Over 50 but there is only one BOSS - BRUUUUUUUUCE
A living legend…some of her music will endure…Madonna.
Under 50?
Popstar wise, I’d go with Beyonce and maybe Adele. Beyonce I’m more certain about given how long she’s been at the top of her game.
Rap: Kanye and probably Kendrick Lamar. I know it’s way early in Kendrick’s career to proclaim it, but damn his last album was just about perfect.
In the land of rock, that’s tough since that genre isn’t nearly as big as it used to be. Radiohead is there on the older side, all in the 40s. The bands I like right now are all too obscure, Arctic Monkeys are fantastic and Alex Turner is a brilliant lyricist, but outside the UK they aren’t Coldplay/U2/Foo Fighters big. Arcade Fire has put out 4 brilliant albums, but again not widely known.
I honestly don’t know if there will ever be another U2, who I’d say are the last of the “legendary” rock acts.
Maybe PG - depends if she decides to stay in the “spotlight” so to speak.
Madonna is an interesting thought. My personal opinion is that she has struggled to find a place the last few years with music. She is in her 50’s.
I agree with Arcade Fire being up there. Maybe the Avett Brothers. Switching genres, Gillian Welch and Allison Krauss (sorry about spelling).
I hate Madonna’s new music, but her old music is passed down from generation to generation, and I don’t see that ending.
Rap … no current rapper will ever reach Tupac and Biggie levels, I don’t think. And I’m a huge fan of Kanye and Kendrick. Kendrick doesn’t have the mass appeal that either Tupac or Biggie did.
When I think legend, I think, who will cause millions and millions of fans young and old across the globe to break down and cry at their passing? Which artists will prompt the conversation, where were you when you heard that X had died? I’m just not seeing it for any young artists.
I don’t think the biography test makes sense because there are tons of biographies out there on relatively obscure artists. Would the Violent Femmes make your list of legendary artists from the '80s? Probably not, but my daughter is reading a biography on them right now (for some unknown reason). Patti Smith would make the legendary list for me, and I’ve read her two memoirs, but I’m sure that for many people she would not measure up to that status (even though she’s enormously famous). Carrie Brownstein is someone else who falls into that category. I just bought her book for my daughter, but just because there’s a memoir out about her doesn’t mean Slater Kinney has legendary status.
Instead of the test being under 50-years-old, I think it should be artists currently at the height of their careers (so far). Less ageist that way, but still disqualifies Bono and Bruce Springsteen and Robert Plant.
Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers - but they are both made up of people in their '50’s so there we go again!
How about Beck? I would put him in the legendary category and he post-dates U2. And so does Pearl Jam (although still artists from 20!years ago)
And, more importantly, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam were at the height of their careers 20 years ago.
I went to Seattle once in my life and there was a long line of kids waiting to get tickets for something. I asked the radio station people there who they were waiting for. “Beck”, they said. “Jeff Beck?”, I asked. “Who? Oh, you’re OLD”, they said.
I was 30.
Beck is an older one by now but he is still getting interesting isn’t he?
This is pretty funny. The attitude expressed by a lot of older people is the same as our parents. My parents would laugh listening to the Beatles particularly “Sergent Pepper–”. For them it was hilarious. Now when I listen to the album I can understand why it is was so funny and yet this is ranked by many as the greatest album of the last 60 years.
People have mentioned that Taylor Swift may become a legend. She has won10 grammies, 22 billboard music awards, 19 american music awards, 11 country music awards etc. etc. She already is a legend and quite frankly so is Adele.
One of the interesting aspects of this question is exactly how someone becomes a legend now. In the past, people became legends by having record companies invest enormous sums in promoting them, and then selling millions of records that everyone had in their houses. Record companies no longer have enormous sums to spend on promoting anyone, and no one (except maybe Adele and Taylor Swift) sells millions of records. Some people do have millions of downloads. But the number of people who can accumulate the personal capital necessary for legend status seems to be shrinking. A big part of that is the fragmentation of the music industry. It’s easier than ever to become a self-supporting indie artist with a cult following, but next to impossible to become a star across a wide public. The number of new such stars being generated is paltry. Very, very few artists who came of age artistically in the past 15 years are able to sustain the kind of massive tours that The Rolling Stones, Springsteen, or U2 pull off at will. A good number of current candidates for such stardom are primarily famous for something other than their music, and music is really a brand extension for them (think Nick Jonas, Selena Gomez, Zoe Deschanel).
Legend-hood is helped enormously by (a) dying young under sensational circumstances, especially if you leave a large trove of unreleased material (but not so young that you aren’t already enormously popular), or (b) living a long time and remaining active as an artist. The first category gives us unquestionable legends like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, John Lennon (who would be a legend under any circumstances, along with his former band), Michael Jackson, Jeff Buckley, Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, Elliot Smith (maybe). The second – look at the current status of Tony Bennett, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, George Clinton, James Brown, Mavis Staples, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis. (Yes, I know some of those people are dead, but they lived a long time first, and never really faded from public view.)
Anyway, a few nominations, and comments:
I think anyone who actually scales the mountain these days is going to be legendary by default. Whatever you think of the actual music Beyonce or Justin Timberlake produce, they are going to be legends (along with Adele and Swift, and probably Bieber) if only because there will hardly be anyone else around in their generation eligible for legendhood, and the human psyche needs legends, some of whom are broadly shared. Also, those people are amazing professional performers and brand managers – they are going to be around for a long time, and they are going to be successful, because (like Madonna) they know how to do that.
How many of the wannabes come with them is anyone’s guess.
Bruno Mars is an interesting question. He may be the most talented guy in the world in terms of the songwriting-playing-personality triumvirate, but he doesn’t quite break through to real mass stardom. Twenty years ago, he would have been Prince or Michael Jackson. He could take off (from his already high perch) any minute. But I think he needs more narrative behind his songs, more personality, more weirdness. He will ultimately have some sort of legendary status, but it may be as a consummate pro who never quite got his due as opposed to a superstar.
Jay-Z and Kanye West, for sure. Already happened. But what’s the status of the surviving creative members of the Wu-Tang Clan (the RZA, Ghostface Killa, Raekwon)? Dr. Dre (a legend as a businessman)? How about “the legendary Roots crew”? Who would have thought they would be the only hip-hop artists to sustain an artistic partnership over 20-plus years, and to find a way to be always in the public eye without every having a true hit? My perception may be distorted, but where I live Questlove is a god.
Vampire Weekend. Who doesn’t like Vampire Weekend? When their first album was just an illegal download, my daughter was working in a coffee shop, and said, “You know that scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack puts on The Beta Band and says he’ll sell five copies before the song ends? That’s this record. I put it on, and 10 minutes later everyone’s asking what it is and where can they get it.”
Some people who are my legends (representing the fracturing of music): Jeff Tweedy, Rhett Miller, Rene Perez (of Calle 13), Juana Molina, Carlos Vives, Rachid Taha, Raphael Saadiq, Mala Rodriguez, Cheri Knight, ReBirth Brass Band and Hot 8 Brass Band.
Lin-Manuel Miranda.
To your point of fracturing of music, I haven’t a clue who Questlove or any of the artists in your post after that are. I haven’t heard of any of them at all, with the exception of Vampire Weekend (have heard the name but couldn’t name a song) and Lin-Manuel Miranda. I’ve also heard the Wu-Tang Clan name but doubt I know a single song of theirs.
Hip hop is a very polarizing genre IMO. I’m not a huge country music fan but I can appreciate the musicality of many country music artists - but I can’t say the same for hip hop.
I’ve thought of a good example to test @pizzagirl’s hypothesis that being the subject of music documentaries, biographies, photo books, podcasts etc., signifies “legendary” status.
Look at the LA punk rock band Black Flag from 35-40 years ago. I doubt they meet your definition of a band with “legendary” status. Yet they (along with a few other bands) were the subject of one of the most iconic rock documentaries ever – Decline of Western Civilization. There have been biographies written about them. The xeroxed flyers from their shows from the late 70s and early 80s by artist Raymond Pettibon currently sell for thousands of dollars. Flyers, posters, and album cover art from the band are in MOMA’s permanent collection. There are some recent coffee table books of photographs of their early 80/ shows, and they and their fellow gritty street LA punk bands from the early 80s have been the subject of recent photography exhibitions at respected LA galleries in recent years. And I can promise you that they are the subject of many podcasts.
But legends? Not to me, and from the little I know of your musical tastes, I’d guess you wouldn’t consider them legends either. This stuff is so niche. (There happens to be a lot of interest in the asthetics of early 80s punk rock imagery right now, which is driving a lot of the present-day interest in them).
Another example from 40- to 50- years ago to disprove the hypothesis is Captain Beefheart. He’s a big cult figure, so there are books and podcasts galore. Or Malcolm McLaren, same thing (although I’d argue McLaren really does deserve legendary status for his influence).
Of contemporary musicians, I could very easily see someone like, say, Joanna Newsom being a cult favorite 20 or 30 years from now, with books and films and whatever-has-by-then replaced podcasts. But I doubt many people will have gotten into her music (though I love her).
I guess what I’m trying to say is that books and documentaries and podcasts can signify cult status as much as legendary status, so that is really not that useful of a test. What do you think, @pizzagirl?
@JHS I agree with some of what you said. I don’t think however that you can ignore the music. And stardom is not sufficient to confer legend status. Bieber, for example, is widely popular with a certain demographic, but I don’t see many people listening to his music 20 years from now. Same with Taylor Swift despite her popularity. Lots of very successful artists will never become legends. That status is reserved for very very few.
This is a very interesting conversation.
Beck is a musical genius and brilliant live. But is he well known enough to be a legend?
Pearl Jam I love and again one of the best live acts around, but are they relevant pop culture wise for a long enough time? I don’t know.
One of my favorite current acts is St Vincent. Annie Clark is a force and her live performances are art. She will never be mainstream huge but I believe she will have a cult following for a very long time.
Truth be told, Beck was way more important to me personally than Prince was, and also really saturated the airwaves here in Southern California in late '90s- early 2000s. And he’s continued to record interesting stuff since then. He certainly feels well known enough to me for legendary status, but, that’s through my own lens.
I think there’s a sub-category of legends that almost everyone would agree are legends but you don’t really hear very much. For example, you wouldn’t hear their songs as background music somewhere, and people don’t listen to them all that much. But they are undeniably legends. I’d put the following folks in that category:
Frank Zappa
Tom Waits (although my daughter listens to him all the time)
Grateful Dead
Do people think this is a valid sub-category? Who else falls in it?