most innovative artists of the last decade

I agree with unreg, you can't be considered influential if you are only influencing a tiny cult following.
And even innovation isn't worth talking about if it doesn't hold up.
The most innovative artist of the last decade was dr dre without a doubt. Not his mediocre rapping, but his superior production. All rap and pop ever had was production and it never used to be special, it was cheap and its longevity was a couple of weeks. Dr dre started "taking his time to perfect the beat" and actually putting effort into making what was traditionally "fake" music.
Producers of all kind followed suit and this screwed bands because band production can't progress, all it can ever do is make your crappy band sound a bit more proffessional.
Rap and pop music has always been 100% produced and as production became better it allowed for these genre's to become better, bands have been left behind.
And its all thanks to Dr Dre(and possibly the wu-tang clan) for improving his production techniques and thus forcing his competition to do the same.
Thats innovative, completely destroying what once dominated your proffession and influencing everything that would dominate for the next 10+ years.

 

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I'm having a hard time with it

The usual names come to mind but I'm having a hard time with it because next year makes it all for naught when Brian Wilson brings us his long-awaited, long-overdue, much-ado-about-everything Smile. At that point, pop music will have to admit that it is still 30+ years behind where it should be. The release of one of the strongest albums ever, Sgt. Pepper, has turned out to be one of the worst things to ever happen to rock and roll.° It's been singles, singles, singles ever since. I mean, it was before, but when you hear Smile, you'll understand exactly what the alternative was.

As to the question, Nirvana was influential but not exactly innovative. It should also be pointed out that Nirvana is not eligible for this topic. Presidents of the United States of America were ridiculously innovative but hardly influential. And when I say "ridiculously", I mean ... just watch the band closely when you go back and look at their videos, or flip through their photos. There's a few things definitively unique about them. I'm throwing a vote for Pearl Jam on the simple grounds that Stone Temple Pilots weren't strong or innovative enough to have carried the sound. That means no Silverchair, no Creed. That would be a good thing, but the record industry hasn't figured it out.

Floater, one of my personal favorites, has the most unique sound I've heard for the last ten years, but they haven't the audience to be directly influential. All they can do is scare the hell out of other bands.

A tougher question is the most influential/innovative band that quit during the last decade, or, as the topic has it, since 1990; multiple breakups (e.g. The Who, The Rolling Stones, &c) don't count ....

Notes:

° Sgt. Pepper - You know, I'm aware that there's something wrong with the way that sentence is phrased ... I'm too tired to figure out what exactly it is. It's a complex story I've heard many, many times from a musician who studies Brian Wilson's work and also is accepted to Sir Paul's school. The Beatles are the problem insofar as singles, singles, singles go. Smile was a legitimate alternative to that format, and the release of a reworked Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band preceding the planned release of Smile .... Look ... The Beatles, for all they are, are also a bit fraudulent. Sgt. Pepper, while it's a great album in its own right and one that I listen to regularly, is the result of a panic that started when John and Paul were in California. (I have a track known colloquially as "Veggies Stereo", a stereo mix of an advert composed by Wilson and featuring the Beach Boys; Paul McCartney can be heard chewing carrots in the background.) Bottom line ... the last decade pretty much means nothing compared to what's coming next year. That's right ... pop music is thirty years behind! And, strangely, The Beatles are instrumental in that.

 

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The question of "how innovative" is an entirely subjective one.
The question of "how influential" is an entirely objective one.

True, but can you innovate if the masses are not watching? Yes.

It does need to hold up. An innovation does not need to influence; it is a 'here and now' sort of action. I can innovate with no one noticing, and I can also do something entirely uncreative and unintelligent and have it be the most influential thing in the world. The two are not connected.

In my view, Radiohead have innovated in many ways, but have not really influenced anyone.

 

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I vote Nirvana. Yes they were influential, but they were also innovative. No other band was having the same music as they did. that's why they got famous. The thing that i admire most in nirvana, is that they can make suck a good song out of 3 simple chords. i think they were pretty innovative...

 

How about Michael Jackson? Didn't he trigger the horrible rnb pop trend...among other things?

 

closer to the beach boys than to the beatles, though that certainly doesn't distract from their influence. i think most of their influence came more recently years after their popularity waned, which is ironic)

his influence was mostly by default. what i mean is that kurt neevr wanted to be the voice of ageneration and certainly never tried to be. it just ahppened taht when he said what he felt, it was what everyone else was thinking too, but maybe hadn't been able to put into words. his aggression was also a revival of instincts to deal with emotions that had been dormant for many years, despite the heavy metal bands (mostly because they always ended up talking about how happy they were to be rockstars, much like modern rap, instead of letting out rage)

radiohead is revoltionary in rock and pop to be sure, but mostly only influential to other musicains, much like the velvet underground was.

teh white stripes are a lot things. but innovative they're not. granted, their back-to-the-basics sense of rock and roll just might save it from drowning if they can keep from being coimmercialized in the meantime, but that's not innovation, that's just positive reactionrism.

of all the ones listed thus far on the i would go with radiohead, though it seems like their must be a better choice, so expect my own list before too long.

 

this comment shows an amazing amount of ignorance. to list a few of your follies, there's charlie parker, sun ra, pahroah sander, coltrane, brain wilson, the beatles, the who (the first band to ever really implement synthesiszers), the stone roses (created a genre called brit-pop, maybe you've heard of it?). that's just a start.
i am not a fan of ignorance, but i can tolerate it because, hell, most ignorant people don't know any better, what i can't tolerate is willful ignorance. make an attempt to understand the music of the last century before you go about bashing it. there have been remarkable unavoidably good advances. granted, not all of it is better than the music made for thirty centuries before it (compare time) but the progress rate is better in the last century than in the twenty leading up to it.

 

james cameron is not an artist, he's a spoiled old man with too much film budget. he lost what fragments of innovation he had years ago. green day? excuse me, they were a band formed to amke songs that sound like the mr t experience, a band who was much better than them at their game.
george lucas? not innovative either, what he did that innovated was ripped off. most of the ideas in star wars are ripped of a acombination of the king arthur myths and the old flash gordon film shorts that used to play before movies at at drive-ins between features.
pixar geeks are steve jobs, who began pixar is 1987, but if your counting 80's, he certainly counts.
n.w. a. is definatly innovative. thought not particulalry flattering to the ear today. however they too, were formed in the late 80's.

 

the line is about innovative, not influencial and there are many differences.

 

the thing about prog rock is it sets out trying to be innovative first, and musical second, whihc dooms it. innovation to genuine must be by default or becaus hit's what the song called for, not because you sit down and say "i want to write a complex song".
prog is filled with talented musicians but no innovation. sorry.

 

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this is incorrect. the velvet undergound even in it's heyday never had many fans, but most of their fans starteed their own bands. some of these bands are sonic youth, pearl jam in it's early formations, u2, the smiths, REM, the cure.
all that to say that the above statement is completely inacurate.

newsflash, southern rock didn't exist at the time zepllein started. it was created as an offshoot of zepplin fan bands, namely the allman brothers.
and that's not allt hey did, they are the most important innovative band to heavy metal with the exception of the who, also, john bonham is every influential in rock drumming, anyone will tell you. also, in temrs of studio work, jimmy page is very influential int he feild of guitars, though not particulalry good outside oft he studio. and robert plant, despite being in love with his own voice, took blues singing pattersn and formed them into something new, heavy metal vocals which were copied by everyone from whitesnake to motly crue. his lyrics were also very new to music. that said, four is a worthless album. the rest is good.

this is a poor comparison, with no basis. but i get the idea nd i half agree with you.

actually, jazz had control until abotu elvis with a few little momentary exceptions and rock and roll never relaly took off untilt he beatles despite falres of popularity in areas or for certain artists. so you know, in america, that would be 1965.

this is also a silly thing to say since most inoovative art was not appreciated in it's time. i'm also going to say this again, the thread i clicked on said innovative, not influential, check the differences. we're not talking about what is popular we're talking about what is ingeuitous.

 

very well, i challenge you to name ten composers of the last century suck without looking to google or some similar means for help.

 

dr dre is influential, but as a business man, the way madonna is influential. and producing as art can be found in glenn johns (the who, the doors, zeppelin, BTO, and many more) and mutt lang (def lepard, motley crue, skid roe, poison, many more). and to a greater degree. def lepard could only halfways play their instruments and wrote horrible songs to boot, but mutt lang made them the biggest band in the world for a while. but hands, down, the first evidence of production as art i have ever seen is brian wilson on particularly pet sounds in 1967.

 

Re: I'm having a hard time with it

smile was neevr finished at the time, and i dont think a person, even brain wilson can get back a moment and finish a project as vast and endless as that so he has two choices, finish it as who he is now, which will be good, probably great, but not the real smile, or put it out as it was, whihc will be blinding but not as good as it could have been.

i agree with this point, but am not sold on it as evidence of innovation.

based on your comments thus far, tiassa, i would recomend a band called "the olivia tremor control" for you. particulalry their album "animation music part one"

the pixies could go in there, or pavement. or hell, sinatra was recoding in the early 90's. few ideas anyway. sublime.

i have read paul on many occasions saying that everything he ever recorded was trying to match up to brian wilson. and that he never did. but i certainly wouldn't discount the beatles, their imporatnce is endless and they did put onut one amazing record (rubber soul) which was influential to even brain wilson. and fucking ungodly good to boot.

 

coldplay, muse, recent blur to name a few. they definatly influence and i know few true music afficianodos that wont tell you that ok computer or the bends or both changed their life.

 

that would be berry gordy, but yes, michael was great. but his greatness was in the eighties mostly.

 

Nirvana of course.....but, also Pearl Jam.

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oh yea....Notorious B.I.G., 2 Pac.....

 

Sublime, I know it was from before 90, but they are still the shit. The Mars Volta. They are rad. You should download.

These arnt the best innovative, but they are good and original.

Andre Nickatina
Puracane
International noise conspiracy
Refused
2pac

 

Pearl Jam? 2Pac? Sublime? In what way are they innovative at all?

You are just picking out your favorites instead of what matters.
The Mars Volta is quirky, but not really innovative in any sense.

 

britney spears is very hot