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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 87: CROWDED HOUSE

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The other week, I made a very big assertion with regards to the criteria of this blog series list. And it was that there wasn’t a concrete criteria, that virtually anyone could get in if they were ‘influential’ or ‘popular’ enough– a metric which in some ways is extremely bias. Regardless if an artist debuted in the 80’s or in the 2010’s; regardless if they had a hit in the 90’s or had 5 hits in the 90’s; regardless if they were known just for their music or for their life outside of music too… if you glance through our list, you’d find a vast smorgasbord of different artists, who in my opinion each deserve their place in their own special way. And because you could conceivably argue that each artist deserved to be there, and each artist was vastly different to each other… ergo this meant that there was hardly any criteria for inclusion on such a subjective list as this. But as I pondered this past week as I was ruminating as to who to write about, it struck me that there was indeed a bit of a pattern with the artists whom I was choosing to write about, and with whom Jon was choosing to write about, even if we didn’t know it at the time.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 86: SNOW PATROL

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Sometimes I wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It’s been about a couple of months since I had a crazy idea to swap blog series with Jon (as in I write about influential artists of all time, and he write about artists who are virtually certain to be influential in the near future!); and it’s been a bit more taxing that I thought it was going to be. Not that I’m complaining… which I’m not, because I’ve been musically stretched beyond anything that I even thought I would be, and more than I ever was when I was writing my portion of the blog series all that time ago. It’s just that at this stage of the blog series, from entries #81-#100, you’d think that the 20 artists would be self-explanatory and would reveal themselves like the drop of a hat. And you’d be right… somewhat. Artists like Tim McGraw, Jennifer Lopez and Spice Girls were in the list for as long as I could remember- so there were no surprises there. But Gwen Stefani and Leona Lewis surprised me in a good way- they weren’t in the list for very long, and the fact that I was so compelled to write about these artists meant that there was no room for Blake Shelton and Norah Jones (at the moment). I’ve noticed that even at this stage, I can be enamoured and fascinated by the discography and life of an artist so much that I could include them on a whim at the expense of another; and that’s ok. At no point during this process of writing did I feel as if Gwen and Leona weren’t worthy of being included in a subjective list such as this. But it did give me pause and reason for reflection for the remainder 15 names.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 85: JENNIFER LOPEZ (AKA J.LO)

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What makes an artist influential, or even popular? That is the million dollar question, is it not? I know that we’ve posed this question many times throughout the past few years, and that we’ve added and subtracted artists to our ever-evolving influential artist list; based on the conclusions that we’ve drawn over the years. And so, I ask this question yet again, because… one more time can’t hurt, right? Is it the impact of the song that determines an artist’s longevity and legacy and standing in their career, or is it their songwriting ability? Is it the fact that an artist has blown up on social media and is using their platform for good away from the spotlight, or is it simply because their songs are connecting with listeners on a deep, personal, emotional and spiritual level even if their personal life is in ruins? Is an artist influential because they are so for their particular genre or time period, or is an artist influential because they are so across so many decades and for so many listeners across the board? Or are artists influential because they are not popular but rather unknown, but resonating to a specific group of people just because of one song or one album? What if I said that the answer to all of these questions is yes? Yes for all of them? Yes, an artist is influential for all of these reasons… that’s a lot of criteria, am I right? Confused with where I’m going? Don’t worry, all will make sense soon-ish…

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 84: SPICE GIRLS

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I don’t know if what I’m about to share with you is something that is really profound for all of you, or if it’s something that has really just resonated with me over the last few weeks. But here goes. Since the effects of COVID-19 being very apparent and on display all that time ago back in March 2020; we’ve been isolated, in various states of lockdown, social distancing, wearing masks, being responsible and staying at home, having the ‘right’ number of people in your home at any one time, undertaking testing and later on vaccinations where possible, and just following the rules set for us as dictated by the government and the health advice of the state and/or country that we live in. As there are still deaths every day all over the world, and as COVID-19 has mutated over the past year to grow into a deadlier virus (the Delta strain); it seems that lockdowns and masks and social distancing are becoming to be part of the ‘new normal’, if I could be so blunt to say. Sure, we’d want to eradicate the virus to the point of it never coming back ever again in any shape or form; but if this is the best we can do as a people, as a human race at this point in time, then as long as we are all generally healthy and as long as people are recovering and aren’t dying at an alarming rate like before… then I consider everything happening now a win in relation to everything that has happened last year. Will we have to learn to live with COVID-19? I hope not, but we better not be alarmed or concerned if that is the case in the future. Yet for all of the alterations we’ve all had to make as we redefine what life looks like and what our lifestyle looks like; there’s one aspect of our life that has suffered greatly all throughout the virus’s inception until now. And it is this- that while we are all connected via social media and zoom, we’ve never felt more alone than ever before, and that we’re becoming more and more hermit-ish, losing some friends because of our inability to converse with them, and shunning the friends we do have for whatever reason. Our friendships have suffered because of COVID-19. And if I were to stop there, you’d all think that this is the profound thing that came to me the other week. But… it is not. The mind-blowing thing that I found to be pretty wild… is that I believe that friendships that died during COVID-19, were already broken to begin with. Friendships that drifted away during COVID-19, were fractured and tense to begin with. Friendships that faded away weren’t cultivated enough, and friendships that started to be uncomfortable and weird, were so because we all weren’t addressing big important issues. And it also just dawned on me this past week, that we all need to find the root of the issue otherwise we risk being alone forever and disconnected from society. And how’s that for something philosophical to rack your brain over?

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