The most important musicians of this era (2000-present)

[justinandimcool]

Other than their latest album, their music is pretty much traditional popular rock and roll. Looking at their chords, instrumentation, melodies, and lyrics there is nothing objectively nothing offensive about their songs unless you're just not a fan of the popular rock genre (U2, Springsteen, David Bowie, etc), in which case your hatred of their music would be more understandable.

I know you're a big Modest Mouse fan though. Obviously I can understand loving MM and being lukewarm about AF (though I love both), but I can't understand liking one and hating the other when both are pretty stylistically and aesthetically similar.

[ExistenceNow]

It's their being the face of indie that hurts my butt the most.

Modern Modest Mouse might be mildly stylistically similar to AF, but the true indie MM, the MM of The Lonesome Crowded West, Building Nothing out of Something, and the way back shit of Sad Sappy Sucker, doesn't sound at all to me like what Arcade Fire does. Good News paved the way for Arcade Fire's indie, and for that I hate Modest Mouse.

[coldengrey12]

Good News is 10 years old tomorrow.

And they've only made one other complete, full-length album since then.

[ExistenceNow]

Originally Posted by coldengrey12

Good News is 10 years old tomorrow.

And they've only made one other complete, full-length album since then.

Don't get me started.

8ish years since We Were Dead.

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by whygohome?

What the fuck would you consider important if sufjan stevens is just a pop act?

To everyone else, good call on JT and Kanye West. I think people in this thread are not aware of how popular nickel creek was before they broke up, and how rabid and die-hard fiona apple's admittedly small fanbase is.

And I think you're vastly overstating Nickle Creek's popularity.

[AlpineValley804]

I feel like Of Monsters and Men, Edward Sharpe and umpteen other bands are a direct influence of Arcade Fire, so yeah, I can't get behind the belief that Arcade Fire hasn't had a big influence a great deal of music that's been recorded in the last few years.

[whygohome?]

Originally Posted by Bafugama

I also agree that the OPs combination of artists is bizarre. Yea, Radiohead is huge, and Arcade Fire seems pretty entrenched in that path as well, but Sufjan Stevens? Fiona Apple? Great artists, but they're certainly not in that 'most important' classification. Can't be in the 'most important' discussion with solely commercial success or critical acclaim. You definitely need both.

I think, like I've said repeatedly, that their success combined with the influence they've had on other, more mass-appealing artists, won't be forgotten in the future and regarded in musical circles as hugely important. Some people in this thread are too hung up on mass popularity which as we've seen in the past is sometimes a benchmark for influence and sometimes not. Acts like talking heads or velvet revolver that I didn't mention from past eras are now looked at as massively important yet didn't dominate radio or record sales of their eras. I think critical and stylistic success are huge when the artists themselves tend to listen and be directly inspired by them more so than those artists than the ones being propped up purely by iTunes downloads. Similar to how nirvana and pearl jam were hugely inspired by bands your average person hasn't heard of today.

Sufjan, thile and Fiona's true legacy and influence haven't been fully realized yet. Nickel creek was a very popular band 10 years ago, maybe more so in the south where people in other areas of the world/country haven't seen how they've affected more regional forms of music, paving the way for the mass appealing acts like the avett brothers, Mumford and sons, and Alison krauss & union station that use three part harmony and southern instrumentation. Not to mention the country acts out there obviously influenced by nickel creek's fusion of pop melody and virtuosic instrumentation.

That said, I definitely left out some wildly influential choices like kanye or JT that I'm not arguing against and attribute to me not really listening to either artist or their respective genres that much. And admittedly the artists I used in my OP as representatives for my point from past genres were all hugely commercially successful so I can see why my list was confusing but I was mainly interested in generating discussion more than talking about how correct my list was.

[scrock25]

Originally Posted by cruscott35

And I think you're vastly overstating Nickle Creek's popularity.

I've never heard of them before

[whygohome?]

^ wow...definitely more popular in the south then. They're hugely important to the last 5 year bluegrass-inspired pop revival though, no way to dispute that. Have you heard of Mumford & sons?

[AJF_41]

never head of nickel creek...

Originally Posted by Bafugama

I also agree that the OPs combination of artists is bizarre. Yea, Radiohead is huge, and Arcade Fire seems pretty entrenched in that path as well, but Sufjan Stevens? Fiona Apple? Great artists, but they're certainly not in that 'most important' classification. Can't be in the 'most important' discussion with solely commercial success or critical acclaim. You definitely need both.

agree with this

[aicdmb]

I think I know ALOT of people who have no idea who Radiohead is....then again, i know many peeps that have no idea who Pearl Jam is

[gravedigger07]

Isaac Brock, Eminem, Conor Oberst

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by whygohome?

^ wow...definitely more popular in the south then. They're hugely important to the last 5 year bluegrass-inspired pop revival though, no way to dispute that. Have you heard of Mumford & sons?

I live in Southern VA, still had to google to make sure I wasn't missing something with respect to their popularity. Turns out I wasn't. Hell, their music is right in this fan base's wheelhouse and their appreciation thread is only 2 pages long.

[Speilmen230]

What's a Nickel Creek?

[Proudest_Raider]

All joking aside, go listen to Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers. Chris Thile is a living legend and borderline prodigy. And he likes to cover Radiohead from time to time, which seems to be the gold standard around here. Links for the lazy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n3wHljJQ4M - cover of Josh Ritter's Another New World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igbbbWqDVbM - Kid A cover
http://youtu.be/E9hx0T9vWPs?t=36s - Nickel Creek's The Lighthouse's Tale

Highjack over. Continue with the discussion.

[coldengrey12]

Nickle Creek is talented as hell, but their popularity is a bit questionable. They've never had an album in the top 10. (Although that could change with Dotted Line.)

Love or hate a lot of the other artists mentioned in this thread, but many of them have had a No. 1 album or at least been in the top 2-3. It's not as significant as it used to be, but it's still a good indicator of how many people are following a certain band.

If we're using sales as a rationale, Adele is one of the most important artists of the past decade. Who the hell goes diamond (10 million sold) in this day and age?

[uro55]

Important and good are also two different things. Many bands/musicians are and have been important, but not good/talented.

[whygohome?]

Yeah I thought I made it clear that sales is less important now than it ever has been and won't be as important when we look back on who we remember from this era, which was the point of this thread.

If you've seriously never heard of nickel creek, I don't understand how that's even possible I remember everyone I knew listened to them back in 2001-2002. Places where bluegrass is popular they were/are huge.

And again this thread was made for people to suggest and discuss who they feel is really important instead of getting hung up on my list. Though if we're talking about who's list is 'bizarre', I'll stand by sufjan and fiona all day when others are mentioning people like Train or Adele, who are fine but haven't done anything at all memorable in pushing boundaries or creating new and exciting, thought provoking music.

Record sales do not mean dick explaining who will be remembered when this generation is looked back on. A guy like Chris thile from nickel creek who has literally changed what can be done in bluegrass, whether you guys listen to him or think his band is popular or not, that shit will be remembered. He's like the Coltrane of our era and if you don't believe me go to YouTube now and see why you need to have heard of him. He's far from underground just because ants don't have many fans of his.

[whygohome?]

Originally Posted by uro55

Important and good are also two different things. Many bands/musicians are and have been important, but not good/talented.

This makes no sense can you share an example of this thought process?

[Foreverford05]

I think he means artists that arent really good, but their popularity makes them influential to others who may follow the same genre. Maybe like lady gaga->kesha->miley->rebacca black. So they arent good artists, but they are infuencing a whole genre movement of bad artists. Maybe i'm missing the mark

[cruscott35]

Originally Posted by whygohome?

Yeah I thought I made it clear that sales is less important now than it ever has been and won't be as important when we look back on who we remember from this era, which was the point of this thread.

If you've seriously never heard of nickel creek, I don't understand how that's even possible I remember everyone I knew listened to them back in 2001-2002. Places where bluegrass is popular they were/are huge.

And again this thread was made for people to suggest and discuss who they feel is really important instead of getting hung up on my list. Though if we're talking about who's list is 'bizarre', I'll stand by sufjan and fiona all day when others are mentioning people like Train or Adele, who are fine but haven't done anything at all memorable in pushing boundaries or creating new and exciting, thought provoking music.

Record sales do not mean dick explaining who will be remembered when this generation is looked back on. A guy like Chris thile from nickel creek who has literally changed what can be done in bluegrass, whether you guys listen to him or think his band is popular or not, that shit will be remembered. He's like the Coltrane of our era and if you don't believe me go to YouTube now and see why you need to have heard of him. He's far from underground just because ants don't have many fans of his.

He won't be remembered because nobody knows who he is today to remember him in the future. Pretty clear you've got a crush on him, and he may be a genius, but if this subculture of a music fan base that is more related to Nickle Creek than most bands doesn't know who he is, nobody else does either, besides your 15 friends in KY who used to hang out together. Sorry man.

[LowEnd_Theory]

Originally Posted by ExistenceNow

It's their being the face of indie that hurts my butt the most.

Modern Modest Mouse might be mildly stylistically similar to AF, but the true indie MM, the MM of The Lonesome Crowded West, Building Nothing out of Something, and the way back shit of Sad Sappy Sucker, doesn't sound at all to me like what Arcade Fire does. Good News paved the way for Arcade Fire's indie, and for that I hate Modest Mouse.

I've never linked AF to MM in terms of sound, and I really don't see how Good News "paved the way" for Funeral. Those two albums sound nothing alike. The former is the poppiest/cleanest effort of a great band that already had peaked, made a decent album which started to show their age. The latter is a huge statement from a young band, a musically exceptional effort with great emotional depth and lyrics that read like poetry-- it's rawness could be the only link to MM's older stuff, but certainly not Good News.

[LowEnd_Theory]

I don't think that AF's sound has directly influenced bands as much as they helped influence the thinning of that line between "indie" and "mainstream".

[whygohome?]

Originally Posted by cruscott35

He won't be remembered because nobody knows who he is today to remember him in the future. Pretty clear you've got a crush on him, and he may be a genius, but if this subculture of a music fan base that is more related to Nickle Creek than most bands doesn't know who he is, nobody else does either, besides your 15 friends in KY who used to hang out together. Sorry man.

I'd bother forming a counter argument to that incredible ignorance if you werent cruscott...but let's just say I don't consider ants to be a great sample size or measurement for important music? We have multiple multi-page threads a year on OAR here

[uro55]

I've heard of them, but wouldn't know a NK song if I heard it.

[Julia Roberts]

Heard of Nickel Creek and Sarah Watkins. Could not tell you one song of theirs and I've never heard of Chris Thile (some Nickel Creek guy?)

I have been forced to listen to a lot of top 40 radio lately. You can see some indie influenced singer/songwriter stuff bleeding over with acts like Passenger or even Timberlake's latest hit. Also some alternative stuff with Bastille and Phantogram. Not that I like any of that stuff but I do think indie music is making an impact in places.

What amazing me is pop country. That shit hasn't changed AT ALL in 30 years.

[whygohome?]

I'm honestly shocked at how many people in here haven't even heard of Chris Thile/Nickel Creek. They are far from underground or unknown, they were a big deal in the country/bluegrass world and are again with their recent come back. I didnt see that coming

[ExistenceNow]

Originally Posted by LowEnd_Theory

I've never linked AF to MM in terms of sound, and I really don't see how Good News "paved the way" for Funeral. Those two albums sound nothing alike. The former is the poppiest/cleanest effort of a great band that already had peaked, made a decent album which started to show their age. The latter is a huge statement from a young band, a musically exceptional effort with great emotional depth and lyrics that read like poetry-- it's rawness could be the only link to MM's older stuff, but certainly not Good News.

Originally Posted by LowEnd_Theory

I don't think that AF's sound has directly influenced bands as much as they helped influence the thinning of that line between "indie" and "mainstream".

This is what Good News did, and what I meant by paving the way.

[ExistenceNow]

Originally Posted by uro55

I've heard of them, but wouldn't know a NK song if I heard it.

Same here.

[snow1868]

I've heard of Nickel Creek but haven't heard a song of theirs since 2003 nor did I have any idea they were making a comeback. Sorry dude, they're not as popular as you seem to think they are.