By: David Schultz

Even though there are close to four months left in the decade, lists cataloging and memorializing the best of the aughts are already starting to pop up with increased frequency. Back in the 60s, people followed to every move made by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. In the 70s, it was The Rolling Stones, the 80s, Michael Jackson and the 90s belonged to U2. Doubt the impact an artist can have on a generation? Look at all the hoopla surrounding today’s release of Rock Band: The Beatles. Each and every move they made drew attention and received untold amounts of scrutiny as people searched for meaning and discoursed over its importance. Bono notwithstanding, we’re likely past the point where a musician will have the sociological impact if a John Lennon and Elvis Presley. That doesn’t mean there aren’t artists pushing music forward. Taking a peek ahead to the next decade (the tens? the teens?), here are the five musicians whose every move should be followed as they should be worth noting.

Beck: From a musical standpoint, Beck always stays at the forefront of the waves generated by any of his genre-melding pastiches. Recently though, Beck has started to explore the ability of a Web site as an outlet for creativity. In addition to streaming DJ sets, Beck’s Record Club features himself and assorted friends re-recording classic albums like Velvet Underground & Nico, Oar and Songs of Leonard Cohen and Irrelevant Topics sees Beck playing talk show host with the likes of musicians and movie directors. A superstar for the wireless decade, Beck could redefine the conception of what the public can expect and demand from an artist.

Jack White: The White Stripes can hardly contain the creative output that erupts out of Jack White. Whether it’s with The White Stripes and his erstwhile wife/sister/ housekeeper Meg, The Raconteurs with power-pop maven Brendan Benson, The Dead Weather with Allison Mosshart and Dean Fertita or simply creating a song on the fly just to show he can do it, the quality of White’s prolific output defies logic. Playing rock and roll’s future to The Edge’s present and Jimmy Page’s past in It Might Get Loud, White stands poised to be one, if not THE, most important guitarists of the next decade.

Greg Gillis: The next great battle over fair use will likely center around Girl Talk’s raucously festive mash-ups of classic rock, 80s cheese, gangsta rap and anything else that catches his fancy. So fun that it may not be legal, Gillis’ name-that-snippet style is what evolved from DJ Danger Mouse’s legally estopped Grey Album. It makes no difference on the dance floor but Girl Talk abuts the current limits of fair use, derivative works and the entirety of copyright law to the extent that makes the establishment slightly uncomfortable. Unless Gillis decides to find a new profession, he could be genre-changing and legal precedent setting player in the 10s.

Thom Yorke/Radiohead: Freed from the constraints of any semblance of a traditional recording contract, Yorke and Radiohead are singlehandedly destroying and redefining all of the music industry’s conventions about distribution and sales. The pay-what-you-will pricing scheme they utilized for In Rainbows will likely be the tip of the iceberg. One of the few bands with the renown, clout and incentive to explore the freedom of non-dependency on a record label, they may pave the road through the uncharted forest for many others to follow.

Craig Finn/The Hold Steady: In the last decade, Finn and The Hold Steady have brought literacy and humor back to rock and roll. Stringing witticisms and trenchant observations together while Tad Kubler, Franz Nicolay and the rest reclaim the grandiose sense of arena rock from glam metal head bangers and emo rockers, Finn’s songs play out over time like chapters of a novel. There was a period of time when Robert Randolph could have been the savior of rock and roll but now that title seems within the grasp of The Hold Steady. For a band that details the folly of youth, it is appropriate that they are the dark horse contender for the band of the two thousand teens.

Labels: Beck, Girl Talk, Jack White, Radiohead, The Hold Steady