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SR
Henry
Midaso
Listyguy
What's with the sudden Arcade Fire hate?
Not necessarily hate,but look at the artists remaining. Only a few of them aren't rock n'roll icons - Arcade Fire are one of those few...
Some of the icons are probably just not appreciated by those voting against them. Must have been the case to some extent for The Beatles, Dylan, Bowie, The Who, and Radiohead.
I am not sure that the three artists I am voting against this week: Stooges (62), Sonic Youth (49) and Joy Division (51) deserve the "icon" appellation when compared to the 5 artists mentioned above; especially in view of Arcade Fire being rated as the 114th best artist even before their Suburbs album.
I'll make a case for why each of those artists should be considered iconic, although I'm pretty sure most critics think they do, as denoted by their high AM rank:
The Stooges - Incredibly important and influential rock band. The Stooges - along with the VU - were the first rock band to stray far from blues, and really influence the punk rock music. However, where the VU was cerebral, The Stooges were primal. Funhouse contains the rawest rock and roll I've ever heard. There are few figures in all of popular music more iconic than Iggy Pop - the wildest frontman of all time who would often cut himself with shards of glass on stage.
Sonic Youth - One of the early flagship bands for ther indie/alternative scene. They have a massive discography that ranges from radio-ready alterna-pop to hardcore experimentation. The "something inbetween" albums like Daydream Nation and Sister are the the place to be though. Their influence on alternative rock is pretty huge. They aren't my personal favorite band from that time period, but I do love Daydream Nation and I could see why someone would rank theri discography up there with the all-time greats.
Joy Division - Might be the most iconic of the three. Unfortunately, Ian Curtis has become a caricature for death/depression/darkness, and I feel like not enough attention is really given to their music, which is uniformly brilliant. They made two perfect no-filler albums, and one heckuva single; none of which has really been matched since. Other than maybe the Pixies, I can't think of a single artist with a greater influence on last decade's indie scene. I mean, just listen to Turn on the Bright Lights: Interpol and many other bands made whole careers out of copping JD's sound.
Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see why someone might prefer The Who's tightly composed pop songs to the above three artists. The Stooges' can at times be unstructured and devolve into jams; Sonic Youth have albums that are just too abrasive; and while I personally I think Joy Division is perfect, they admittedly don't cover very much emotional ground. That said, my ballot for this week
-3 The Jam
-2 Elvis Costello
-1 The Byrds
All three are fine artists, but alas, at this point in the game that's all that's really left.
Thanks so much for sharing your perspectives. Hopefully, I will now be able to better appreciate the Stooges, Joy Division and Sonic Youth.
Still is is likely that I will continue voting against them
