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[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Bingo, tm (and hi!) - that is exactly my take. The Bowie new releases I heard in my early to mid teens were from his avant garde Berlin/kicking heroin phase ("we know Major Tom's a junkie") and the suit-wearing crooner of "Let's Dance." Some really good songs, but not quite as important as the Ziggy/Aladdin stuff from a decade earlier.

In contrast, when the Punk Rock Girl played "Controversy" for me for the first time, and we cruised around Podunkville in her dad's RX-7 with "Sexuality" blaring from the tape deck, I felt like that British dude in the 1920s who caught the first glimpse of King Tut's tomb.

And GGG, Prince may sound like pop to you, but that's only because "Controversy," "1999," and "Purple Rain" had a radical impact on 1980s pop music. I can assure you that while there were some very good pop songs in 1979, they were very different from most pop in say 1988. (Yes, let's not forget Michael Jackson, but still.)

So now the standard for "influence" is "it gave Not Bob a hard-on."

I think this is a perfectly valid standard -- as good as any other -- but would be more impressed by any music that had that effect in recent years.