The Modernist! wrote:Jeff K wrote:If you're talking about the outdoor, football stadium gigs, I don't believe the Stones started playing those until 1975.
But as far as the concert being an event, they were definitely a spectacle.
Yeah, I wasn't thinking so much of the chronology, just the idea of these big rock songs that act almost like a rallying cry. I think in many ways you can say the whole idea of rock music came from them, but their influence is so amorphous and omniscient, its very hard to pinpoint in terms of dates or specific records.
It's probably typical coming from me, but I'd like to nominate The Who as well.
Here are some things, based on a list I compiled for the VU vs. Who thread. Some of The Who's contributions to music ...
- Invented the Marshall stack.
- Invented round wound bass strings, now the standard type of string. Flatwounds are harder to come by.
- Created the template for power pop, as well as coining the term.
- I think you could make an argument that they were the template for Led Zeppelin and stadium rock. This one would be interesting to discuss/argue. I think of Jimmy Page seeing The Who and saying, "OK, I want to do this, but with everything beefed up."
- First group to smash their instruments, something which a lot of bands dabble in (everybody
wants to do it).
- I think you could make an argument that "My Generation" and their auto-destruction was a big influence on late-seventies punk? It was the thing to beat, basically.
- One of the first groups to use feedback as part of their act. Though Jeff Beck and later Hendrix (whom The Who mentored early on, telling him what equipment to use) obviously made great contributions to this, one could argue it wouldn't have been the same without The Who.
bobzilla77 wrote:John Cale once said that when he heard the Who's singles in 1965, he knew he had to get to work immediately because someone else was about to beat him to the punch. "Oh my god, they're ALREADY DOING IT!"
It is hard to fathom what that music must have sounded like in 1965. The very idea that pop music could explode into noise and pure white hot energy... and be confrontational toward the audience itself...
Ron Asheton said more or less the same thing.
(So, it's possible they influenced some other artists on the list as well.)
- Big strides in the less obvious area of the technology and business of concert sound. In the Seventies, they operated the best and loudest sound in the business. Both Isle of Wight festivals used their sound system, the Grateful Dead used their equipment in Egypt, etc. They influenced both Pink Floyd and GD, two groups noted for their contributions to concert sound.
- First use of five-channel sound in movie theaters (for the
Tommy film). This later became 5.1.
- Maybe you could say they helped pioneer the use of sequencers as backing for popular music (though both "Baba O'Riley" and "WGFA" are organs, the latter treated with a VCS3 synth)?
Plus the members' contributions to their individual instruments' vocabularies: Entwistle and Moon in particular have instantly identifiable sounds. Of course, many players do, but these two pushed playing of bass and drums way forward and inspired countless musicians in the process. Bass playing pre-Entwistle was completely different than it is allowed to be today. A lot of players cite him as a major influence. Moon is probably the most imitated and admired drummer in rock (though John Bonham is surely the most influential in terms of the actual sound of the drums).
