Influential Unknown

What is greatness? What is personal opinion? What is indisputable? How important is it to be influential or popular? If I had no knowledge of who the Beatles were, and had never heard any of their music, and listened to Revolver, what would I think of it? What would I think of it if I were to judge it entirely on it’s own merits? I like to believe I judge it entirely on it’s own merits already.

Influence = What?

When I listen to music, the word is meaningless. I just don’t care. I probably wouldn’t listen to something if it were not at all influential, but once I do, all the impact and influence shit is taken out of the equation and I decide how good it is as a product. It's a group of human beings writing music and playing it. It has been produced and mixed and whatnot by people in a studio. It could be anyone. How good is the product? If influence impacted my decision when determining which between two artists is the best, then all the New Zealand music I know and love, would never be able to compete with the giants of the USA and Britain. It would be totally illogical, and unfair. Maybe if I were American or British, I would be more inclined to give more weight to influence. But, no.

I have never seen any reason why a new release by a relatively unknown modern band can't be just as good or better than some of the most highly regarded, popular and influential releases of the past. I've always known it to be true. I don’t think Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is the best album ever. I think Pipeline Under the Ocean by Pluto is superior. It hasn't been heard by enough people because the world sucks, not because it’s not as good. It’s not as important in the overall global musical landscape, but… so what? I’m not listening to importance, I’m listening to music.

Influence, impact and popularity are important to me in that it sets the boundaries in which I search for new sounds. I can't afford to go buying new releases that I don't know anything about, searching for future greatness. There's too much stuff out there. I wouldn't know where to begin. The strike rate would be too small, as the majority of music at any given stage is weak. It will always be that way. It always has. I have to set a boundary in which I select my music out from, which is limiting it to within popular music… within artists who are somewhat influential or have made some kind of impression or impact. Obviously popularity alone gives absolutely no indication of how good something is at all. Crazy Frog made it to the top of the charts at one stage. I've never been somebody to shun popular music in favour of underground music. I've never understood why people do that. There is a lot of excellent popular music, just as there is lots of excellent music that fails to make any sort of impact. There is a lot of awful popular music too, and a lot of awful music that fails to make any impact. It's all fact. It's all obvious. Do I even have a point?

Modern bands that get raved about rarely have the substance to back it up in my experience. I tend to wait until the hype settles down, to see if it’s still held in high regard a few years down the track. I try to spend my money on something that I can be quite confident that I will find great. I've never really purchased brand new releases unless I am already confident in the band due to them being already established, and due to me already knowing them to be good respectable musicians. If they haven't made any impact, then I'm not going to find out anything much about them and will end up being drawn to something else naturally… no matter how good they may be. It can't be great if nobody bought it... it can be good... not that I would ever know. I don’t have enough time to find out.

Taking from the past can be safer than going for the new, purely because a lot of the shit has sunken out of view over time. It may seem that music was better in the past, and that modern music is mostly crap, but that’s an illusion. Modern music has mostly been crap always. Look at the music charts at any stage in history, and I'd imagine you'd find the greater percentage will have always been rubbish. The modern shit is still floating around, submerging some quality stuff. I own nothing from this year yet. I’ve hardly ever owned anything from any given year, during the actual year. I'd imagine I'll be discovering a lot of quality stuff from this year, in about 5 years time. Surely there are bands releasing good albums right now, who haven't made the big time yet, and we will be looking back through these current releases once they do make it big in a few years time. It's the way it often works. It’s definitely much more exciting being a fan of a band who still exist. It’s cool feeling the anticipation before a brand new release. It’s good to be able to see your favourite bands performing live. I’d regret getting into a band too late and missing out on the buzz, but I’d find their product just as good nonetheless.

The reason influence holds little significance to me is because I believe that there is a direct correlation between how influential something is, and how popular something is. In general it's true... there are always exceptions of course... like they say with The Velvet Underground for example, about how not that many people actually listened them at the time, but everyone who did formed a band [Not that I'm very convinced of that at all... It's a good little catchphrase though]. A band who haven't achieved the global super stardom that another band has, therefore will not be anywhere near as influential as the other band in most cases. I find it totally irrelevant when deciding which band is the better of the two. I would find it unfair to disadvantage the superior band for being less influential than the Sex Pistols. I don't care at all if one band is more influential than another. A lot of music that is highly influential, doesn't sound that good to me at all. A lot of it sounds inferior to stuff I can go listen to at local music venues. Most of those bands playing the local music scene will never amount to anything, and that is quite sad if you think about it. It's unfair, but it's the way it's always been, and it's the way it will always be.

It's a myth that the best artists will be the most popular. It's a myth that the most popular artists are the best. A lot of good artists are influential on bad artists. A lot of weak artists are influential on much better artists. There's just something about the whole kind of… thinking you're being completely unbiased and removing personal preference from the equation by using influence to judge someone against another… there's just something… biased about it I think… biased towards someone who was in the right place at the right time. There's something about requiring someone be influential in order to be great… like… would you have thought they were great at the time? Before it gained widespread recognition? Would you have even been listening?

A C-grade American band will pretty much by default be a more influential band than an A-grade Australian band. Does that make the American band greater? of course not. Not at all, but they will have more of an impact on the course of the popular music landscape. It's pretty meaningless to me. Influence, popularity, impact, blah blah, pointless. I go for who I find to be of the higher quality of output.

The Byrds may be a hugely influential band, but in no way is that a convincing argument to me that the songs they wrote were very good at all. They did some extremely great covers, but so what? The jangly clean guitar sound might have been made popular by them, but so what? They hardly wrote many good songs at all. They wrote some of course. I wouldn't say they were bad at all. They influenced some good music. Tom Petty is an obvious person who holds them in high regard. I think he wrote better songs than the Byrds and much more of them too, so I rate him much higher than the Byrds. He's not very diverse, but he wrote a lot of good simple songs. I don't think the Byrds did. I think Crowded House and Split Enz are obviously far better than them both. It doesn't matter that they are nowhere near as appreciated as they deserve to be... I don't hold that against them at all. I think Neil Finn is the best there is. I genuinely believe it wholeheartedly. I think he's the greatest. I don't like it when something I feel so strongly is reduced to "it's only personal preference", "it's just your favourite, but it's not actually great", "they can't be that good because they didn't have much success in America", "they can't be better than the Byrds because they aren't as influential", "I can't even find their albums in record stores", "if they were that good, then more people would know who they are", "they are insignificant", "they will never make it into the rock and roll hall of fame", "blah blah", etc. I will always recommend someone spend their hard earned dollars purchasing Together Alone rather than on a Byrds album. It's definitely influential on me. It's influential in it's own right... in proportion to the amount of people it touched. I would expect it to have a similar or superior ratio of influence over it's audience as most other more popular artists. So they didn't change the course of global music history... but so what? they are better than most of the artists who did. And enough people share my admiration for the Finn brothers catalogue, that I can feel completely justified ranking them above all else. More than enough.

I don't separate greatness from favourites at all. When I am deciding how much I like something, it depends on how great I think it is. My favourite is my favourite because I think it's the best. If I think A is better than B, yet I for some reason enjoy B more, and listen to B more often, I will still rate A above B, because I think it’s better. I definitely understand why people would separate "great" from "favourite" as two totally different things. I'd expect the majority of the population to do it… actually I’d expect most people to have favourites which they happen to like simply because they like it, and they don’t care beyond that about any criteria or analysis, and don’t feel any need to explain or to even know what it is about it they think is so good.

It's an individual thing. It depends what is important to the person who is deciding for themselves who is better than someone else for whatever reason they find important. It's hard for most people to even attempt to explain why they even like something at all. Iron Maiden are incredibly influential on pretty much all Metal music. Since influence is not an important criteria to me, I don't rate them very highly. They sound like all they do is listen to their own albums. It's all incredibly similar. It's not diverse, which makes it not very interesting, and I don't rate them highly for that reason. They are boring. But I appreciate them sometimes. They have their moments. If all you do is one thing all the time, for a long time, it's pretty much going to be a sure thing that at least a few times you will manage to totally nail it and do it very well, if you're any good at what you do. At times they do succeed quite spectacularly. They have some songs that I find incredible, that I think are the pinnacle of all Metal music... but so what? Metal music alone is too restricted for me. To be truly great, I demand they sound like they listen to some music that is not their own, or I snore. AC/DC are the same. At times they have nailed the formula, but overall, the formula is lame. They give Rock a bad name. To me they do. I don't hate either band, but I'm not all that fond of them either. I think a band needs to be diverse to be truly great.

Influence is the only reason whatsoever I ever listen to The Velvet Underground & Nico. I honestly don't think it's very good, yet I will continue listening to it until I begin to understand what is so good about it, or until the frustration reaches an intolerable level. It is incredibly influential, therefore it has earned extra listens from me. It's got an advantage over most other releases in that I continue to force myself to find something interesting within it. I want to like it. If that album was exactly the same, but never achieved anything at all, I honestly wouldn't see any reason whatsoever to listen to it again.... definitely not enough times to ever learn to appreciate it for what it is. I don’t enjoy it. I don't hear anything great in it. I will admit it's one of the most important albums ever made, and I will always respect its place in history. That is absolutely indisputable. A lot of people hold it in extremely high regard, and I have to respect that. I'd never put it on a greatest albums list though. If I did that, I may as well put Garth Brooks on a greatest artists list… even though I’m familiar with none of his shit... I can't think of a better example, so I'll just stick with it. It would seem absurd to me. If the reason most people keep putting it on their greatest albums lists is because of its impact, then to me it's like saying "it's there because lots of other people also put it there", which basically equals "I can’t think for myself". If they genuinely believe it to be a great work of art that they enjoy, then fair enough... I totally respect their opinion. If somebody ranks it highly whilst being like, "it's not one of my favourites at all, but I think it's one of the greatest because it's so influential", then I lose respect for their musical opinion. They may as well be saying "it’s so great because it came before something else"… meaningless.

I appreciate innovation more than influence. I don't think there is a correlation between the two. A lot of innovative stuff tends to go unnoticed by the mainstream. A lot of influential artists were not innovative. A lot of innovative artists are not considered very influential. Maybe they did it first, but a more popular band took it and made it popular, and get the credit and recognition. Innovation isn't that important to me actually... it is and it isn't. The only thing that truly matters to me is the songs. The music is what matters to me. The melody. I don't demand that they change the world. It's just music. If it's a good song, it's a good song... no matter how popular it is or isn't... no matter how simple it is... no matter how complex it is... no matter how overplayed it is... no matter where it's played... It does not matter if it uses the same formula that has been used a few million times... it doesn't matter if it wasn't a single or a radio song... it doesn’t matter if it gets stuck in your head… it doesn't matter if it was used in an advert… it doesn’t matter how cool it is or isn’t... it doesn’t matter if it breaks away from the established sound of a particular artist… it doesn’t matter if the artists are bleeding assholes. All I can expect from an artist is to write good songs and albums, without becoming boring and predictable. That is what I like.

Popularity... impact... influence... they are important to me... to make it to the starting line... to be heard... not judged. Once I listen to something, I try to judge it all equally. Influence is a reason why I wont give up on something after a few unpleasant listens. Influence earns somebody my respect, but not a high ranking on my list.

Influence = Mostly Meaningless.