The Music Of The Millennium poll places Robbie as the sixth most important musician of the past 1000 years...
Not only is Robbie Williams more important than Mozart, but Michael Jackson is one of the top three most influential musicians of the past 1000 years according to the results of the HMV, Channel 4 and Classic FM poll of Music Of the Millennium.
In a result almost designed to bring on bouts of coronaries in the corridors of the Serious Culture sections of the broadsheets, the poll of 600,000 people in the UK placed Elvis and Madonna at the top of the Best Male and Female Singer categories, with John Lennon claiming the top dog category as Most Influential Musician.
The results read like a list of the big sellers in any high street HMV store: Jazz and Classical entries were largely confined to their own categories while there were practically no country, folk, soul, reggae, house or music that strayed to far from a white middle class middle aged mainstream.
The full list is:
Most influential musician
1. John Lennon 2. Elvis Presley 3. Michael Jackson 4. Jimi Hendrix 5. Sir Paul McCartney 6. Robbie Williams 7. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 8. David Bowie 9. Bob Dylan 10. Johann Sebastian Bach
Best band
1. The Beatles 2. Queen 3. The Rolling Stones 4. U2 5. Oasis 6. Nirvana 7. Radiohead 8. Jackson Five 9. Manic Street Preachers 10. REM
Best album
1. Sgt Pepper – The Beatles 2. Thriller – Michael Jackson 3. Revolver – The Beatles 4. Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite – Elvis Presley 5. Nevermind – Nirvana 6. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses 7. (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? – Oasis 8. Dark Side Of The Moon – Pink Floyd 9. I’ve Been Expecting You – Robbie Williams 10. The Bends – Radiohead
Best songwriter
1. John Lennon 2. Sir Paul McCartney 3. Bob Dylan 4. Michael Jackson 5. Leiber and Stoller 6. Noel Gallagher 7. Sir Elton John 8. Robbie Williams 9. Cole Porter 10. Kurt Cobain
Best song
1. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen 2. Imagine – John Lennon 3. Angels – Robbie Williams 4. American Trilogy – Elvis Presley 5. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana 7. Strawberry Fields Forever – The Beatles 8. Hey Jude – The Beatles 9. Millennium – Robbie Williams 10. Unfinished Sympathy – Massive Attack
Best male singer
1. Elvis Presley 2. Robbie Williams 3. Michael Jackson 4. Frank Sinatra 5. George Michael 6. Freddie Mercury 7. David Bowie 8. John Lennon 9. Thom Yorke 10. Kurt Cobain
Best female singer
1. Madonna 2. Aretha Franklin 3. Celine Dion 4. Ella Fitzgerald 5. Mariah Carey 6. Whitney Houston 7. Alanis Morissette 8. Annie Lennox 9. Kate Bush 10. Bjork
Best jazz musician
1. Louis Armstrong 2. Miles Davis. 3. Ella Fitzgerald 4. Billie Holiday 5. John Coltrane 6. Charlie Parker 7. Duke Ellington 8. Nina Simone 9. BB King 10. Dave Brubeck
Best piece of classical music
1. Four Seasons – Vivaldi 2. Planets Suite – Gustav Holst 3. Ninth Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven 4. 1812 Overture – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 5. Carmina Burana – Carl Orff 6. Moonlight Sonata – Ludwig Van Beethoven 7. Canon – Pachelbel 8. Adagio For Strings – Samuel Barber 9. Die Valkyrie – Richard Wagner 10. Fifth Symphony – Ludwig Van Beethoven.
Best classical composer
1. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 2. Ludwig Van Beethoven 3. Johann Sebastian Bach 4. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 5. Antonio Vivaldi 6. Edward Elgar 7. Gustav Holst 8. Richard Wagner 9. Frederic Chopin 10. George Frederick Handel
Check back soon to vote in NME‘s Best Bands Ever poll and annual Readers Poll.
