From arue:

what musician(s) do you think has/have had the most influence on music as a whole in the past 5 years? of course under the assumption that britney spears, boybands, and other such artists are just mindless droning pop, and weren't really music to begin with, therefore not counting as musicians. :P

Ok, this is a hard question, and I might be a little bias cause i happen to like his music, but I'm going to say Eminem. Because, I don't remember rap being so mainstream before he came out. I mean, yea, you have bands like Run DMC and all, but I don't think they've reached quite the audiance Em has. I may be wrong, of course, rap may have been 'big' before Eminem came out, and I just don't remember it. But it seems that since Eminem has come out, every person and their dog is suddenly a rapper, and is suddenly getting more airtime on the radios and MTV.

Ok, my opinion could be changed. But as of now, at 11:31pm on Friday Dec. 6, 2002, my opinion is that Eminem has had the most influence as a whole on the music industry in the past 5 years.

What do you think?