Serious Question Friday

Who had more cultural impact Guns & Roses (minus Chinese Democracy) or Snoop Dogg (Dr Dre not included)

Here is my take on this question, I did not have a answer when I thought about this question, but I will give one at the end, and for the record I am not a huge fan of either Artist but I have enjoyed their work, especially Snoop.

Guns & Roses

On the Plus column they make metal musically and culturally relevant with Appetite for Destruction, A top ten greatest Metal album of all time, and in comparison make all other popular LA based metal bands look dated, they craft great large operatic pop songs that transcend genres, have a dynamic top 50 all time front man. 

On the minus column only make 3 relevant albums and one ep. They are eventually steam rolled by grunge and break up. The upside to this is that they never stayed around to make average albums and tour just for the money (I do not include in this conversation any iteration of GNR with out the basic four of Axl, Slash, Izzy and Duff) Even if you were to take other iterations of GNR they were so bad that they really did not make any impact on their legacy

Snoop Dogg

Snoop debuts on The Chronic, kills it on two tracks, defines the laid back rap-drawl of G-Funk, G-Funk reinvents the West Coast hip hop scene (obviously this is really Dre’s doing). Snoops first solo album Doggystyle is in any conversation about the top 10 hip hop albums of all time. He is the face of Hip Hop for at least 5 years starting in the early 1990’s. He keeps hip hop real (if that is what you want to call it) with his Murder Charge, yet stays away from most East Coast West Coast beefs.

He is the pioneer of Hip Hop Artist as Brand Clothing Label, acting reality show etc etc. Yet his musical output is diluted due to sub par albums signs with Master P’s No Limit post Death Row (what? Ughhhhhhh) With only occasional musical success usually on the backs of talented hip hop producers like the Neptunes. As an artist in the industry for over 15 year his inventiveness seems to distinctly lacking often just relying on his cache of cool and phoning in his guest spots. He now is more of a brand then an artist and a brand that is so over used and anodyne that he offers no creditability to anything except as a shorthand for Hip Hop as a meme and not as a Art form see Old School the movie as an example, Naomi Klein and Jeff Koons can any emails to suckit@gmail.com

What do you think?

So who is more important culturally of the two….IMHO?

Guns and Roses

hip hop and the legacy of Snoop would have been better served had he changed places with 2pac, this is not to say I think he should have died