Gibson.com’s Top 50 Most Revolutionary Artists

Non-Phish General
#1

With today’s unveiling of the Top 10 Most Revolutionary Artists of the Past 100 Years, Gibson.com’s latest list is complete. The full Top 50 are below, but if you’d like to check out an in-depth profile on each entry, click here for #50-40, #40-31, #30-21, #20-11 and #10-1.

Further down the page you can also see the Top 25 entries on the Gibson.com readers poll.

We’d like to send out special thanks to all of the Gibson fans who contributed to the final tally, as well as our Gibson.com editorial and writing staff.

  1. Bob Dylan
  2. The Beatles
  3. Jimi Hendrix
  4. Elvis Presley
  5. Les Paul
  6. Miles Davis
  7. Chuck Berry
  8. John Coltrane
  9. George Gershwin
  10. Muddy Waters
  11. Frank Zappa
  12. Hank Williams
  13. David Bowie
  14. Brian Wilson
  15. John Lennon
  16. Frank Sinatra
  17. Bill Monroe
  18. Robert Johnson
  19. John Cage
  20. Buddy Holly
  21. Bob Marley
  22. Ray Charles
  23. James Brown
  24. Nirvana
  25. Sex Pistols
  26. Madonna
  27. The Velvet Underground
  28. Little Richard
  29. Prince
  30. Django Reinhardt
  31. Cole Porter
  32. Charlie Christian
  33. Michael Jackson
  34. Eddie Van Halen
  35. Led Zeppelin
  36. Radiohead
  37. Brian Eno
  38. The Carter Family
  39. Run-DMC
  40. Jimmy Page
  41. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
  42. Eric Clapton
  43. Johnny Cash
  44. Charlie Patton
  45. Louis Armstrong
  46. Metallica
  47. Stevie Wonder
  48. Charlie Parker
  49. Sam Cooke
  50. The Stooges

Gibson.com Readers Poll – Top 25 Most Revolutionary Artists
Although many of the fans’ picks made the final Top 50 list, the readers poll results aren’t without their share of surprises. Votes for Pete Townshend, U2, Jack White, the Allman Brothers and Jon Lord weren’t enough to get those amazing musicians on the Top 50. Perhaps most surprising (although very deserving) choice was the readers’ top vote-getter – the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe.

  1. Bill Monroe
  2. Les Paul
  3. Jimmy Page
  4. The Beatles
  5. Jimi Hendrix
  6. Iron Maiden
  7. Bob Dylan
  8. Frank Zappa
  9. Chuck Berry
  10. Angus Young
  11. Led Zeppelin
  12. John Lennon
  13. The Allman Brothers Band
  14. Jack White
  15. Robert Johnson
  16. Eric Clapton
  17. Elvis Presley
  18. Pete Townshend
  19. U2
  20. Eddie Van Halen
  21. Miles Davis
  22. Leonard Bernstein
  23. Duane Allman
  24. Kurt Cobain
  25. Jon Lord

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/top-50-full-1210/

#2

Iron Maiden is #6 on the reader’s poll? :wtf: :runs to the hills:

#3

^Run for your life… :wtf:

#4

For a metal band, there isn’t ANY other that sound or do songs like Iron Maiden.

#5

I like the readers’ poll better, minus Jack White. That guy sucks so bad. Why in the hell do people like him so much, and why in the HELL would he make the top 25 most influential artists list?! What influence has that guy ever had on music? All I hear him do is really bad impersonations of other styles of music. Neither list is bad though, and I think it’s SO awesome that Bill Monroe made the top of the readers’ poll.

#6

Link Wray

#7

the Grateful Dead probably don’t want to be a part of this anyway.

#8

^seriously though, that first list is a joke to leave out the Dead completely…I love Johnny Cash, but Garcia was more revolutionary, and I single the man in black out because I probably know more about him than anyone else on that list, and Garcia/The Grateful Dead should be ahead of him

#9

^I would adamantly deny the fact that Garcia was more revolutionary than Cash, and I love Jerry. If you just look at how Cash’s music has affected and is liked by a far greater variety of people than the Dead’s ever did, than it’s easy to say that Cash was more of an influence. Cash made country creative and likeable when it was more of a niche at the time.

As for Jack White, I think he’s much better as a producer than he is a guitarist. His albums are pretty well done. He’s not groundbreaking and I wouldn’t put him as a Top-50 in anything but he’s not bad. I think he gets hyped because mainstream music is so devoid of any talent or creativity that people go nuts when something comes along that’s even a little bit different.

#10

Q4T

#11

madonna is the first chick I think that’s deserving, and then I was surprised that Janis Joplin wasn’t up there. I mean, she was pretty f’n popular with a huge following. shit, I used to sit in a work truck for hours at a time listening to classic rock station and I even bought one of her albums. I think the chick made huge waves in our culture. guess if they leave out the dead there’s no chance for joplin though. speaking of that, where the fuck are Jim Morrison and the Doors? Run DMC made the list for crying out loud. I mean, rest In peace Reverend Run but we’re saying that Run DMC was more revolutionary than the doors?

#12

Any list that includes the word “Revolutionary” and does not include John McLaughlin is silly…

#13

Okay, these lists are only made to start conversation, but for the sake of fun:

Ornette Coleman
Pharoah Sanders
Albert Ayler
Melvin Van Peebles
Public Enemy
Captain Beefheart
Harry Nilsson
The MC5
Suicide
Richard Hell
The Last Poets
Spacemen 3
Galaxie 500
13th Floor Elevators
Christian Marclay
Yoko Ono
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Kraftwerk
La Dusseldorf
Patti Smith Group
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
XTC
Joe Meek
Serge Gainsbourg
Lee Hazelwood
Black Flag
Bjork
Kim Fowley
DJ Kool Herc
Lee Perry
Crass
Curtis Mayfield
Quincy Jones
DEVO
Rocket From the Tombs
The Residents
Marc Bolan
The New York Dolls
Wire

#14

Yeah. I’d say that.

My biggest issue is with the first list. Dylan was not more revolutionary than Miles. Or George Gershwin, for that matter.

#15

We’ll just have agree to disagree…it’s not who was most popular, Jerry revolutionized and created a major genre of music, and is one of the biggest influences of some of the best musicians today…like I said before, I love Cash, but I’m not so sure what was so creative about his music compared, maybe my head’s just forgetting some of his more creative tunes and whatnot…but it wasn’t necessarily the creativeness of Cash that I like about him, it’s the combination of the way he sings and his simplicity in music, and he was real, one of the realest ‘country’ stars ever IMO

#16
#17

I know, but I went with the “influence” angle. If you’re more popular then you reach more people and thus you influence more people. Plus I think Cash’s music kind of transcends genres in that people who are fans of all different types of music seem to like at least a few Cash songs. Can’t say the same about the Dead. I like Cash and my parents like Cash and my grandparents liked Cash…I like the Dead and my parents don’t care for it and I’m pretty sure my grandparents didn’t either. That kind of thing.

#18

:open_mouth: Maybe this shows some serious ignorance on my part, but I had no idea. I always thought that, at least in Europe, the Grateful Dead were well-known. Although, now that I think about it, their whole thing was that they were the spiritual soundtrack to an American generational movement. They were the band that spoke for this hippie subculture that sprung up in the US in the 60’s, and they also spoke for a lot of outlaw/drifter types, but I guess their music is uniquely American. That’s usually how I classify a lot of their tunes actually: Americana Folk music.

Still, that’s pretty crazy to think about. Also this: