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Momentous Mondays: Influential artists of the next 5-10 years – Week 44: Apollo LTD

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Motivational pop-rock isn’t necessarily all the rage, nowadays that is. Gone are the days of artists like the Goo Goo Dolls, Train and to some extent, Coldplay. Yes, these artists during their heyday (which unfortunately, isn’t really now) dominated the sonic landscape and created music with an inspirational edge, all the while utilising the mainstream music market and delivering songs of poignancy and fun, reminding us that it is ok to have a deep song right next to a jovial, fun track on a track-list on an album. Coldplay brought to us one of the 2000s best in ‘Fix You’, quite possibly for me, one of the top 5 songs to ever grace our ears in that decade. Also in the same decade was both Train and Goo Goo Dolls- Train brought to us the quirky and often nonsensical ‘Drops of Jupiter’ (but we all didn’t care, it’s still a classic song, all these years later), and even the thought-provoking ‘Calling All Angels’, ‘Marry Me’, ‘When I Look to the Sky’ and ‘If It’s Love’. And while the Goo Goo Dolls’ biggest hit ‘Iris’ was unveiled in the 1990s (1998 to be precise), the band still had relative success during the 2000s, with songs like ‘Big Machine’, ‘Here is Gone’, ‘Better Days’, ‘Give a Little Bit’, ‘Stay With You’ and ‘Sympathy’. Coldplay, Train and Goo Goo Dolls were all delivering what was considered to be popular during that era- motivational pop-rock, and while that type of branding has always been able to strike a chord with me (considering my own love of CCM and worship music, this umbrella of motivational pop-rock is something in the mainstream that can be very closely attributed to CCM/worship if ever someone was able to find a proverbial link there!), it seemed that as though time went on and music changed, the artists that changed with them seemed to not as care as much for the ‘motivational’ genre as the next guy, and started to place more emphasis on the glitz and glamour of the music, than the lyrics and music themselves. Which is a bit of a shame though- but when you do look around at the music of today, it can be hard pressed to find artists that seem to embrace the motivational pop-rock umbrella as well as bands like Train, Goo Goo Dolls and Coldplay did, way back in the 2000s. Sure, these three bands are still at it today, and are still delivering motivational pop-rock anthems for the masses, but there is where it all stops.

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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 the next 5-10 years – Week 43: Riley Clemmons

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Since undertaking this blog series around 2 and a half years ago, I’ve since had the privilege of exploring artists in such a way that I may have not had done so; if I wasn’t as bold as I was in delving deep into the blog series for this site. I had been musing and thinking about it for quite some time before February 2019, but little did I know that since that introductory post in early February, my appreciation of music, and my ability to enjoy music not necessarily within the realms and confines of CCM, was all going to change. I was challenged by music artists and genres that I didn’t think I could like, let alone enjoy. Artists like Lifehouse, Avril Lavigne, Pentatonix, John Mayer, SEAL, Jackie Evancho, Sara Bareilles, U2, OneRepublic, Rascal Flatts, Lady A, Sugarland, Little Big Town, Martina McBride, The Corrs, and Carly Rae Jepsen, are just some of the many artists I enjoyed during my time blogging about, in my opinion (and it’s just my opinion), some of the most influential music artists in music history and society. I wrote blog after blog for about just over two years, and finally made the switch after blog post #80 to alter my approach a bit. My brother Josh took over from me and is now writing about blogs #81 – #100 and further discussing influential artists in modern music history- artists like Tim McGraw, Leona Lewis, J. Lo., Gwen Stefani and Spice Girls have been written since I actively left the blog series I was undertaking, and artists like Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Robbie Williams, Beyonce and Kylie Minogue are still to come.

I, on the other hand, decided to try my hand and relay my own ‘expertise’ in exploring artists who are much more ‘current’ in a way- artists who may not necessarily be influential now as of this moment (but nevertheless, still popular), but will probably be in the upcoming few years ahead. Artists like Tori Kelly, Maddie & Tae, Lindsay Ell, Echosmith, Thomas Rhett, Chris Stapleton, Dami Im, Mandy Harvey, Hunter Hayes, Little Mix, NF and The New Respects, are just some of the 40 artists Josh wrote about…and then everything changed at the end of April. Mutually agreed by both my brother and me, we swapped- Josh is now continuing the blog series about influential artists of all time, and I am trying to at least get my head around influential artists of both now and into the future. While for me it hasn’t really been as easy-going compared to the blog post series that I was a part of for 2-and-a-bit years; I’ve still relished in the challenge of listening to music that stretches me and encourages me to see beyond my own preconceived ideas of music that is produced currently right now. Since writing about John Legend (blog #80 of ‘Influential Artists of All Time’), I’ve delved into ‘new’ and upcoming artists The Shires (who I reckon is one of the most underrated country duo’s ever) and Lucy Thomas (The Voice Kids U.K. finalist, who is arguably one of the most promising voices out there right now, considering she’s only 17 years old now, and 13 when she was competing on the singing competition). Now, I’ve decided to take the plunge again into the depths of the unknown…this time, it’s CCM artist and hopeful mainstream-crossover artist, Riley Clemmons.

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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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