Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Fri 31 July 2026 15:30, UK
Legacy is a funny thing, and while Billy Bob Thornton probably doesn’t care how he’ll be remembered in 100 years, if he is at all, he doesn’t think many modern musical acts will be, either.
No actor, filmmaker, musician, or band sets out with the goal of ensuring they’ll be spoken about for decades, if not centuries to come. Unless their name is Quentin Tarantino, of course, with the writer and director having become obsessed with the idea of being etched into history as one of the greats.
To put things into perspective of just how difficult that is to achieve, whether you’re trying to or not, who was the most popular singer in the world in 1926? Who was the biggest movie star in Hollywood in 1926? What was the highest-grossing cinema release of 1926? Who sold the most records in 1926?
If you know the answer to all of those questions, then fair fucks, but there can’t be many who do, relatively speaking. It’s no secret that Thornton has always been adamant that music peaked around 1973, and he states a compelling case as to why. When he mused on longevity, too, he had a point.
“Here’s an experiment for you,” he said, recalling an argument he once had. “Take a sheet of paper, and, starting with about 1980, write down all the songwriters, singers, and bands who, 100 years from now, will be in the books as being incredible legendary performers or songwriters.”
When you put some thought into it, it’s fascinating. Consider the usual suspects who always come up when the conversation turns to the most iconic, indelible, and unforgettable musical acts of all time, and the common thread that unites them is that, like Thornton said, all of them arrived on the scene before 1980.
The Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Prince, David Bowie, and virtually everyone else you can think of that fits the bill had all recorded and released before 1980.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
As far as Thornton is concerned, only two successors have emerged since. “I’ll give you REM and U2, because I’m trying to give you something,” he recalled. “I’ll just say, if you take a sheet of paper, and, starting at about 1975 and going back to the turn of the century, write down names; you don’t have enough paper in your house to write them all down.”
Will REM and U2 still be remembered in 100 years? If you don’t like them, hopefully not. Apart from that, though, you could maybe add Nirvana, Madonna, Radiohead, and a handful of others, but his point still stands: compared to what came before, the post-1980 era has thrown up significantly less truly timeless musical acts than the decades before.
