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Momentous Mondays: Most Influential Artists Of All Time – Honourable Mentions Pt. 2

Last week, I made the plunge and started writing about the artists who didn’t make the cut in our list of 100 names or artists who both Jon and I deem to be influential across all time. Sure, I could’ve not written about any honourable mentions, and kept it at ‘this is my 100, deal with it’. But with more than 100 other names missing out, I felt as if I would be doing a disservice to talented singers and performers and entertainers by not talking about them at all. I spoke about Kanye West and how he was a rapper that I could have talked about but didn’t because of personal convictions. I wrote about how Jesus Is King, Donda and Donda 2 took the world by storm, and I also briefly discussed how Kendrick Lamar has followed in Kanye’s footsteps. I wrote about Kirk Franklin- the ‘father’ of gospel music, as well as AC/DC: the Aussie rock band who really probably should have been included here (I mean- “Highway To Hell”, “Back In Black”, “You Shook Me All Night Long”… need I say more?) I lamented the fact that Larry Norman and Petra weren’t included, and I also spoke about their impact on Christian rock. And I glossed over a few artists that just didn’t fit for one reason or another- Huey Lewis & The News, Jeff Buckley, INXS, Duran Duran, Journey, Green Day and Panic! At The Disco. There were tons and tons of artists I wrote about last week, trying to make sense of why they are influential but why I didn’t write about them (or why Jon didn’t write about them); and I managed to do that, although to a lesser degree than probably was needed or required, for the genres of rap, rock, gospel, and R&B. As well as Steps- who are pop but are a disco/dance kind of pop like ABBA or Kylie Minogue. And so, this week… we’re not done. Not by a long shot. The pop artists, the boybands, the country artists and so much more; are all waiting for us in the next paragraph and beyond. So, as we now take the next part of the journey and discover which bands could have been present on this list on another day and in another time; let’s remember that music is subjective, and that if you disagree with my somewhat arbitrary and otherwise subjective choices- then that’s more than fine!

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Momentous Mondays: Most Influential Artists Of All Time – Honourable Mentions Pt. 1

A couple of months ago, I wrote my last blog of our series Most Influential Artists Of All Time. Writing about Robbie Williams was a challenge and a joy, as I was reminded by this legendary and inspiring artist, that music has the power to inspire us, to challenge us, to bring us comfort, healing, perspective and sometimes joy and peace. Robbie, like many of the artists I’ve been writing about such as Rihanna, Kylie Minogue, Jennifer Lopez, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and more, as well as many of the artists Jon has been writing about like Keith Urban, Josh Groban, Ed Sheeran, Carrie Underwood, John Legend, Jackie Evancho, Coldplay, Alicia Keys and Sheryl Crow to name a few; is an artist who has been a powerhouse in his craft for a long time now- a step back and a glance at our list of 100 artists- and you could probably say that it is a pretty complete list. Mind you, that’s not mentioning iconic and legendary artists like Queen, The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli, Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones, and others. We will be writing about these 50 artists in a little bit- these are timeless artists who are in another category all together. So for the purposes of disregarding these 50 artists whom you can read the list about here; you’d say that the list of 100 artists is very complete and comprehensive. Yet… is it really? In any list there are honourable mentions; and as I finished off one blog series and prepared for another, I thought to myself- what are the honourable mentions in this list? I started to write, and I came up with more than 100 ‘big names’ that were missing from this list- either by choice or just because we couldn’t fit them in.

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