanda!

I wonder though: will we ever see a top 5 that isn’t Beatles, Bowie, Radiohead, Dylan, Stones?
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andyd1010
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by andyd1010 »

Great job BleuPanda! And that's an awesome top 5, so I'm ok with it holding its ground.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Arsalan »

Fantastic roll out, BluePanda!

Tough to argue against the top 5.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Honorio »

Excellent rollout, Bleupanda! Congratulations!!
And many thanks to the ones that wrote the write-ups!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by StevieFan13 »

Great list!
Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand - Sir Duke (1976)
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Live in Phoenix
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Live in Phoenix »

America's band:

2022 poll -- R.E.M. (even allowing for Prince)
2019 poll -- R.E.M.
2016 poll -- R.E.M.
2013 poll -- The Beach Boys
2010 poll -- The Velvet Underground
2008 poll -- R.E.M.

=========================================

America's top act:

Bob Dylan (from 2008 to 2022, at rank #2; #3; #2; #3; #4; #4)
Last edited by Live in Phoenix on Sun Sep 18, 2022 2:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by FrankLotion »

Out of the 60 ballots submitted, The Beatles were listed on 54 of them and 50(!!) of those listed the band high enough to put the voter in the Biggest Fan category!

Most underrated band of all time coming in clutch :music-rockon:

Also ditto to what everyone said about the rollout, wonderful job Bleupanda!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by BleuPanda »

I'll get the full list summary and spreadsheet up once I'm home and remember. Thank you to everyone who helped contribute write-ups for all our favorite artists!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Moonbeam »

Kind of love that Prince finished at #7, a number he used quite frequently. And I looooove the image choice being 1999-themed!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Bruno »

Really amazing job, Bleu!
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by whuntva »

Great job.

I feel kind of inferior with my write ups, but then again I was quite busy.

Though great rollout as always.
" Ah, yes! Our meager restitution"
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Re: AMF All-Time Artist List (2022 Edition) - Results

Post by Rob »

Thanks, BleuPanda, this was a great presentation!

Not much to say about the top results, but with every poll these are the most predictable.
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