what are in your opinion the most influential songs you've heard. This being infuential to music or our media world in general
and by that i don't wish for you to just name your top ten favorite songs.

think about it and include songs which you may not like but you have to admit are part of pop or media culture


mine would be

most music from sound of music
most nirvana (very important inflence)
R.H Chilli Peppers same reason to a lesser extent


thats all i can think of for now

you lot happy NOW after all i'm soooooo hard to understand and my spelling is soooooo bad i don't know how you all cope. Aftyer all i do
EDIT-No need for that DLCP, Sarcasm doesn't become you.

I'm going to assume that you mean songs that are a source of personal inspiration, so I'll go with:

We're In This Together - Nine Inch Nails
There Goes The Fear - Doves
The Cedar Room - Doves
Like A Stone - Audioslave
Plug In Baby - Muse

And the latest one: Stinkfist - Tool

They either inspired me to get into music (as in playing) in the first place, or are the strongest influences over the music I actually write. They do happen to be (for the most part) some of my most favourite songs, but that's coincidental.


EDIT: Gah! How could I forget Wake Up by RATM? It's only the song that made me begin to pay any attention to music of any kind for the first time in years.

Hmm... assuming you mean the most influential songs to me (not to be rude or anything (see signature,) the spelling and lack of punctuation make it very hard to understand,) then here's my list.

-"Kiss from a Rose" - Seal
-Beethoven's 9th ("Ode to Joy")
-"But Anyway" - Blues Traveler
-"Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zepplin
-"As Long as I'm Singin'" - Brian Setzer Orchestra
-"I Wanna Be Like You" - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
-"She Has a Girlfriend Now" - Reel Big Fish
-"Return to Innocence" - Enigma
-"Forever" - Dropkick Murpheys
-"Imagine" - The Beatles
-"Let it Be" - The Beatles
-"Albuquerque" - "Weird Al" Yankovick
-"What is Hip?" - Tower of Power
-"Baker Street" - Gerry Rafferty
-"Blue on Black" - Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
-"Bat Out of Hell" - Meatloaf
-"Tank!" - Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts
-"Only the Good Die Young" - Billy Joel
-"Love in an Elevator" - Aerosmith
-"Crossroads" - Bone Thugs 'N Harmony
-"Is that Love?" - Squeeze

---

Each one of those songs sparked a new interest in a genre of music for me. Each has also influenced my writing and composition, so there you go.

hmmm, there've been many songs I've identified with my life as it passed through various stages, but the one that had the most impact on me was actually on a commercial when I heard it.

Forgive me, artists and titles are things I don't know too much about, but I can give you a line and maybe some kind soul can let me know what it's called and who it's by?

"What the world needs now, is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of."

It actually made me cry the first time I heard it.

Many, and varied...

Including:

Kiss from a rose
Anthony's song
New york state of mind

Isn't that a Burt Bacharach (sp?) song?

No idea, but I want to take this time to just point out that my message was NOT INTENDED TO BE OFFENSIVE. I put it twice in my message and then in my signature, so please don't be so touchy... I swear it was meant amiably.

May I be the first to say... huh?

I think Mike's just a little paranoid about offending anyone

Perhaps I should take offence at his post - just to see how paranoid he *could* get?

I think that would make a very interesting day indeed

I do so like my Matazone account. I'd rather not lose it...

I really really really don't mean to incite flame wars. (See the blasted signature!)

Relax, only a bit of teasing. I doubt anyone would do anything as bad as that. Tickle you to extreme measures, yes. Have your Matazone membership revoked, no.

Detroit Rock City. -KISS. Started a revolution of annoying people with nothing to do on weekends who call their hobby "Urbex."

Don't poke the Mike, he's had enough

I like writing to Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath. I turn it on when I want to write something and have absolutely no inspiration.

do you people actually read my posts before replying cos if you did you would know i do not want to know what influences you.
this is why i intentionally said not to list those songs.
I asked what you think influences music or scociety.

I think Faith No More's 'Epic' (and FNM as a whole) had a big impact on today's nu-metal scene. Which is a shame, because 'Epic' is a ridiculous, wonderful and silly song, and a lot of nu-metal tends to lack the tongue-in-cheek fabulousness of it.

But then, I would say that, because Mike Patton is a God.



Y'see, that in itself is a difficult question to answer - I think that's why a lot of people are putting personal influences. But for society, I think some of the following (which may or may not have been mentioned):

Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns n' Roses (the first proper rock ballad that lacked the hair-metal saccharin at the time?)
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana (constantly hailed as "the end of hair metal")
Walk This Way - Aerosmith/Run DMC (the first popular fusion of rock and rap)
Basketcase - Green Day (brought punk back into the modern mainstream, constantly being imitated, even now, ten years later)
The Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson (brought the idea of 'goth' - both musically and visually - into the mainstream)
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead (not their first hit, but the first of a post-Pablo Honey era - giving alternative indie a more mature voice than that of peers such as Oasis and Blur - a more intellectual, angsty side, again, imitated to this day)
Girls and Boys - Blur (welcome to Britpop)
Head Like A Hole - Nine Inch Nails (a more popular introduction to synthpop/industrial/whatever)
Hit Me Baby - Britney Spears (welcome to underage masturbation material for boys and men alike. I'm not saying it's good - but it was certainly an influence, and many other young girls wanting to be pop stars suddenly came out of the woodwork)

I've not got time to think of any more.

Personally I would be surprised if a song didn't influence society in some way.

You know DLCP, we didn't understand because of your typing skills. I'm not trying to be abrasive here (see the blasted sig), but as Mata so often says, the ability to communicate succinctly is very important.

Anyway, here are some that I think need mentioning.

Beethoven's 9th ("Ode to Joy")
Handel's "Messiah"
Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair"
Armstrong's "Wonderful World"
Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue"
Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon"
The Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"
Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel"
Zeplin's "Stairway to Heaven"
Black Sabath's "Crazy Train"
Guns 'N Roses' "Welcom to the Jungle"

And the list goes on.

As Mike is practically tagging every post with "don't be offended!", can I post "I'm offended!" in response every time? Because it's starting to become incredibly amusing.

/spam

Yes well when you're account is jeopardized, you'll feel the same constant paranoia.

The mods...

Are everywhere.

what typeing skills are bothering you.
if you see such a problem have the decentcy to f**king tell me what i'm doing rather than this bull crap fuzzy beating around the bush.

That's a bit rude, don't you think? I've tried to be civil, I really have. But if you want to know the problems, here is an report on what makes me confused by your typing:

Complete lack of capitalization
Lack of punctuation
Misspelled words
Words with letters spliced or put onto other words by mistake
Doubled letters

And the list goes on. However, see the damned sig. I don't mean to start a damn flame war.

I'm offended.

The mods are stalking you. It's not because of your supposed offensiveness - don't let yourself get tricked into believing otherwise. It's because they're trying to get your DNA and clone millions of other Mikes. I got Fuzzy drunk one night and he told me all about it.



You're going to get a pimp slap soon... (joke, for the record)

To be honest, it was a question open to interpretation. I think that got cleared up (unless we're still doing something wrong. Again...?), and people are now trying to answer the question 'correctly'.

As for Mike... Well. He's obviously going to be turned into a fish soon. But I think we can't tell you what you're doing wrong because we're not 100% sure what you're getting at.

I could be wrong, of course. And probably am.

I think it's hard to say what songs influenced an entire society of people, when the people within that society are so different. People have different tastes, and therefore will react differently to songs. Therefore, we can only really say what influenced us personally.

But, to be fair to your question, the Beatles probably had the biggest impact on society, at least during their time.

I'd buy one. and by "one", I mean twelve.

As far as influential songs go, I'd probably say you'd have to go way back. The Beatles were hugely influential (to the point of annoyingness--anyone heard the new Jet single? It suonds like a bad imitation), as was the whole big band era and jazz in the twenties. Jazz groups are still enormously popular today, just among a slightly different generation than most of us here.

Currently, in the MTV scene *shudders* I think the whole "classic rock" group has been influencing a lot of popular bands. My Chemical Romance seems to have been influenced a lot by the Cure, only more sardonic. Nirvana's music is really influential, especially "Smells like Teen Spirit". 80's type music does seem to be leaking back (The Killers, especially. Mucho syntho) as does the whole 70's garage-rock style (The Strokes, the Vines, etc).

I'd like to see a band that listens to original sort of punk--the Germs, X, the Sex Pistols and use that in their music, but I have yet to find one. *sigh*

I'm gonna garuntee the whole deal with Beethoven's 9th and The Messiah. They're pretty widely regarded as some of the best stuff ever written. The problem is is that society is so diverse and music is so permeating (John Williams made a huge impact on the movie part of society, Final Fantasy on video games). Added to that, there are so many types of music in different cultural societies - African tribal, American Jazz, European Classical/Barouque/Romantic, the list goes on. So style really dictates more than any one song.

i'm not sure if anyone has seen the brodway play WICKED but many songs in that play influinced me to do things and feel better about myself
especially the line.
"some things i cannot change but until i try i never know"

I'm not sure about Nirvana's other songs, but I'd certainly agree with DCLP in that 'Smells like teen spirit' changed the music scene.

I think tracks like The Shaman's 'Ebenezer Goode' brought a whole new electonic dance scene to the masses.

I can't remember the title of the purely electronic track on Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon' but I believe that was the first time a piece of digital music gained mainstream success.

Elvis's 'Love Me Tender' was the start of him changing the way that the world viewed teenagers. To put it another way, without the influence he had on western culture I wouldn't be running this website.

I've never see the play, but I have read the book on which it was based, and loved it... actually gives a human Dimension to the Wicked witch of the west...

The Rolling Stones really took rock and Roll in a new direction...

Rhapsody in Blue is arguably the most influential - it made jazz respectable by serious musicians, and allowed music theorists to study it without stigma.