the strokes at 17? well, if i didn't ignore it as soon as i saw "NME" i will now
i've nothing against the strokes, but it's typical NME bullshit i hate that rag with a passion
the strokes have had a bigger impact over the past 5 decades than bob marley? the velvet underground? the specials? primal scream? dylan? etc. etc.
Well, you have to consider how the list was compiled. Ben Knowles says they're the artists who have been "the biggest impact on our pages, our writers and our readers over the last five decades". Now, who knows how you become an impact on "our pages". Did they actually count the number column inches dedicated to each artist? I doubt it. The "our writers" bit sounds like a mutual masturbation session to me, where various names were read out to a room of these "opinion makers" and the decibel level of the groaning recorded to determine rank. And any "top list" that requires input from "our readers" is obviously worthless. (Well, how they can claim the list is definitive is certainly a joke!) This is how "The Strokes" got into the list too, I would guess. (And The Smiths too, frankly.) IMHO, if you wanted to compile a list of the artists who have had the biggest impact in the last 5 years you'd have to interview everybody who had had a top 10 hit in at least the last 20 years and find out who *their* influences were. Michael