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Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
One of the few instances of an artist having total creative control and producing a masterpiece. Dismissed by Berry Gordy, Gaye's boss at Motown, as commercial suicide, the first soul concept album tackled Vietnam, racism and inner-city strife. A huge hit, it paved the way for the radical Seventies soul of Sly Stone, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder. -
Madonna
Madonna was one of the first women to define modern music videos. She became a name that young girls looked up to because of her success. Her influence had a major impact on the musical style of the time. She did not only compose dance hits but the defined modern pop style. She is know as the "Queen of Pop" -
Prince's 'Sign 'O' the Times'
Prince was the most prodigiously gifted singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist to emerge in the Eighties. Momentarily ditching the sexual thrust of his earlier music, he created the most perfect merging of dance floor funk and social commentary since the heyday of politically conscious Seventies soul. -
The Spice Girls
The Spice Girls were a woman British pop group whose infectious dance songs dominated the global charts in the late 1990s. The group targeted young teenage girls as their audience. The Spice Girls were the new face of teenage pop and redefined modern pop music. -
Kanye West- "Slow Jamz"
2004 is the year where it seems like there is less feel good music at the hot 100 and more statements and deeper thoughts. People are somewhat beginning to be over 9/11. Kanye comes out of Chicago with a new idea. "slow jamz" is literally about how contemporary music too high energy, talking about his peers of course. -
Lady Gaga’s “Applause”
The “Applause” performance was not her greatest TV concert, but it was a great one, as well as a self-aware eulogy for her career to date. She seemed to realize that 2013’s Artpop might mark the endpoint for her supernaturally bombastic shtick, but it’s unclear whether she knew that James Parker’s prophecy in The Atlantic—“The Last Pop Star”—would come to pass. Gaga spent the rest of the 2010s shedding her masks to show her real self grappling with anxiety.