Anyone remember the golden days, when syrfox would have already started the "Old, untalented, and pulling things backwards" parody thread by now?

If I wasn't off my face right now I'd have the most awesome punk-as-fuck response to that. I just wrote it but ended up deleting it because it's either the greatest thing ever written about The Stooges or a load of drug induced shit. And i'm playing it cautious.

Your post is brilliant though

I like how not a single person in this thread has actually attempted to answer the original question. I guess music's more boring than any of us realized. At least no one's said "Mike Patton!" or something completely fucking ridiculous! Hah..

The most forward-thinking, intelligent, inventive music I've heard in the past 10 years has come from Japan. But, I dunno, it may be too late for Zazen Boys to save rock music... but they tried. A bunch of people tried. But Mukai isn't young, so I dunno if that counts.

I guess Rich Woodson's Ellipsis would be my only vote. Though I'm sure he's retired by now... Anyone who seriously attempts to push music forward usually gives up. They'll eventually revert to simplicity, because that's what sells, that's what people know.. there is a big risk in being too out there, unfortunately. You gotta have some hook to get people into your stuff.

I'd say the most important, forward thinking album of all time was probably White Noise's AN ELECTRIC STORM from 1969.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2yyjmznwdga

Since pitchfork's review was the first to come up, lemme paste it!

White Noise's landmark 1969 album An Electric Storm might not the first thing most people think of when considering 1960s music, but there are few records anywhere tied more intrinsically to the moment of their creation. Recorded in the months immediately prior to the widespread availability of keyboard-based synthesizers, An Electric Storm might be one of the most painstakingly crafted electronic recordings of all time. Pieced together on improvised equipment via innumerable tape edits, this remarkable album is at once futuristic and unavoidably date-stamped, serving as a fascinating audio snapshot of a bygone era in sound generation and recording technology.
One of the few acts in pop music history able to trace their origins to the lecture hall, White Noise were first conceived when American electronic engineer David Vorhaus-- following a lecture by BBC Radiophonic Workshop veteran Delia Derbyshire-- enlisted Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson to integrate their experimental electronics with more pop-oriented material. (Derbyshire, of course, was by this point already responsible for the classic theme song from "Dr. Who"and other music for BBC TV and radio programs.) Commissioned by Island Records' Chris Blackwell, the three musical scientists soon holed themselves up for months in their Camden Town studio, fastidiously assembling what Vorhaus later surmised to be the most heavily tape-spliced album in history.
Yet knowledge of White Noise's academic or technical background does little to prepare the listener for the widescale psychedelic mayhem of An Electric Storm. Despite its brief 35-minute running length, the album covers an enormous amount of stylistic ground, as White Noise overlay their fractured pop songcraft with musique concrète effects, weird bits of radio theater, and long stretches of gothic horror. While other groups of the period--such as Silver Apples or The United States of America--made use of similarly primitive electronic equipment, An Electric Storm was a separate beast entirely, and its singular textures have been a primary influence on such subsequent acts as Stereolab, Broadcast and Belbury Poly.
Not originally issued in the U.S. until 1973, the album has seldom stayed in print for long, and surely owes at least a portion of its peculiar mystique to its rarity. With their latest reissue, Universal has kept the original tracklist intact, without unearthing any additional alternate or bonus material. The album has been splendidly re-mastered, however, and An Electric Storm remains a virtually requisite headphone experience with an otherworldly appeal that transcends its considerable influence.
Like so many ambitious albums of the time, An Electric Storm is consciously split into two distinct sides, the first half dubbed "Phase In" and the second "Phase Out". On the first side, White Noise indulge their daffy pop appetites with such bizarre trinkets as the cartoonish "Here Come the Fleas" and "Love Without Sound", the sensuous track which first encouraged Blackwell to pony up the cash for the full album. With the aid of rotating vocalists Annie Bird, Val Shaw, and John Whitman, the songs on the album's first half are melodic and memorable, and often infused with a cheeky sense of humor. The group's quirky wit is perhaps best witnessed on "My Game of Loving"; the album's notorious "orgy" track that follows an ecstatic bit of sexual frenzy with the sound of contented snoring.
Things get considerably scarier during the lengthy "Phase Out" segment, which begins with the group's 11-minute ambient centerpiece "The Visitations". This death-defying piece, which reportedly took over 3 months in the studio to assemble, ostensibly tells the tale of a motorcycle accident and its supernatural aftermath. Packed dense with disembodied noises and eerie panning effects, this intense track can become addictively engrossing, a perfect slice of audio theater that one can't help but ride through to the very end.
Vorhaus, Derbyshire and Hodgson took so long in recording An Electric Storm that Island started to get antsy, and well before completion the label began to demand the finished product. Presented with the challenge of such a time crunch, many groups might panic and fall back upon more conventional material. But true to their iconoclastic nature, White Noise instead improvised the still-astonishing "The Black Mass- An Electric Storm in Hell", a spirited cacophony layered thick with percussion, funereal chanting, and the tormented screams of the damned. Like the rest of An Electric Storm, this dark finale sounds quite unlike anything recorded before or since, and stubbornly refuses to ever settle in as background music.
And this unrehearsed episode of grotesquerie provides An Electric Storm with a strangely appropriate ending, as it stands as one final monument to White Noise's unique inspiration and eccentric approach to technical problem-solving. Theoretically, with the benefit of all the ensuing advances in recording technology, it should be easier than ever for today's musicians to duplicate such a production. Perhaps this deceptive sense of ease is precisely why no one has ever really been able to do so.

I was thinking of another brilliant forward-thinking band that has been around since 1989 -- BABYLAND! And I just read they broke up. Oh well. YOU SUCK CRAP is a masterpiece! Seriously..

You should have posted it anyways. Fuck what the neighbors think, fuck what you think....if ya wrote it, ya shoulda posted it.

Really wish i could have read it

:(

Yr a smart dude.

Snobbery doesn't pay.

Only actual arguments you can give in the way of debating what I wrote was some ill-half-assed shit regarding Sanders + Coltrane.

Try harder.

Haha, sway, I think Derek is the LEAST snobby person on this board. By far. I don't think a less pretentious dude exists! Derek is always posting about great new music, too, as he is one of the few who seeks it out. I think that should be appreciated, since most people talk about the same handful of bands. But I've never seen him try to shove his opinion, or taste, down anyone's throat. Totally awesome dude... not snobby in the least.

And your post on the Earth 2 thread was crazy! I mean, I loved it, but come on.

cheers for posting that ASP, that Electric Storm is awesome, opening song sounds sweet and the last song is mad, for the time as well that's amazing. Have you ever heard George Harrison's some what bizarre second solo album, "Electronic Sound" released in the same year as An Elecric Storm.
It's basically Harrison messing around with one of the early moog's and making two lengthy outer spacey noise tracks with it.

I wouldn't say this album was really pushing things forward however.

I was just simply giving my opinion on what you wrote! Obviously people will have different perspectives on what pushing things forward actually is, and in my viewpoint I couldn't see anyone you listed pushing things forward apart from Coltrane (props for mentioning him by the way, he's one of my favourite musicians. A total unique visionary). Perhaps I could have been less harsh about it, fair enough.

Anyway, I don't think of The Stooges as pushing things forward. They had a similar sound to others of that ilk but it was their own personality that brought about their influence to the next generation. I'm not into The Stooges at all though so excuse me if I sound ignorant.

Swans? Yeah I could see how their early stuff could be seen as pushing things forward but again I think it was their personality that made them unique rather than bring forth a whole new musical beast. I should also mention that their later gothic era was simply an extension of what had been laid down previously. If you wanna argue further then no problem.

Anyway, I think PUSHING THINGS FORWARD is something like Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica because it is so otherworldly and really is a whole new musical experience. Certainly not a consistent or perfect album but I can see the magic it has. This doesn't really fit in with the thread though as Beefheart isn't young (and sway, neither were the bands you posted).

WHOA!

Thanks dude, never even HEARD OF this! I love stuff like this!!

"White Noise" never got me off, not my thing.

I'd love to do meth to it.

i really like harry partch, and as of lately i have been listening to him more. but i really doubt that he pushed music foward more than anyone who ever lived.
just saying. the question is also, what does it mean to push music forward?
people who really pushed things forward were folks like the people who invented polyphonic music, like leonin and perotin. or the 14th century ars subtilior music that had ridiculous rhythm changes every other bar or so.

The Rolling Stones

To be honest, deep down, I don't care one bit about how innovative a band is for as long as it moves me enough to warrant repeated listenings. Of course there are moments with some bands when, as well as enjoying what's coming out of the speakers/amplifiers, I am left thinking '' I don't think I have heard this combination of notes/sounds matched this way''. I am more curious as to what current musicians are thought of doing something that might give you a sense of things shifting the gear onwards, since this is something that comes up on this forum more than any other I've visited.

I've always thought that The Go! Team had a unique sound, with the cheerleader chants, and all. They're pretty young, and talented...right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0eso4ARXzk

Annie Clark (St. Vincent).

EDIT: as it was requested to elaborate, for the successful blend of "contradictory" characteristics in her music (very good pop melodies and atmospheres, noisy and twisted guitar playing, and somewhat dark lyrics).

plus sexy stockings

Hm. Maybe "pushed forward more than anyone who ever lived" is a bit much, but inspiring Beefheart, Zappa, and the Residents -- 3 of the artists who definitely, without a doubt, pushed music forward -- is one thing. Another is all those instruments he designed. Another thing is, to this day, I can't name a single artist who sounds anything like him (despite his obvious influence, especially in Mr. Van Vliet).

Perhaps, he pushed things so far that no one's ever caught up yet.

I guess it's like this -- do I really think he was the most unique, forward-thinking, and talented musician to ever live? Definitely. On the other hand, has he influenced modern music at all? Probably not. The Beatles can be called the biggest "pusher-forwarders", but only because they were more heard, more liked, and more influential. But what is influence? What is any of those factors? I mean, that doesn't mean they were better.

Blah, I dunno.