Who has had the most negative impact on pop music in the last 30 years?

Question

Which individual, band, record producer, music industry mogul or otherwise has single-handedly had the most negative impact on pop music in the last 30 years?

Answer 1

Brittany Spears. Even before this "breakdown" I think she had a very poor influence on young girls in this country.

Answer 2

I'd say the hand full of companies who now own most of the radio stations in the U.S. They have choked the industry by forcing stations to play the same homogenized lists of music. Any room for new music is slowly being forced out because stations only want to play artists guaranteed to bring in a BIG profit.
That in turn makes record companies wary to sign acts that they don't feel they fit into the mass market.
Thank god for Internet radio =).

Answer 3

MTV's programming format was created by the visionary media executive, Bob Pittman........ who, I do have to say, at the time, I thought he started something good, but now that I have STOPPED watching MTV, I have something else to say.

Originally, it was something that allowed people to see what was out there, but it slowly evolved into something that only allows us to see what they are paid to let us see. MTV doesn't allow us to explore POP music any more! It shoves only some of it down our throats, and it's not necessarilly good! If only there was something that let us explore music without boundries again! Music would surely change! Maybe for a change, we'd end up hearing alot of songs with lyrics we could actually compare to our real lives instead of lyrics about nothing but sex, violence, gangs, and drugs (although there are some exceptions)!

Answer 4

Well, I'd start with Britney Spears and all the likes of her. Using sex to sell music is an old trick, but these "stars" only have sex appeal as their talent. Music is not their talent and never will be.
Britney sucks as a singer and the only thing that sold her records was her body and her "image."

Answer 5

every fly by night , flavor of the month, bs band that has been an overnight sensation. they manage to give a bunch of dreamers the 'hope' to be discovered and deluge the real world with a bunch of horse manure. which of these bands still exists???

spice girls, hanson, boy bands: backseat boys, 98 degrees, new kids on the block, jewel, joan osborne

my mind is at a stand still as i can not think of more crap, but these fluff bands just manage to flood the airwaves with nonsense and my guess for the overnight success is that people are dying for something, but just don't know what they want

Answer 6

Micheal Jackson

Answer 7

Russell Simmons (nickname Rush, of Run DMC) and Rick Rubin founders of Def Jam who are largely responsible for making rap 'music' mainstream by marketing acts such as Run DMC, LL Cool J and Public Enemy.

Answer 8

The kid that invented Napster is the most detrimental to music. With that one person, illegal downloading was brought to cheap teenage and college-aged students everywhere, and dozens of other programs followed suit to keep music free. Since then, cd sales have never been the same.

Answer 9

Vanilla Ice..... I say that because his music should have been considered "pop" and not rap and his presence and stupidity made it very difficult for legit White artists to break beyond his stereotype

And not all rap music is about violence and guns, you should know what your talking about before you make ignorant and closed minded comments like that

Answer 10

Madonna, of course. Her crimes are legion. She has singlehandedly caused a) the proliferation of Disco, b) bad dancing, c) Americal Idol by her insistance being a "star", d) mainstreaming the idea of kidnapping african children, e) ruined mulitple film director's careers, f) used a fake british accent, g) caused non-musician thow-away pop singers to be classified "Rock Stars."

Answer 11

Ryan Seacrest