WTFDetroit presents "Detroit's Top 25 Recording Artists of All Time" -- NOMINATE NOW

[Uncle Mxy]

Heh... I'm just suggesting acts worthy for being on the ballot, not saying they're Top 25. Honestly, the chain of thought that led me to ICP was:

Jackson 5 -- Michael Jackson -- Fucked-up clown -- ICP

While I wouldn't vote them Top 25, I'll admit that some ICP songs like "Everybody Rize" amuse the heck out of me.

[Glenn]

They (ICP) actually have been pretty influential, for shitty bands that is. No worries, I doubt they crack the top 25 unless some ballot stuffing goes on.

Here's another:

[Uncle Mxy]

Rockwell's arguably the penultimate Motown act.

The Romantics, anyone?

[Glenn]

Good call on The Romantics.

I've been laying low hoping that more people would chime in, but I can't take it anymore because this is fun to me.

Here's a few West Michigan entrants:

Rev. Al Green
Del Shannon
Debarge (all of them)

[Uncle Mxy]

West Michigan seems like it's pushing it. I'm not sure if we can even count Windsor or Toledo as the Detroit area. Jewel and Norah Jones were at Interlochen -- do we count that?

How long do you have to have been in town to count in the Detroit music scene? Miles Davis and Meat Loaf (on Motown Records, no less) were on the scene for six months.

We're still missing entire genres, here... there's a lot of jazz greats from the '50s like Barry Harris and Ron Carter (one of the Miles Davis quintet), Detroit techno greats like Plastikman, etc.

Aaliyah and Was (Not Was) probably belong on the nomination list.

[MOLA1]

Mitch Ryder

The Rationals

Tommy James

Del Shannon

[Glenn]

M1,

I got Del Shannon two posts ago, but those are good additions.

Mxy,

re: West Michigan entries (more specifically, non-Detroit)

Stevie Wonder was born in Saginaw, Madonna in Bay City, Iggy Pop in Muskegon, you mentioned Aretha was not a Detroiter.

Those are some of the reasons why we decided to allow any Michigan born/based on the list (see first post in this thread).

It does make for some gray areas and some debate, which we have no problem doing here. Would you be willing to help us define this further? It seems like we've found something else that you are an expert in.

[UxKa]

no tekno love here...

Jeff Mills

Wikipediea - Jeff Mills

Jeff Mills is credited with laying the foundations for legendary Detroit Techno collective, Underground Resistance, alongside 'Mad' Mike Banks, a former Parliament bass player.... Three decks, a Roland 909 drum-machine and seventy records in one hour: at breakneck speed Mills manipulates beats and basslines, vinyl and frequencies.

i gotta have about 50 jeff mills records, they are some of the hardest to DJ with that i own, and he flies through them flawlessly. he is Richie Hawtins idol, who i would have included but hes technically from windsor although he spent a lot of time in detroit before being banned from the country.

aside from the old school new school debate and whatnot, some consideration should be taken for musical style as well. just because hes not 'famous' by media standards, does not mean that he isnt a legend for millions that put detroit on the map for the whole world. id also like to add that i have three turntables, drum machines, fx processors, the whole deal. its hard as shit to mesh all that together and not have records slippin off-beat like crazy, and im not bad at mixing at all.

[TK]

I saw they got nominated, but I'll second The Verve Pipe.

An extremely underrated band that had the potential to hit it big, but for some reason didn't.

Also, Brian VanderArk (lead singer) released a solo album, so I guess he needs consideration as well.

[Fool]

Didn't The Verve Pipe break-up after the were successfully sued for ripping off their big single? Also, they'er name was too close to The Verve who had a bigger (though terribly worse) single out just a bit earlier than them.