Your record label asks you...

[Sequent]

Excellent list! Especially re Stephan Micus!

Jarre
Tangerine Dream
Klaus Schulze
Brian Eno
Stephan Micus
Mike Oldfield

The end...

edit:
oh, and Vurt

[pheeleep]

1) Amon Tobin
2) Air
3) Roni Size
4) The Roots
5) LTJ Bukem
6) Digable Planets
7) St Germain
8) Dr. Dre
9) Morcheeba
10) Howard Shore

[vurt]

got it

the wind in my hair
the thoughts in my head
the darkness within me
the cold in my bones
the music in my ears
the sights in my view
the cry of a baby as it wants to be fed
the cry of the mother [edit]its sunday for f**ks sake john[/edit]the feeling that i can do nothing to help
the feeling sometimes that i wish i was...

[Equilibrium]

4) The Roots

Forgot about them! Good list

[Har]

My favorite answer to the old "influences" question was the answer either Ben Sidran (jazz keyboardist, formerly of the original Steve Miller Band) or Roy Bittan (Springsteen's piano player) ....(damn, I can't remember who now! ) gave in a magazine quicky-interview years ago:

"Influences: everything I've every heard that I liked, and also everything I've ever heard that I didn't like."

Pretty true when you think about it: you can be easily influenced by things you really hate too...negative influence: stuff that gives you an idea of what you'd like to avoid.

[mute]

a top ten is and will always be impossible for me to list.. it changes too much. but, i do have certain things that have always been around that i like and probably draw an influence from inadvertly.. ill try to list 10;

john came - rhythmicon
jesus and mary chain /spacemen3/spectrum/silver apples (i consider these 4 as one)
alan wilder/depeche mode
underworld
herbie hancock & the headhunters
front242 - geography
wire/dome (bruce gilbert mostly)
the edge/leftfield of modern electronic music (always changing)
minimalism
ambient music

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Influences.. hmm.. lemme see

1: Kraftwerk
2: Tangerine Dream
3: Klaus Schultz
4: Dead Kennedys
5: Al DiMeola
6: Root Boy Slim
7: Danny Gatton
8: Type O Negative
9: Nine Inch Nails
10: Yngwie Malmsteen

..and I wonder why my music sounds so weird.

[Equilibrium]

"Influences: everything I've every heard that I liked, and also everything I've ever heard that I didn't like."

Pretty true when you think about it: you can be easily influenced by things you really hate too...negative influence: stuff that gives you an idea of what you'd like to avoid.

Yeah very good point. To extend that it's not only music that influences your music. There is the classic thing of drummers imitating the sound of train lines. Miles Davis said also that he loved the rhythm of basket balls. I also read a book by a writer who tried to write in a similar rhythm to the way John Coltrane played. There must be shit load of sources, maybe people who listen to house music stayed in the womb too long

[multree]

I'll never get tired of this game

toad the wet sprocket
vertical horizon
john mayer (maybe not for I can't play the guitar like he does)
counting crows
hootie & the blowfish (the 'cracked rearview' stuff)
lemmonheads
the cure
k's choice (could never right so lyrically beautifull and still kinda naive stuff)
seven mary three
nirvana (I didn't want to write this but they had an impact on me and 'smells like teen spirit' was the first non-beatles song I could pretend to be able to play on guitar)

[visa tapani]

btw

Have you people noticed the tendency of some artists - especially those whose actual range of influence is rather evident from their music - to list as their influences only artists who do completely different kind of music than the artists do themselves?

I mean, when, say, a rather unremarkable psy-trance artist after first making a point about how his music is utterly uncategorizable lists names like John Coltraine, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass and Einsturzende Neubauten as his prime influences...

It's amusing.

Equally amusing is when artists refuse to acknowledge the fact that the prime influence to their music is not nature, poetry or friends but music.

Umm, okay, rant over.

[topaz]

not really,

it doesnt mean that you make what you listen too
if thats what you meant.

one thing is for sure, many make music for there scene or particular lifestyle or club they goto at that time.

kinda like punk rock or teddy boys did.

aka_fasion music.

btw

Have you people noticed the tendency of some artists - especially those whose actual range of influence is rather evident from their music - to list as their influences only artists who do completely different kind of music than the artists do themselves?

I mean, when, say, a rather unremarkable psy-trance artist after first making a point about how his music is utterly uncategorizable lists names like John Coltraine, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass and Einsturzende Neubauten as his prime influences...

It's amusing.

Equally amusing is when artists refuse to acknowledge the fact that the prime influence to their music is not nature, poetry or friends but music.

Umm, okay, rant over.

[Equilibrium]

I mean, when, say, a rather unremarkable psy-trance artist after first making a point about how his music is utterly uncategorizable lists names like John Coltraine, Arvo Pärt, Claude Debussy, Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass and Einsturzende Neubauten as his prime influences...

It's amusing.

Or maybe even trance artists are don't like trance.

[hao nao]

cool thread, Equilibrium ... I like the different ways that people answered it

in no order:

Prokofiev
Stevie Wonder
Al Stewart
Gordon Lightfoot
REM
Neil Young
big band ballads
air-conditioning and other equipment noise
mockingbirds and crows

sorry, couldn't think of a tenth one

[nuffink]

Desert Island Discs.

Everyone lies.

[hao nao]

it does almost seem like a desert-island-albums question, but I for one did not answer it that way

but it really is putting the cart before the horse in my case

by the time I make an album's worth of good music, record labels will be a boutique industry pressing vinyl for audiophiles

mark my words!