SJ.com's Greatest Musical Artists of All-Time List

I was thinking about including Joy Division, then I remembered to take my Prozac.

 

Long live baritone frontmen!

 

I really do love Joy Division, though I might be in the minority in that I prefer Closer to Unknown Pleasures. I'd probably include Joy Division and The Cure in my next 10, to let my sad-kid bangs down.

 

Thanks to everyone who has PMed me their votes so far. Just a reminder that we're doing the Top 20 "favorite" artists of all time. Send me your votes via PM and I'll keep tallying them up.

 

Deadline?

 

Next Friday. I'll go back and edit the original post later tonight to reflect this and clean up some of my wishy-washy confusion.

 

A bump to spur people to get their votes in. Remember, send me your Top 20 personal favorite musical acts via PM. I'm dealing with some personal issues (mom in the hospital) so I'm going to go ahead and extend the deadline for votes by one week, so get your votes to me by August 3.

Make sure you vote if you want to be proud of our final list. Not to give any spoilers away, but I'm a little surprised at how many SportsJournalists.com members are Juggalos.

 

Do you want these guys to finish No. 1 in our poll? Didn't think so. So get your vote in to me via PM if you haven't done so yet.

 

1. The Beatles
2. Robert Johnson
3. Johnny Cash
4. The Rolling Stones
5. Nirvana
6. Michael Jackson
7. Chuck Berry
8. B.B. King
9. Bob Dylan
10. U2
11. Dr. Dre
12. The Clash
13. The Beastie Boys
14. Smokey Robinson
15. Bob Marley
16. Pearl Jam
17. Guns 'N Roses
18. Garth Brooks
19. Madonna
20. Kenney Chesney

I think that's about as solid a top 10 as you'll find. It gets a little sketchy toward the bottom, but I think those three deserve to be there. The impact they've had on their genres, whether shitty or not, is pretty undeniable in my opinion. For 15 years, all country music artists wanted to be like Garth Brooks; now, they all want to be like Kenney Chesney.

 

Given that it's a list of your own favorite artists...

 

My own jokes aside, the original posit is much more interesting because it forces one to weigh the 'greatness' of performers and composers outside of the broadest popular genres. It also forces one to consider the greatness of performers and composer from before the rock era.

A very small percenatege of Americans ages 18-65 will have Louis Armstrong or Frank Sinatra or Andres Segovia on a list of 'favorites,' but all three are very deserving of being on a list of 'greatest.'

 

I disagree because I don't think many people (including myself) are qualified to answer it properly and because favorites are so much more personal. These lists will be far more divergent.