The 10 Most Creative People in the Music Biz

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
1. DeAndre "Soulja Boy Tell'em" Way, rapper/producer

The 18-year-old Web wunderkind took a crazy song and dance, and propelled it via YouTube and MySpace fame into an Interscope recording contract and platinum record sales. And to prove he was no one-hit wonder, he returned with a chart topping sophomore set. Now he's branched out into a live-action animation series and an endorsement deal with Yums footwear and fashions. Next up: a video game for Xbox 360, and acting.

2. Tim Westergren, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder, Pandora

An award-winning composer, an accomplished musician, and a record producer, Westergren founded the Music Genome Music Project, a technology that uses over 400 attributes to describe songs and a complex mathematical algorithm to organize them and launched it with Pandora in January 2000. Nine years later, it's the world's favorite Internet and mobile radio station, with the best built-in system for music discovery ever.

3. Alexandra Patsavas, Owner, Chop Shop Music Supervision

She has a gift for matching the right song to the right scene in some of TV's most popular shows. The day after Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" played on Grey's Anatomy, it became the most downloaded song on iTunes, and the show's soundtrack was later nominated for a Grammy. After that, Atlantic Records gave Patsavas her own label.

4. Gregg Gillis, Mashup artist

The ex-biomedical engineer, also known as Girl Talk, layers unlicensed song samples and "performs" them live, with his laptop center stage. Last year, he released his fourth album, Feed the Animals, online, using Radiohead's pay-what-you-want model.

5. Pharrell Williams, Musician

As half of the production duo known as the Neptunes, he has helped everyone from Britney Spears to the Hives land on the charts. He also fronts the funk-rock band N.E.R.D., produces a clothing line called Billionaire Boys Club, hawks a line of shoes under the Ice Cream Footwear brand, and designed sunglasses and jewelry for Louis Vuitton. Most recently, Limelight, an updated version of Fame that he created with film director McG, was picked up by ABC.

6. A.R. Rahman, Composer

He's the Oscar-winning composer behind Slumdog Millionaire's "Jai Ho," which has been downloaded more than 100,000 times on iTunes and was re-recorded as a hit collaboration with the Pussycat Dolls. Rahman also created the musical Bombay Dreams and has been testing new forms of music distribution; through a tie-up with Nokia, he recently released an album just for the company's music-phone users in India.

7. Jimmy Iovine, Chairman, Interscope Geffen A&M Records

In music, all roads lead to--and from--Jimmy Iovine. The resurrection of the New Kids on the Block. The exclusive Best Buy deal for Guns N' Roses. MySpace's music venture. Dr. Dre's high-tech headphones. Iovine had a hand in all these projects--and he's still thinking big, bold, and increasingly multimedia.

8. Bart Decrem, Chief executive officer, Tapulous

Three days after its release last July, Tap Tap Revenge--an iPhone game that's basically Dance Dance Revolution except that you tap your fingers to a song rather than dance to it--shot to No. 1 among free game downloads on iTunes. It was testimony to the appeal of playing along to bands such as Coldplay. Within a week, artists were reaching out to the game's developer, because the game links to purchase songs on iTunes. Decrem has partnered with labels (EMI) as well as individual acts to create band-branded apps.

9. Dave Stewart, Musician and record producer

The Eurythmics cofounder and a singer's songwriter--he's written hits for Tom Petty, Celine Dion, and No Doubt--also started the consulting company DeepStew with Deepak Chopra, acts as U.S. creative director for the Law Firm ad group, serves as president of entertainment for fashion designer Christian Audigier's brand-management unit, and is an official Change Agent for Nokia.

10. Brian Eno, Musician

On his recent collaboration with David Byrne, Byrne wrote lyrics in New York to the instrumental tracks Eno sent from London. Then they prereleased the album, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today," online. Now he's curating a lights-and-music festival in Australia that includes his own light show projected on the Sydney Opera House.

----

Taken from Fast Company article here
---

I am a little surprised at Souljah Boy as no. 1 but I think he still deserves all the credit. Thing is, was it creativity (carefully thought out master plan), or was he just creatively lucky? lol
 

booya_nang

A breath of fre$h air!
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 76
wow @ soulja boy being number 1 lol but yea, others than that it's a good list
 

MagnaOpera

Comes Equipped...
ill o.g.
^ they're commercial dreck, not creative artists..
ummmmmmmmmmmmmm brian eno is 10000000000000000000000 times more creative than anyone on that list. that article fails big time.
 
I cant beleive Soulja Boi gets number 1, and no mention of Timbo.
Timbo single-handedly changed the sound of hiphop for a few years. To the point he went pop and got the money and props he deserved.
Timbo created the dirty south.
Soulja single-handedly showed the world what a pile of shit hiphop was becoming since everyone had taken timbo's and later Lil Jon' s templates and killed them.
 

spartan265

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 1
no one could ever agree to this post, coz how could you really measure creativity? if it was 10 most SUCCESSFUL people in the music biz, you could compare their net profits and assets etc to see who was top, but creativity cant be measured. meaning that this all comes down to taste.. i know my list would look mad different.. timbo would be somewhere near the top fa'real.
 

afriquedeluxe

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 221
no one could ever agree to this post, coz how could you really measure creativity? if it was 10 most SUCCESSFUL people in the music biz, you could compare their net profits and assets etc to see who was top, but creativity cant be measured. meaning that this all comes down to taste.. i know my list would look mad different.. timbo would be somewhere near the top fa'real.

true true, Timbo should definitely have been on the list. I think this list was influenced by taste, the most recent of people, and commercial success.
 

MagnaOpera

Comes Equipped...
ill o.g.
^ no. Brian Eno has been innovating for over 40 years now, and has very little mainstream recognition (btw, have you ever heard the windows start up jingle? guess who created that...)
timbo is commercial? kanye is commercial? timbo has some of the HARDEST beats you have ever heard. ye as well. and they are both songwriters. you crazy?
yes timbo is commercial, no timbo does not have some of the hardest beats I have ever heard. kanye is a flip flopping idiot who has gotten progressively worse and more commercial over the years and timbo basically created shitty club rap not dirty south... sorry... that's a really ignorant thing to even say IMO.


Soulja boy was lucky, he's no idiot savant.

and I maintain that Eno has done more for music in general than ye or timbo could ever even dream of doing in a thousand lifetimes.

also the fact that Rick Rubin isn't on that list is maddening.
 

Ash Holmz

The Bed-Stuy Fly Guy
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 207
10 most creative people in music BUSINESS. To me thats a pretty accurate list. Timbo's the man, but he hasnt done anythng particularly savvy on the business tip. Artistically yeah, but the article was more business oriented than artistically centered.
 

Sucio

Old and dirty...
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 304
Soulja boy may be "lucky" he got discovered..but it was his constant bombardment on the net of his tracks that gave him the opportunity to be "lucky"... And I'm sure he didn't spend a dime promoting his shit...

I'd say he's a valid #1 because of his method..

That's my opinion...talk shit if you may...it won't change it. =)

Notice how he's probably the only one that was broke at first...

Everyone else already seemed established in the game in one way or the other.
 

slik da relic

RS Jedi
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 1
uuuummmmmm, I failed to see my name on this list.......Im insulted.

(I know I just set myself up lol)

ok... let's see now:

1. DeAndre "Soulja Boy Tell'em" Way, rapper/producer

there's no letter "i"... no wonder you didnt make the cut.

da real
 

MagnaOpera

Comes Equipped...
ill o.g.
Soulja boy may be "lucky" he got discovered..but it was his constant bombardment on the net of his tracks that gave him the opportunity to be "lucky"... And I'm sure he didn't spend a dime promoting his shit...

I'd say he's a valid #1 because of his method..

That's my opinion...talk shit if you may...it won't change it. =)

Notice how he's probably the only one that was broke at first...

Everyone else already seemed established in the game in one way or the other.
The scratch orchestra was open to every layman that walked into Morley college. (read about Brian Eno if you're really interested in what I'm saying.. lol)

10 most creative people in music BUSINESS. To me thats a pretty accurate list. Timbo's the man, but he hasnt done anythng particularly savvy on the business tip. Artistically yeah, but the article was more business oriented than artistically centered.
Did you miss the "the" inbetween Music and biz? Context my man, context.
 

static

static yessir
ill o.g.
I'm pretty sure they mean most creative that ventured out from just rapping singing or producing and belive it or not soulja boy as wack as he may be did just that, dunno if I'd throw him in the top 5 tho that's questionable.............
 
Top