Saturday, January 05, 2008

Help Me Identify the Musicians in Craig Robinson's Wired Illustration

I saw this illustration in this month's Wired and starting trying to figure out who everyone was. Help me fill in the gaps. The illustration is by Craig Robinson, and it's from the article "On iTunes, a Careless Click May Buy You an Imposter." (<-- What's the difference between "impostor" and "imposter" anyway? Spell check doesn't like it, but it's listed as one of the spellings in the dictionary...) Help me identify these musicians.
Row 1: Dunno, dunno, Willie Nelson, the Go-Gos, Buddy Holly?, not sure, James Brown
Row 2: Devo, dunno, AC/DC, Hall & Oates, Blondie?, no idea (someone grunge, I presume)
Row 3: Kiss, Fleetwood Mac, Dee Lite, not sure, Amy Winehouse?, New York Dolls?
Row 4: Dunno, Steely Dan?, The Ramones, Billy Idol?, Ronettes?, Aerosmith?
Row 5: 50 Cent, Guns N Roses, no idea, wait no this is Aerosmith I get it, not sure, Cheap Trick
Row 6: White Stripes, Beach Boys, Michael Jackson? (nahhh), ZZ Top, Elvis, some group that rolls realllll deep
Row 7: Bee Gees, The Donnas, no clue, Tina Turner?, Kraftwerk, Milli Vanilli, Mariah Carey

Help with the ones I don't know, or correct me if there's one that is wrong.

Sorry the resolution's not that hot. That image is stolen from the Wired website. I would scan in the one from the magazine, but that one's not so hot either, the pixels are all kinda blurred out. Mr. Craig Robinson, if you find this while ego-surfing, please send a better version! Thanks.

UPDATE:
I wrote the artist and he kindly wrote back. Here are the answers, based on my initial predictions.

the answers

Looks like we were on the right track for the most part, except for Pearl Jam (that hat guy is Jeff Ament, duh!) and Culture Club. Good work, team.

11 comments:

Katie Elaine said...

Some thoughts:
row 2: person 2 = Erykah Badu
row 3: person 4 = Alicia Keyes?
row 4: group 2 = Pet Shop Boys
row 4: group 4 = The Supremes
row 7: group 3 = The Village People?

Daren said...

My guesses:
2nd row, 2nd group: Grace Jones?
3rd row, 4th group: The Specials
4th row, first two groups look like some techno or new wave thing.
5th row, 3rd group: Jamiroquai?
6th row, 6th group: Wu-Tang Clan?
7th row: no idea.

Kino said...

i'm not sure about these, they're more like guesses:

Row 1: Dunno, dunno, Willie Nelson, the Go-Gos, Elvis Costello?, ABBA(credit goes to best show, although i could be wrong), James Brown
Row 2: Devo, dunno, AC/DC, Hall & Oates, Blondie?, no idea (someone grunge, I presume)
Row 3: Kiss, Fleetwood Mac, Dee Lite, not sure, Amy Winehouse?, New York Dolls?
Row 4: Dunno, Steely Dan?, The Ramones, Billy Idol?, Ronettes?, Aerosmith?
Row 5: 50 Cent, Guns N Roses, matisyahu?, wait no this is Aerosmith I get it, not sure, Cheap Trick
Row 6: White Stripes, Beach Boys, Michael Jackson? (nahhh), ZZ Top, Elvis, prob wu-tang
Row 7: Bee Gees, The Donnas, no clue, Tina Turner?, Kraftwerk, Milli Vanilli, Mariah Carey

this is tough

Kino said...

just read the first sentence of the article on wired. they mention abba, its gotta be abba in there.

M. H. D. said...

Yes, we are really cracking this thing. Also, I think that the band on the far right of the second row is the Pixies, with big man Frank Black there in flannel and Kim Deal on the far right.

pieofthemonth said...

nooo, row 7: group 3 must be culture club, right?

row 1, group 2 looks like the clash

and i think kino is right about abba in the white jumpsuits

could row 5 : group5 be T.Rex? if there were more, I'd say poison...?

also, think milli vanilli is wrong becuase clothes are all wrong... holes in the jeans? and didn't they dress in matching (but opposite colored) outfits?

pieofthemonth said...

ok more thoughts:
My friend in Toronto and I gave it another look tonight and we suggest:

row 1, group 1: run dmc?
row 4, group 1: U2?
row 2, person 2: we like Erykah Badu, but maybe also Carmen Miranda?

and... isn't amy winehouse a white british girl? why do you guess her for very dark woman next to the NY Dolls?
not that I have a guess, but think it can't be winehouse...

pieofthemonth said...

sorry, one more.
I bet its Dylan rather than Matisyahu (no beard, for one)

also what about indigo girls rather than milli vanilli?

M. H. D. said...

I think the person next to The New York Dolls is a white girl. They're like one pixel each, but I think that the hands are a Caucasian yellow, and then that stuff underneath the hair (same color) is a face and the person is just short. Amy Winehouse has ridiculous beehive hair like that, so that was my guess. But maybe I'm looking at it wrong. Maybe those are bare legs and not pants. Paging Craig Robinson!

Anonymous said...

So wait... row 5, band 5 = Aerosmith? I mean, ok, Joe Perry and Steven Tyler, but aren't there other members of the band? Wikipedia lists save for a couple of years that Perry and Brad Whitford quit the band, the band has had 5 members.

M. H. D. said...

No, the two dudes in row five are T. Rex, not Aerosmith. Aerosmith is to the left of the two dudes. So, Aerosmith is row 5 4th one over, T. Rex is row 5 5th one over. You can see those weird rags hanging off of Mr. Tyler's mic stand.