The Test Of Time #1

Success vs Influence

In many ways we have as a society come a long way since the birth of what is considered modern music in the 1950s, with each subsequent decade seeing the rise of an ever increasing roster of artists gaining some level of attention from enough people to be considered by some degree popular. Outside of the dominating superstars, it's hard to predict what will stand the test of time. Questions are raised in my mind, questions such as what artists that hold any shred of relevance now will be doing in five or ten years time, and how much will they even matter. It's sad to say, but as far as we currently know all the music you listen to may not be remembered by really anyone by the time we're all dead and buried.

Over the centuries, but primarily from the start of the Baroque period and onward, there have only ever been a handful of artists that at any one time hold any kind of true relevance, of cultural impact and weight. Even for artists that have been able to capture the public's imagination in the moment of initial release, only a small few have retained in the memory for decades and centuries after their living peak. For any kind of artist to be considered massive and influential, they can only ever be accurately judged with the help of retrospect in order to truly appreciate just how important they were.

However, this is where we reach our first hurdle as massive and influential are two very different terms and it can be misleading to throw them around when referring to the biggest names in music. What do I actually mean by them, and what does it mean for an artist to be labelled with either or both of these terms? Firstly, let's dive into the differences between them and what contexts they should be used in.

When I refer to an artist being massive, what I mean is that they are incredibly successful, popular and renown within and outside their field. It can be an easy term to toss around, as there is no specific timestamp associated with it although you can easily qualify it. If I was to say that Ludwig van Beethoven's music is massive, it would imply that millions of people are currently still listening to him, indicating in this case that he has remained a popular force in the centuries since his living peak as a composer. Although he has been dead for generations, he is both remembered and revered, considered by many as one of the greatest and most successful artists the world has ever seen. This is a great example of what it means for an artist to be massive, and I think everyone would agree that even if his audience is not what it was he remains a huge presence as a composer ubiquitous with music itself.

On the other hand, an artist can still be considered massive even if their fame and popularity did not last for the centuries that someone like Beethoven has managed to. If you think of an artist such as the Swedish synthpop band a-ha, you most likely primarily consider their one huge hit "Take on Me", a song that is synonymous both with the 80s and with modern music in general, and it is their only song that can really be considered massive, and a classic. Whilst the band's global success was fleeting, the song that defined them cannot in of itself be considered the sort of massive I'm attempting to define, as a result of the phenomenal staying power and continuous relevance and appreciation it receives 35 years on from its own initial peak. For a true example of something massive for one period of time before fading into (presumably) perpetual irrelevance, I'm leaving the world of music entirely. Loom bands were one such craze that absolutely dominated every shop in 2014 before disappearing off the face of the earth entirely, a prime example of something that was insanely popular and undeniably massive but only for a short amount of time. The distinction between the two is one of legacy versus impact of the time, both of which are the two easiest ways to qualify something being massive: either something was or is, or potentially even both. Without either, something cannot be referred to as massive.

Influential is much easier to define, but much harder to qualify. For an artist to be influential, they need to have influenced at least one scene of music enough to have left a mark, whether that be through pioneering a sub-genre (or genre for that matter), starting or popularising a trend or simply releasing or performing music that was especially well received (commercially or critically). There have of course been countless influential artists, and right there is the focal point I'm getting at: countless. It would be incredibly difficult to identify every influential artist ever, as of course it can be rather subjective whether or not an artist really has been influential and that's without getting into quantifying quite how influential someone has been, and how significant that influence even is. Take Jai Paul for example, a pioneer of the post-dubstep genre-bending wave of artists that would emerge in the 2010s; several hugely acclaimed and successful artists (that I would consider massive, each in their own right) including Lorde, James Blake and Brockhampton have all cited Jai as a major influence on their sound as an artist. Despite the hype surrounding his music between 2009 and 2013, I would find it difficult to refer to him as massive as even at the time he was neither a household name nor a public icon, except within his own fanbase. He was however clearly influential on the sound of popular music, but not to the extent that Drake or Lana Del Rey would be. With many small yet influential artists this is a common phenomenon, where they are very much limited to being a pioneer and not the face of the scene they came from, another way in which it becomes difficult to qualify the influence of an artist.

---

This concludes the first part of this essay on time in relation to the relevance and impact of artists in music, I hope to continue this in the new year with a look into the progressions of an artist, and the concept of "selling out". It's been a while since I've done an extended, non-anger-fuelled rant like this and I'm excited to continue this miniseries on my blog. In the meantime, year end season continues to approach and I'll be debuting my first list very soon. Thanks for reading!

---