Originally Posted by jetengine

Well, we couldn't have had The Stooges without The Doors, The Velvet Underground and The MC5 now, could we? Similar things could be said of David Bowie and Roxy Music, throwing in The Beatles, The Who and American R & B (Motown, Stax) as additional influences in their cases.

Frankly, I don't think The Velvets, The Stooges, The Doors, MC5, Led Zeppelin or even The Beatles can match Roxy Music when it comes to influence, mainly because--unlike the others--Roxy influenced considerable portions of both underground/noncommercial rock and mainstream pop. There was a while there in the late '70s and '80s when virtually everything one heard on commercial rock radio sounded like Roxy Music (Duran Duran, Heaven 17, Images In Vogue, Platinum Blonde, ABC, INXS, early U2, Psychedelic Furs, Blue Peter, etc.), and certainly everyone looked like them on Much Music and MTV. In fact, I would rank Roxy Music to be the No. 2 most influential rock band of all time, second only to Black Sabbath. Rounding out the Top 5 or 10 would be mostly other early British Invasion acts. I'm not sure that any North American (or international) acts would make the list; possibly The Stooges and/or The Ramones (I would include Hendrix as part of the British-based Jimi Hendrix Experience). As far as North America goes, we've given the rock world the most influential solo artists: Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Neil Young, Elvis Presley, James Brown, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Chuck Berry--and Lou Reed!!!

Actually, when all is said and done, one can trace just about all the major movements and sub-genres in rock music back to a handful of groups and artists in the mid '60s: Dylan (folk rock), James Brown (funk), The Yardbirds (heavy metal), The Who (punk/metal), The Nice and Zappa's Mothers of Invention (progressive), The Doors and The Velvet Underground (new wave/art rock), and The Pink Floyd and The Red Crayola (no wave). Most of the other styles that came along after this were cross-polinations or extensions of the mid '60s inventions.