[Rider]

Originally Posted by johncg

I honestly disagree. I think the prolificacy, innovation, and consistency of high-quality music created by SP between 1991-1996 easily rivals any of the most significant bodies of work created in 20th century western popular music.

I’m not talking about mainstream staying power and influence. The artists you mentioned all trump SP on that level. I’m talking about the amount of work that was produced that is likely to be remembered as both singular and definitive of a time-period or movement as a whole.

I’m looking back at the different eras of jazz, blues, and western classical music for an indication of what works are remembered. Those who study music seriously tend to focus on those pieces and style movements which are most rich and prolific in innovation. It has nothing to do with how cool the artist was at the time or who had the best career. It just comes down the music.

I’m looking at it like this:

The Beatles are widely accepted by music scholars (and just about everyone) as the pinnacle of western popular music in this era. They released just over 200 songs in 8 years.

SP from ‘91-‘96 released about 100 songs most of which were fairly brilliant. That puts them almost on pace with the Fab Four in terms of quantity of music divided by years. When you subtract the 30 or so covers recorded by the Beatles, the two are almost dead even.

Led Zeppelin by contrast released about 90 songs in 11 years. Nirvana only released like three albums total. Hendrix released about 3-4 albums. The only other musical movement I can think of that comes close to rivaling SP or the Beatles is Motown. And there we have several songwriters and a lot of filler songs so it’s not a fair comparison perhaps.

I totally hate on Billy by the way. I think he has very problematic personality traits and that his post-‘96 work is mostly unremarkable. I also think...again from the perspective of a music historian or musicologist...that he takes way too much credit for the output of SP at its peak. Butch Vig, Flood, Alan Moulder, and the original SP lineup (which was never functionally intact again after 1996) all deserve a lot of credit for creating the work as well. Look no further for evidence of this than the fact that just about nothing Billy has done post-‘96 compares to his work during the 91-96 time period.

But hate on the man all you want, the work speaks for itself. It’s mind blowing how many different styles SP seamlessly blended together into a unique voice and how many great songs they released in so little time. Most great artists in popular music have one innovative sound and maybe a handful of great songs. SP had several stylistic innovations and DOZENS of great songs.

Fight me.

LOL this might be the most absurd post made on this board ever.